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Elizabeth Diggs | |
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| Born | 6 August 1939 Tulsa, Oklahoma |
| Occupation | Playwright |
| Alma mater | Brown University |
| Notable works |
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Elizabeth Diggs is an American playwright. [1] She is a member of Ensemble Studio Theatre. [2]
Born in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1939 to attorney James B. Diggs and Virginia Francis Diggs, [3] Diggs attended Brown University, where she first became involved with theatre. In 1960 she co-wrote Happily Never After, the annual Brownbrokers musical, with future partner Emily Arnold McCully. [4] She graduated in 1961. [5] After Brown, she earned a PhD from Columbia University and entered a period of political activism in the anti-war and feminism movements, [6] including the distinction of heading one of the first Women's Studies programs at Jersey City College, where she co-developed curriculum and oversaw the launch and expansion of the program. [7] She is a professor of dramatic writing at the Goldberg Department of Dramatic Writing at Tisch. [8]
Diggs' first major success was the play Close Ties, which premiered at Lexington Conservatory Theatre in August 1980. [9] The play starred notable stage actress Margaret Barker, Sofia Landon Geier and John Griesemer. It was directed by Barbara Rosoff. "A remarkable production of a lovely and loving play," said critic Jeffery Borak. The Knickerbocker News described it as "...beautiful, touching, gentle and heartwarming." [10] [11] A year later it was produced at Long Wharf Theatre, directed by Arvin Brown and once again starring Barker; [12] the actress had been friends with Diggs for several years, and the author crafted the role with Barker in mind. [13] In 1983, it was made into a television film. [14]
Her next play, Goodbye Freddy, was workshopped at Lexington Conservatory Theatre, [15] followed by its world premiere production at South Coast Repertory in 1983. Diggs won the CBS Dramatists Guild Prize for the play that May. [16] The play was produced at Portland Stage Company in December 1984, starring fellow Lexington Conservatory alumni Court Miller and Kit Flanagan, and directed by another alumni, Barbara Rosoff. [17] The production of Goodbye Freddy was later remounted in New York on September 20, 1985, starring Barbara Eda-Young and Michael Murphy in place of Court Miller, along with Walter Bobbie, Carole Monferdini, Nicholas Cortland and Kit Flanagan. [18] "As she demonstrated in Close Ties and the one-act Dumping Grounds, the playwright has a keen ear for dialogue and a watchful eye for those offhanded moments when characters accidentally reveal themselves," said New York Times critic Mel Gussow. [19]
American Beef, her third play, explores the dying myths of the American west, and was inspired by childhood visits to the Chapman-Barnard Ranch in Osage County, Oklahoma. [20] It was commissioned in 1985 for South Coast Repertory. Productions include 1987 world premiere at Gloucester Stage Company in Massachusetts followed by International City Theater in Long Beach, California. [21]
In October 1988, she premiered Saint Florence at Capital Repertory Theatre in Albany, NY, after a staged reading of it there in May. [22] [23] "Both an instructive lesson from history and a compelling act of the imagination," said the review of the premiere in the New York Times. [24] Based on the life of Florence Nightingale, the production starred Claire Beckman. In 1990, it was produced at the Vineyard Theatre in New York. Re-titled Nightingale it was directed by John Rubinstein with Kathryn Pogson in the starring role. [25]
In 1996, she collaborated with composer Harvey Schmidt and lyricist Tom Jones, writing the book for the musical Mirette based on Emily Arnold McCully's Caldecott award-winning children's book Mirette on the High Wire . It opened in August 1996 at the Norma Terris Theatre [26] and later moved to the Goodspeed Opera House. [27]
Diggs also contributed to the first season of television series St. Elsewhere . Although writing for television was lucrative, she found the experience less fulfilling than theatre. [28]
Her daughter, with director Will Mackenzie, is documentary filmmaker Jenny Mackenzie. [29] She lives in Chatham with her partner, author Emily Arnold McCully. [30]
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