Stephen DiLauro

Last updated

Stephen DiLauro aka Uke Jackson (a nom de plume he assumed in 2000) is an American playwright, novelist, newspaper reporter, art writer, and ukulele player.

Contents

Career

DiLauro has written for American Artist , [1] the Village Sun, [2] [3] The Fortune Society, [4] and Cigar Aficionado. [5] DiLauro was at one time the chief art critic for the Manhattan periodical Downtown. [6]

As a ukulele player and afficinado, DiLauro (aka Uke Jackson) is best known for founding and leading the New York Ukulele Ensemble and for "Ukefest", at its height attended by thousands. [7]

On March 10, 1992 a televised adaptation of DiLauro's one-act play Avenue Z Afternoon, about a Puerto Rican burglar who breaks into a Jewish matron's Brooklyn apartment, appeared on General Motors Playwrights Theater on the A&E Network; it starred Anne Meara and Lou Diamond Phillips. [8] [9] Carole Kucharwicz in Variety said: it was "All in all a productive afternoon". [10]

In 2008 DiLauro combined his love for ukeleles with his role as a playwright, creating the book for the musical Sex Drugs and Ukeleles staged at the Theater for the New City in the East Village, Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. [11] [12] DiLauro's play Monster Time was listed as one of the top ten dramatic works of the year in The Burns Mantle Theater Yearbook of 1989-1990 Featuring the Ten Best Plays of the Season. New York magazine described it as a "Prison drama heightened by the setting being death row". [13] [14]

DiLauro is the co-author of Perillo Artist of the American West (Alpine Fine Arts Collection 1981). [15] He is also the co-author, with Roy Moyer (ed.) and Gilbert Lascault, of the 1986 monograph Doğançay, focusing on the Turkish American artist Burhan Doğançay. [16]

DiLauro's 1996 CD audio collection River Tales was covered in Newsweek , as well as other news outlets. [17] [18]

Personal life

He is the son of Mr. and Mrs. Cornelius Ferrin DiLauro and grew up in Clinton Township, New Jersey. His father was a United Airlines pilot and real estate investor.

DiLauro was formerly married to the actress Suzanne Jackson, who played Dolly on the daytime television soap opera One Life to Live . This marriage and his previous one both ended in divorce. [6]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Donald Margulies</span> American playwright

Donald Margulies is an American playwright and academic. In 2000, he won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his play Dinner with Friends.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oscar Hammerstein I</span> German-American businessman

Oscar Hammerstein I was a German-born businessman, theater impresario, and composer in New York City. His passion for opera led him to open several opera houses, and he rekindled opera's popularity in America. He was the grandfather of American playwright/lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II and the father of theater manager William Hammerstein and American producer Arthur Hammerstein.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Banjo ukulele</span> Hybrid musical instrument

The banjo ukulele, also known as the banjolele or banjo uke, is a four-stringed musical instrument with a small banjo-type body and a fretted ukulele neck. The earliest known banjoleles were built by John A. Bolander and by Alvin D. Keech, both in 1917.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Off-off-Broadway</span> Professional theatre in New York City performed in venues with fewer than 100 seats

Off-off-Broadway theaters are smaller New York City theaters than Broadway and off-Broadway theaters, and usually have fewer than 100 seats. The off-off-Broadway movement began in 1958 as part of a response to perceived commercialism of the professional theatre scene and as an experimental or avant-garde movement of drama and theatre. Over time, some off-off-Broadway productions have moved away from the movement's early experimental spirit.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Playwrights Horizons</span> Off-Broadway theater in Manhattan, New York

Playwrights Horizons is a not-for-profit American Off-Broadway theater located in New York City dedicated to the support and development of contemporary American playwrights, composers, and lyricists, and to the production of their new work.

David Ives is an American playwright, screenwriter, and novelist. He is perhaps best known for his comic one-act plays; The New York Times in 1997 referred to him as the "maestro of the short form". Ives has also written dramatic plays, narrative stories, and screenplays, has adapted French 17th and 18th-century classical comedies, and adapted 33 musicals for New York City's Encores! series.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles Busch</span> American dramatist

Charles Louis Busch is an American actor, screenwriter, playwright and drag queen, known for his appearances on stage in his own camp style plays and in film and television. He wrote and starred in his early plays off-off-Broadway beginning in 1978, generally in drag roles, and also acted in the works of other playwrights. He also wrote for television and began to act in films and on television in the late 1990s. His best known play is The Tale of the Allergist's Wife (2000), which was a success on Broadway.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Public Theater</span> Arts organization in New York City

The Public Theater is an arts organization in New York City. Founded by Joseph Papp, The Public Theater was originally the Shakespeare Workshop in 1954; its mission was to support emerging playwrights and performers. Its first production was the musical Hair in 1967. Since Papp, the theatre has been led by JoAnne Akalaitis (1991–1993), and George C. Wolfe (1993–2004), and is currently under Artistic Director Oskar Eustis and Executive Director Patrick Willingham.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Soho Repertory Theatre</span> American Off-Broadway theater company

The Soho Repertory Theatre, known as Soho Rep, is an American Off-Broadway theater company based in New York City which is notable for producing avant-garde plays by contemporary writers. The company, described as a "cultural pillar", is currently located in a 65-seat theatre in the TriBeCa section of lower Manhattan. The company, and the projects it has produced, have won multiple prizes and earned critical acclaim, including numerous Obie Awards, Drama Desk Awards, Drama Critics' Circle Awards, and a Pulitzer Prize. A recent highlight was winning the Drama Desk Award for Sustained Achievement for "nearly four decades of artistic distinction, innovative production, and provocative play selection."

