Matthew Penn

Last updated
Matthew Penn
Alma mater Wesleyan University
Occupation(s)Television/theatre director, producer
Years active1976–present

Matthew Penn (born 1959) is an American director and producer of television and theatre. His father was film and theatre director Arthur Penn, his mother was actress Peggy Maurer. He grew up in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, and New York City. He has a double major in English and Theater. Penn graduated from Wesleyan University in 1980. [1]

Prior to beginning work in television, Penn spent many years working as an actor and director in theatre and is currently a co-artistic director of the Berkshire Playwrights Lab located in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. [2] [3]

Penn has directed and/or produced over 150 prime-time TV dramas. Some of his directorial credits include NYPD Blue , Law & Order , New York Undercover , Brooklyn South , The Sopranos , House , Damages , The Closer , and Royal Pains . He was nominated for an Emmy Award in 1999 for directing the 200th episode of Law & Order, guest-starring Julia Roberts. He was an executive producer of Law & Order from 2003 to 2007 [1] and Queen of the South in 2016. [4]

Related Research Articles

Mark Setlock is a former American actor and playwright living in New York, NY.

Israel Horovitz was an American playwright, director, actor and co-founder of the Gloucester Stage Company in 1979. He served as artistic director until 2006 and later served on the board, ex officio and as artistic director emeritus until his resignation in November 2017 after The New York Times reported allegations of sexual misconduct.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Kerr (actor)</span> American actor and attorney (1931–2013)

John Grinham Kerr was an American actor and attorney.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jack Garfein</span> American director (1930–2019)

Jakob Garfein was an American film and theatre director, acting teacher, and a key figure of the Actors Studio.

Stephen Adly Guirgis is an American playwright, screenwriter, director, and actor. He is a member and a former co-artistic director of New York City's LAByrinth Theater Company. His plays have been produced both Off-Broadway and on Broadway as well as in the UK. His play Between Riverside and Crazy won the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

Henry Woronicz is an American actor, director, and producer who served as the artistic director of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF) from 1991 to 1995. He was an actor and resident director there starting in 1984. In addition to his work at OSF, he has acted and directed in many other theaters, and has extensive film and TV credits.

Eduardo Oscar Machado is a Cuban playwright living in the United States. Notable plays by Machado include Broken Eggs, Havana is Waiting and The Cook. Many of his plays are autobiographical or deal with Cuba in some way. Machado teaches playwriting at New York University. He has served as the artistic director of the INTAR Theatre in New York City since 2004. He is openly gay.

Michael Lessac is a theatre, television, and film director and screenwriter. Lessac is also the Artistic Director of Colonnades Theatre Lab, Inc and of Colonnades Theatre Lab, South Africa. He is the Project Creator & Director of the international theatre piece, Truth in Translation.

James Huang is an American film and television actor and producer/director.

Gretchen Egolf is an American theater, film and television actress.

Casey Childs is the Founder of Primary Stages (www.primarystages.org)],[1] a New York State non-profit, Off-Broadway theater company in New York City. Since 1984, they have produced over 175 productions of new plays, many of them world premieres and all of them New York City premieres, by such writers as Sharon Washington, David Ives, Horton Foote, Charlayne Woodard, Melissa Manchester, Jeffrey Sweet, Donald Margulies, Terrence McNally, A.R. Gurney, John Patrick Shanley, Ike Holter, Tina Howe, Charles Busch, John Henry Redwood, Romulus Linney, Lee Blessing, Michael Cristofer, Mac Wellman, Lynne Alvarez, Willie Holtzman, Athol Fugard, Theresa Rebeck, Michael Hollinger and Julia Jordan. He produced the commercial moves of David Ives’ All in the Timing and Mere Mortals and oversaw the commercial moves of Charles Busch's You Should Be So Lucky and Colin Martin's Virgins and Other Myths. He also oversaw the transfer of Horton Foote's Dividing the Estate, which moved to the Booth Theatre on Broadway in association with Lincoln Center Theater. In 2013, in partnership with the New York Yankees, Primary Stages developed Bronx Bombers which played on Broadway at Circle in the Square. Primary Stages was the first theater to produce Conor McPherson work in the United States with St. Nicholas starring Brian Cox. He conceived, commissioned and directed the commercial Off-Broadway show Woman Before a Glass by Lanie Robertson about Peggy Guggenheim with Mercedes Ruehl which ran for seven months at the Promenade Theatre. Other plays he directed for Primary Stages include The Morini Strad by Willie Holtzman, Barefoot Boy With Shoes On by Edwin Sanchez, Bargains by Jack Heifner, Brutality of Fact by Keith Reddin, The Preservation Society by William S. Leavengood, Elsa/Edgar by Bob Kingdom, The Dolphin Position by Percy Granger, Lusting After Pipino's Wife by Sam Henry Kass, The Secret Sits in the Middle by Lisa-Maria Radano, Algerian Romance by Kres Mersky, Madam Zelena Finally Comes Clean by Ron Carlsen, Stopping the Desert by Glen Merzer, In September Woods by David Hill and Nasty Little Secrets by Lanie Robertson. Plays produced by Primary Stages have received many nominations and awards from the Obies, the Drama Desk, the Outer Critics Circle and the Audelco Awards for Excellence in Afro-American Theatre. Plays that began at Primary Stages have received multiple nominations for Tony Awards. In 2008, Primary Stages was honored for its Outstanding Body of Work by the Lucille Lortel Awards. Carnegie-Mellon University awarded Casey their Commitment to Playwrights Award in 1995. From 1982 until 1985, Casey was the Artistic Programs Director for the New Dramatists, America's oldest playwrights’ organization, where he conducted the workshops for over 75 new playwrights in developing over 300 new works. He oversaw the development of new plays by many new playwrights including August Wilson, Wendy Kesselman, John Ford Noonan, Thomas Keneally, Emily Mann, John Pielmeier, Steve Carter, Oyamo, James Yoshimora and Pedro Juan Pietre. Works developed during that time have received productions on and off Broadway and in many American regional theatres garnering Pulitzer Prizes, Tony Awards and other honors.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Williamstown Theatre Festival</span> Resident summer theater in Massachusetts, US

