John Gromada

Last updated
John Gromada at rehearsal, 2004 Gromada.JPG
John Gromada at rehearsal, 2004

John Gromada (born February 22, 1964) is a prolific, award-winning composer and sound designer. He is best known for his many scores for theatrical productions in New York on and off-Broadway and in regional theatres. Broadway plays he has scored include the 2014 production of The Elephant Man , starring Bradley Cooper, The Trip to Bountiful with Cicely Tyson, Gore Vidal's The Best Man , Seminar by Theresa Rebeck, Next Fall , Chazz Palminteri's A Bronx Tale , David Auburn's The Columnist and Proof , Lisa Kron's Well, Rabbit Hole , and A Few Good Men; revivals of Prelude to a Kiss , Summer and Smoke , Twelve Angry Men, Torch Song , [1] and A Streetcar Named Desire . His score for the nine-hour production of Horton Foote's The Orphans' Home Cycle was featured at the Hartford Stage Company and Signature Theatre in New York. Gromada also designed the sound for the Broadway production of Bruce Norris' Tony award-winning play, Clybourne Park.

Gromada first emerged on the theatre scene in the late 1980s creating powerful soundscores blending original music and abstract sound design. His industrial music score for Sophie Treadwell's Machinal at the New York Shakespeare Festival earned him a Village Voice Obie Award in 1991. In 1996 he won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Sound Design for his musique concrète soundscore for Caryl Churchill's The Skriker , directed by Mark Wing-Davey for NYSF. In 2009 His work on Donald Margulies' Shipwrecked! An Entertainment — The Amazing Adventures of Louis de Rougemont (As Told by Himself) earned him a Lucille Lortel Award, and In 2012 he won another Drama Desk Award for his work on The Best Man. In 2013 Gromada was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Sound Design of a Play for his work on The Trip to Bountiful. [2]

In recent years he has also become known also for his lyrical, acoustic chamber scores, particularly for his work on the plays of Tennessee Williams. Williams plays he has scored include The Glass Menagerie , A Streetcar Named Desire, Sweet Bird of Youth , The Night of the Iguana , Camino Real , Cat on a Hot Tin Roof , Summer and Smoke, A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur, The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore and Red Devil Battery Sign.

In 2009 Gromada began to write the score for a new music theatre piece based on Michael Pollan's best-selling book, The Botany of Desire , which had a first workshop in Berkeley in April 2009. [3]

In the summer of 2011, his score for the Public Theater's production of Measure for Measure was heard at the Delacorte Theatre in Central Park. The production was directed by David Esbjornson. Music from this and other productions has been released on iTunes and other digital music services.

Gromada composed the theme music for the new ITV television series, The Interrogators, on the Biography Channel, and also composed an original score for the Lifetime network's 2014 film adaptation of The Trip to Bountiful, directed by Michael Wilson and starring Cicely Tyson and Vanessa Williams. [4] Gromada lives in New York with his wife Barbara and two daughters, Aniela and Sylvie.

Related Research Articles

<i>A Streetcar Named Desire</i> 1947 play by Tennessee Williams

A Streetcar Named Desire is a play written by Tennessee Williams and first performed on Broadway on December 3, 1947. The play dramatizes the experiences of Blanche DuBois, a former Southern belle who, after encountering a series of personal losses, leaves her once-prosperous situation to move into a shabby apartment in New Orleans rented by her younger sister Stella and brother-in-law Stanley.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cicely Tyson</span> American actress (1924–2021)

Cecily Louise "Cicely" Tyson was an American actress known for her portrayal of strong African-American women. Tyson received various awards including three Emmy Awards, a Screen Actors Guild Award, a Tony Award, an Honorary Academy Award, and a Peabody Award.

<i>Machinal</i> Play

Machinal is a 1928 play by American playwright and journalist Sophie Treadwell, inspired by the real-life case of convicted and executed murderer Ruth Snyder. Its Broadway premiere, directed by Arthur Hopkins, is considered one of the highpoints of Expressionist theatre in history of the American stage.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lucille Lortel</span> American actress

Lucille Lortel was an American actress, artistic director, and theatrical producer. In the course of her career Lortel produced or co-produced nearly 500 plays, five of which were nominated for Tony Awards: As Is by William M. Hoffman, Angels Fall by Lanford Wilson, Blood Knot by Athol Fugard, Mbongeni Ngema's Sarafina!, and A Walk in the Woods by Lee Blessing. She also produced Marc Blitzstein's adaptation of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill's Threepenny Opera, a production which ran for seven years and according to The New York Times "caused such a sensation that it...put Off-Broadway on the map."