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Theater for the New City</span>

Theater for the New City, founded in 1971 and known familiarly as "TNC", is one of New York City's leading off-off-Broadway theaters, known for radical political plays and community commitment. Productions at TNC have won 43 Obie Awards and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. TNC currently exists as a 4-theater complex in a 30,000-square-foot (2,800 m2) space at 155 First Avenue, in the East Village of Manhattan.

The New York Ukulele Ensemble was founded by playwright and novelist Uke Jackson. The ensemble'smMembers included: Heather Lev, Katie Down, Debra Sherline, Holly Duthie, Christina Liao, J Walter Hawkes, Greg Gattuso, Uncle Zac, and Uke Jackson. The line up was all ukulele, including soprano, concert, tenor, baritone and bass ukuleles, and banjo ukes.

Sight Unseen is a play by Donald Margulies. The play premiered at South Coast Repertory in 1991, and then was produced Off-Broadway in 1992 and on Broadway in 2004.

Eastern Standard is a play by Richard Greenberg. Set in 1987, it focuses on yuppies, AIDS, the stock market and insider trading scandals, homelessness, and urban malaise.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Douglas Turner Ward</span> American playwright and actor (1930–2021)

Douglas Turner Ward was an American playwright, actor, director, and theatrical producer. He was noted for being a founder and artistic director of the Negro Ensemble Company (NEC). He was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play in 1974 for his role in The River Niger, which he also directed.

John Michael Friedman was an American composer and lyricist. He was a Founding Associate Artist of theater company The Civilians.

The Old Reliable Theatre Tavern was a theater and bar located at 213 E. 3rd Street in the Alphabet City neighborhood of New York City's East Village, and played a vital part of the early Off-Off-Broadway scene. The Old Reliable presented plays by Guy Gauthier, Ilsa Gilbert, William M. Hoffman, Michael McGrinder, Stanley Nelson, Jeannine O'Reilly, Robert Patrick, Joseph Renard, Donald Kvares and Thomas Terefenko.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Women's Interart Center</span>

The Women's Interart Center was a New York City-based multidisciplinary arts organization conceived as an artists' collective in 1969 and formally delineated in 1970 under the auspices of Women Artists in Revolution (WAR) and Feminists in the Arts. In 1971, it found a permanent home on Manhattan's far West Side.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jonathan Reynolds (writer)</span> American writer (1942–2021)

Jonathan Reynolds was an American writer. He practiced as an actor for a short period before becoming a writer. He wrote for David Frost and Dick Cavett before a breakthrough with two comedy plays which ran off-Broadway in 1975. His most successful play was Geniuses at Playwrights Horizons in 1982, which was inspired by his time on the set of the war movie Apocalypse Now. Reynolds wrote several screenplays, receiving praise for his writing on the 1984 romantic comedy Micki & Maude. His other film work was less well received and he was awarded the 1988 Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Screenplay for 1987's Leonard Part 6. Reynolds returned to writing plays in the late 1990s and received a Pulitzer Prize for Drama nomination for his work on the 1997 play Stonewall Jackson's House. He wrote a food column for The New York Times Magazine between 2000 and 2005, publishing a selection of columns in book form in 2006. Reynolds returned to acting in 2003 leading in Dinner with Demons at the Second Stage Theater.

References

  1. "Alex Katz - Bibliography - Articles & Reviews". www.alexkatz.com.
  2. "Stephen DiLauro Archives".
  3. "'Hamlet/Horatio' gives Shakespeare's longest play a new twist, at a reasonable length". July 15, 2021.
  4. "A playwright remembers Khalil Islam". The Fortune Society.
  5. "Cover Art". Cigar Aficionado.
  6. 1 2 "Sara Jackson, an Actress, Weds Stephen DiLauro". The New York Times .
  7. "Spare Times". The New York Times .
  8. Daytona Beach Sunday News-Journal.
  9. The Item.
  10. Variety TV REV 1991-92 17. Taylor & Francis. March 1994. ISBN   978-0-8240-3796-3.
  11. "Sex! Drugs! & Ukuleles! - Theater - Review - The New York Times". The New York Times .
  12. Spokane Chronicle.
  13. The Best Plays of 1989-1990: The Complete Broadway and Off-Broadway Sourcebook. Hal Leonard Corporation. December 1990. ISBN   978-1-55783-091-3.
  14. New York Magazine. 20 November 1989.
  15. "Results for: Author: Stephen DiLauro".
  16. "BIBLIO | Dogancay by Gilbert Lascault; Roy Moyer; Stephen DiLauro | Hardcover | 1986 | Hudson Hills Press LLC | 9780933920613".
  17. "Tell Me a Story". Newsweek . 15 December 1996.
  18. "Let It Flow Music, Art and Environment Will Run Together in First Bethlehem River Festival". 20 June 1997.