The Williamstown Theatre Festival is a resident summer theater on the campus of Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1954 by Williams College news director Ralph Renzi and drama program chairman David C. Bryant. It was awarded a Tony Award in 2002 and the Massachusetts Cultural Council Commonwealth Award in 2011.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tarell Alvin McCraney</span> American actor and playwright

Tarell Alvin McCraney is an American playwright, screenwriter, and actor. He is the chair of playwriting at the Yale School of Drama and a member of the Steppenwolf Theatre Ensemble.

David Hugh Jones was an English stage, television and film director.

Steven I. "Steve" Robman is an American television and theatre director/producer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mary Gallagher</span> American writer

Mary Gallagher is an American playwright, screenwriter, novelist, actress, director and teacher. For six years, she was artistic director of Gypsy, a theatre company in the Hudson Valley, New York, which collaborated with many artists to create site-specific mask-and-puppet music-theatre with texts and lyrics by Gallagher. These pieces included Premanjali and the 7 Geese Brothers, Ama and The Scottish Play. In 1996-97, she directed the Playwrights Workshop at the University of Iowa, and she taught playwriting and screenwriting at New York University/Tisch School of the Arts from 2001 to 2010. She is a member of Actors & Writers, a theater company in the Hudson Valley, and the Ensemble Studio Theater in New York City. She is an alumna of New Dramatists, where she developed many of her plays and created and moderated the series, "You Can Make a Life: Conversations with Playwrights" from 1994 to 2001.

Rick Lombardo is a prolific and award-winning American theatre director, playwright and adaptor. He is the former producing artistic director of San Jose Repertory Theatre, and the former Artistic Director of New Repertory Theatre in Watertown, Massachusetts. Lombardo is currently the artistic director of Penn State Center Stage, and the director of the School of Theatre at Penn State University and the Penn State College of Arts and Architecture.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tanya Berezin</span> American actress (1941–2023)

Tanya Berezin was an American actress, co-founder and an artistic director of Circle Repertory Company in New York City, and educator. She performed on Broadway and Off-Broadway, and also appeared in a number of films and television series.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Matthew Wilkas</span> American actor

Matthew Wilkas is an American New York based theatre and film actor, playwright and reality television personality. He is best known for his lead role as Matt in the 2012 feature film Gayby.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roger Hendricks Simon</span> American actor and director

Roger Hendricks Simon is an American theater and film actor, producer, and director. He is best known for his roles as Bernie Jacobs in Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps and Fergal O'Reilly in Love in Kilnerry and Mac in Linoleum. He is a graduate and founding member of Robert Brustein's Yale Repertory Company. Simon went on to direct London's Royal Court Theatre, Dublin's Abbey Theatre, Edinburgh Festival, the Lincoln Center, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Roundabout Theater, the Juilliard Opera, the Los Angeles Theatre Center, the Williamstown Theatre Festival, the O'Neill Playwrights Conference, the Folger Shakespeare Group, Metromedia and BBC Television. He is Founding Artistic Director of The Simon Studio in NYC in 1978 and the Founding Artistic Director of L.A. Classical Theatre Lab in 1990, a member and moderator of the Actors Studio Playwrights and Directors Unit in NYC 1991 - 2023 -

References

  1. 1 2 Matthew Penn, Wesleyan University. Theater Department. Retrieved January 23, 2013.
  2. "Matthew Penn: Co-Artistic Director Berkshire Playwrights Lab". Berkshire Playwrights Lab. Retrieved August 24, 2011.
  3. Eagle, Jeffrey Borak, The Berkshire (16 November 2018). "A reflective, homemade breakfast with Matthew Penn". The Berkshire Eagle.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  4. "Matthew Penn | Producer, Director, Actor". IMDb. Retrieved 2024-02-20.