Cusi Cram | |
---|---|
Born | Manhattan, New York, U.S. | September 22, 1967
Occupation | Playwright, screenwriter, actress, model, director, educator |
Education | Brown University (BA) Juilliard School (GrDip) |
Years active | 1980–present |
Spouse | Peter Hirsch |
Parents | Lady Jeanne Campbell (mother) |
Relatives | Kate Mailer (half-sister) Ian Campbell, 11th Duke of Argyll (maternal grandfather) Janet Gladys Aitken (maternal grandmother) Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook (great-grandfather) |
Cusi Cram (born September 22, 1967) is an American playwright, screenwriter, actress, model, director, educator, and advocate for women in the arts. [1]
Cusi Cram was born in Manhattan, New York, [2] on September 22, 1967, [3] to Lady Jeanne Campbell, daughter of Ian Campbell, 11th Duke of Argyll and Janet Gladys Aitken, and granddaughter of Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook; Lady Jeanne was married at the time to John Cram III, a descendant of railroad developer Jay Gould. [2] Her biological father, however, was Bolivian [4] and worked at the United Nations. [4] [5] She identifies as Latina and has written extensively about her Latin roots in her plays. [6] [7] [8] [9]
Cram's first foray into the world of theater came at age six when she played the role of Moth in a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival. [10] Campbell had previously been married to Norman Mailer, with whom she remained friends after their divorce. [2] Mailer's later wife Norris Church, a former actress and model, suggested that Cram try out modelling. [2] At age 13, she did, becoming the youngest model ever to sign with Wilhelmina Models, Church's former agency. [2] At the time, Cram attended the Chapin School in Manhattan. [2] Of her modeling days she has said, "And at the time—and I think times have changed a lot—[the look] was very blonde and blue eyed, so I was considered very, very ethnic looking ..." [5]
While working with Wilhelmina, Cram modeled for a variety of publications including Interview , Seventeen , Brides , and Young Miss . [2] While still 13, she joined the cast of the soap opera One Life to Live on ABC. [2] She originated the role of Cassie Callison, [11] a job that required her to leave the Chapin School for the Professional Children's School which allowed her time to both study and participate in filming. [2] She eventually transitioned from acting to playwriting during her twenties, graduated from Brown University in 1990, and landed a job writing for the animated PBS show Arthur . [4] [12]
Cram worked in regional theaters in Massachusetts, California, and Colorado, and had some of her work produced Off-Off-Broadway. [13] Her work on Arthur inspired her 2009 play Dusty and the Big Bad World. [14] The Arthur spinoff Postcards from Buster was subject to a controversy that eventually involved United States Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings after an episode depicted a Vermont family with two lesbian mothers. [14] Dusty, which premiered at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, was a comic retelling of the controversy. [14] Cram's Off-Broadway debut also came in 2009 when her play A Lifetime Burning, based on the experiences of author Margaret Seltzer and the discovery of her partially fictitious memoir Love and Consequences, was produced at 59E59 Theaters by Primary Stages. [13]
Aside from Arthur, Cram has also written for the Cbeebies children's television series The Octonauts , [15] and contributed two episodes to the Showtime comedy-drama The Big C . [16] As of January 2014, she teaches playwriting as part of the joint Fordham University – Primary Stages Master of Fine Arts program. [17]
Title | Date premiered | Theater | Notes | Ref. |
---|---|---|---|---|
Landlocked | November 11, 1999 | Miranda Theatre | [18] | |
The End of It All | June 15, 2000 | South Coast Repertory | Part of the Pacific Playwrights Festival | [19] |
Normal | March 1, 2003 | Actors Theatre of Louisville | One-act play, anthologized in Trepidation Nation | [20] |
Corduroy | January 11, 2004 | Theatreworks USA | Musical, with book by Cram and music by Scott Davenport Richards Based on the children's book of the same name by Don Freeman | [21] |
Predator | June 29, 2004 | Echo Theater Company | One-act play | [22] |
Fuente | July 9, 2005 | Barrington Stage | Recipient of the 2004 Herrick Theater Foundation New Play Prize Previewed beginning June 30 | [23] [24] |
All the Bad Things | February 15, 2006 | The Public Theater | Produced by LAByrinth Theater Company | [25] |
Lucy and the Conquest | July 12, 2006 | Williamstown Theatre Festival | [26] | |
Dusty and the Big Bad World | January 29, 2009 | Denver Center Theater | [14] | |
A Lifetime Burning | August 11, 2009 | 59E59 Theaters | Produced by Primary Stages | [27] |
Fuente Ovejuna: A Disloyal Adaptation | November 11, 2011 | Lewis Center for the Arts | Based on Lope de Vega's Fuenteovejuna | [28] |
Radiance | November 16, 2012 | Bank Street Theater | One-act play Produced by LAByrinth Theater Company | [29] |
Additionally, Cram's one-act West of Stupid was anthologized in The Best American Short Plays 2000-2001. [30] She has also performed two one-woman shows, Bolivia and Euripidames, at New Georges in New York City. [30]
Cram lives with her husband, Peter Hirsch, also a writer on Arthur, in Greenwich Village, New York. [14] [30]
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