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 and brother-in-law.

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

Cicely Louise Tyson was an American actress. In a career which spanned more than seven decades in film, television and theatre, she became 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 on the American stage.

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">Lucinda Ballard</span>

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

Vincent Julian Donehue was an American director noted mainly for his theater work, with occasional film and television credits.

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.

Derek McLane is an American set designer for theatre, opera, and television. He graduated with a BA from Harvard College and an MFA from the Yale School of Drama.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alex Timbers</span> American dramatist

Alex Timbers is an American writer and director and the recipient of Tony, Golden Globe, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, and London Evening Standard Awards, as well as two OBIE and Lucile Lortel Awards. He also received the 2019 Drama League Founder's Award for Excellence in Directing and the 2016 Jerome Robbins Award for Directing. He was nominated for a 2020 Grammy Award. For his work on Moulin Rouge! The Musical, Timbers won a 2021 Tony Award for Best Director of a Musical.

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">Amy Morton</span> American actress

Amy Morton is an American actress and director, best known for her work in theatre. Morton was nominated two times for a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for her performances in August: Osage County and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. On screen, she is known for her performances in films Rookie of the Year (1993), Up in the Air (2009), The Dilemma (2011) and Bluebird (2013). In 2014, Morton began starring as Sergeant Trudy Platt in the NBC drama series Chicago P.D.

<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. He received the 2016 Tony Award for Best Costume Design for Hamilton. In 2016, he and his design team were awarded an Emmy for their work on The Wiz Live!. He is recipient of six total Tony Award nominations for Costume Design, four Helen Hayes Awards for Outstanding Costume Design, two Lucille Lortel Awards, Henry Hewes Award and the Theater Development Fund's Irene Sharaff Award in 1997. He received Princess the Grace Statue Award bestowed by the Princess Grace Foundation to artists of excellence in various disciplines. He is also the first African American male costume designer to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Costume Design, for his work on Steven Spielberg's 2021 film version of West Side Story.

Michael Aronov is an American actor who has worked in film, television and theatre. In 2017, he won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play for his role as Uri Savir in the Broadway play Oslo. He is also known for playing the role of Anton Baklanov, a refusenik scientist in The Americans.

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 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">Lindsay Jones (composer)</span>

Lindsay Draper Jones is an American composer and sound designer for theater, television and film. He has also taught and lectured at numerous universities and schools across the country.

<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.