Michael Wilson is an American stage and screen director working extensively on Broadway, Off-Broadway, and at the nation's leading resident theaters.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marshall W. Mason</span> American theater director

Marshall W. Mason is an American theater director, educator, and writer. Mason founded the Circle Repertory Company in New York City and was artistic director of the company for 18 years (1969–1987). He received an Obie Award for Sustained Achievement in 1983. In 2016, he received the Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theater.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lucinda Ballard</span> American costume designer (1906–1993)

Lucinda Ballard was an American costume designer who worked primarily in Broadway theatre.

Laila Robins is an American stage, film and television actress. She has appeared in films including Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987), An Innocent Man (1989), Live Nude Girls (1995), True Crime (1999), She's Lost Control (2014), Eye in the Sky (2015), and A Call to Spy (2019). Her television credits include regular roles on Gabriel's Fire, Homeland, and Murder in the First, playing Pamela Milton in the final season of The Walking Dead (2022), and Colonel Grace Mallory in The Boys (2019–2024) and Gen V (2023).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">56th Tony Awards</span> 2002 awards ceremony

The 56th Annual Tony Awards ceremony was held at Radio City Music Hall on June 2, 2002 and broadcast by CBS. "The First Ten" awards ceremony was telecast on PBS television. The event was co-hosted by Bernadette Peters and Gregory Hines.

Christopher Akerlind is an American lighting designer for theatre, opera, and dance. He won the Tony Award for Best Lighting Design for Indecent. He also won the Tony Award for Best Lighting Design and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Lighting Design for Light in the Piazza and an Obie Award for sustained excellence for his work Off-Broadway.

The River Niger is a play by Joseph A. Walker, first performed by New York City's Negro Ensemble Company off-Broadway in 1972. The production made its Broadway debut with a transfer to the Brooks Atkinson Theatre on 27 March 1973 for a run of 162 performances. Titled after the West African river, The River Niger sits squarely with the African centered aspirations of the Black Arts Movement.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Signature Theatre Company</span> American theatre in New York

Signature Theatre Company is an American theatre based in Manhattan, New York. It was founded in 1991 by James Houghton and is now led by Artistic Director Paige Evans. Signature is known for their season-long focus on one artist's work. It has been located in the Pershing Square Signature Center since 2012.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Cromer</span> American actor and director

David Cromer is an American theatre director, and stage, film, and TV actor. He has received recognition for his work on Broadway, Off-Broadway, and in his native Chicago. Cromer has won or been nominated for numerous awards, including winning the Lucille Lortel Award and Obie Award for his direction of Our Town. He was nominated for the Drama Desk Award and the Outer Critics Circle Award for his direction of The Adding Machine. In 2018, Cromer won the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical for The Band's Visit.

Paul Tazewell is an American costume designer for the theatre, dance, and opera and television. After training at New York University Tisch School of the Arts he started his career on Broadway. He went on to win a Tony Award and a Emmy Award as well as a nomination for an Academy Award.

The Orphans' Home Cycle is a 3-play drama written by Horton Foote. Each of the three plays in the trilogy comprises three one-act plays. They are The Story of a Childhood, The Story of a Marriage, and The Story of a Family.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Condola Rashad</span> American actress (born 1986)

Condola Phylea Rashad, also known professionally as Dola Rashad, is an American actress best known for her work in the theatre. She first broke out with a critically acclaimed performance in Lynn Nottage's off-Broadway play Ruined (2009), which won a Pulitzer Prize.

The Trip to Bountiful is a play by American playwright Horton Foote. The play premiered March 1, 1953, on NBC-TV, before being produced on the Broadway stage from November 3, 1953, to December 5, 1953.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Steven Levenson</span> American playwright and television writer

Steven Levenson is an American playwright and television writer. He won the 2017 Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical for Dear Evan Hansen.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cicely Tyson on screen and stage</span>

Cicely Tyson was an African American actress noted for her groundbreaking work in film, television and theatre.

References

  1. ↑ "Torch Song Broadway". torchsongbroadway.com. Retrieved 2019-05-31.
  2. ↑ Rizzo, Frank (2013-05-30). "After 36 Broadway Shows, John Gromada Gets Tony Nom For Soundl". Hartford Courant.
  3. ↑ Abney, Andrea (2009-04-23). ""The Botany of Desire" A Plant Passion Musical". San Francisco Chronicle.
  4. ↑ Hetrick, Adam (2014-01-06). "Lifetime's "The Trip to Bountiful," With Cicely Tyson, Vanessa Williams and Blair Underwood, Sets February Premiere". Playbill Online. Archived from the original on 2014-03-13.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.