Emily Mann (director)

Emily Betsy Mann (born April 12, 1952) is an American director, playwright and screenwriter.[1] She served as the artistic director and resident playwright of the McCarter Theatre Center from 1990 to 2020.[2]

Emily Mann
Born
Emily Betsy Mann

(1952-04-12) April 12, 1952
Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
EducationHarvard University (BA)
University of Minnesota (MFA)
Occupation(s)Theatre director
Playwright
Screenwriter
Years active1976–present
SpouseGary Mailman
Children1

Career

As the McCarter Theatre Center's Artistic Director and Resident Playwright from 1990 to 2020, Mann oversaw more than 160 productions, including more than 40 world premieres. During her tenure, the theater won the Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre and Mann herself was twice nominated for Tony Awards as a playwright and director. She was inducted into The American Theater Hall of Fame.

Her other personal awards include the Peabody Award, the Hull-Warriner Award from the Dramatists Guild, awards from the NAACP, eight Obie awards, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the 2011 Person of the Year Award from the National Theater Conference, as well as the Margo Jones Award, given to a "citizen-of-the-theatre who has demonstrated a lifetime commitment to the encouragement of the living theatre everywhere" and the 2021 Gordon Davidson Award from the foundation of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society. Mann also received an honorary Doctorate of Arts from Princeton University.

In January 2019, McCarter Theatre announced that Mann would retire from the position following the 2019–2020 season.[3]

Mann's nearly 50 McCarter directing credits include productions by William Shakespeare, Anton Chekhov, Henrik Ibsen, and Tennessee Williams and the world premieres of Christopher Durang's Turning Off the Morning News; Ken Ludwig's adaptation of Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express; Danai Gurira's The Convert; ; Rachel Bonds' Five Mile Lake; Sarah Treem's The How and the Why; Christopher Durang's Miss Witherspoon; and Edward Albee's Me, Myself and I. She has also directed Broadway shows A Streetcar Named Desire, Anna in the Tropics, Execution of Justice, and Having Our Say.

Her plays include: Having Our Say, adapted from the book by Sarah Louise Delany and Annie Elizabeth Delany with Amy Hill Hearth; Execution of Justice; Still Life; Annulla, An Autobiography; Greensboro (A Requiem); Meshugah; Mrs. Packard, and Hoodwinked (a Primer on Radical Islamism).

Her new play, Gloria: A Life, about the legacy of Gloria Steinem played off-Broadway at the Daryl Roth Theatre from October 2018 through March 2019.[4]

She directed adaptations of Baby Doll, Scenes from a Marriage, Uncle Vanya, The Cherry Orchard, A Seagull in the Hamptons, The House of Bernarda Alba, Antigone. She is currently developing a new adaptation of The Pianist.

Mann grew up in Chicago, where her father taught history. She completed her BA in English literature at Harvard University (Radcliffe College) in 1974 and her MFA in Directing from the University of Minnesota in 1976.

Mann was married to the actor Gerry Bamman, with whom she shares a son, Nicholas.[5] She is now married to Gary Mailman, an attorney. Mann and Mailman live in Princeton, New Jersey. She was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1994.[6]

A biography of Mann, "Emily Mann:Rebel Artist of the American Theater," by Alexis Greene was published in November 2021 by Applause Theatre & Cinema Books of Rowman & Littlefield.[7]

Works

Directing

Some of her McCarter directing credits include:

Writing

References
  1. "Emily Mann Biography (1952-)". Film Reference. Retrieved August 24, 2019.
  2. Collins-Hughes, Laura (May 3, 2020). "A Thousand Goodbyes for McCarter Theater's Emily Mann". The New York Times. Retrieved 12 January 2022.
  3. Press Release McCarter Theatre. Accessed April 23, 2022.
  4. Clement, Olivia (November 8, 2018). "Gloria: A Life Extends Off-Broadway Through March 2019 and has since performed regionally at several theaters". Playbill. Retrieved January 12, 2022.
  5. Greene, Alexis (2021). Emily Mann: Rebel Artist of the American Theater. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-1-4930-6033-7.
  6. "Princeton's McCarter Theatre Center Expects To Surprise Its Audiences With Bold New Selections". New Jersey Monthly. February 13, 2012. Retrieved Jul 2, 2020.
  7. Greene, Alexis (November 2021). Emily Mann: Rebel Artist of the American Theater. Applause Theatre & Cinema Books of Rowman & Littlefield. p. 408. ISBN 9781493060320. Retrieved 12 January 2022.
  8. http://retroproductions.org/retroproductions.htm Retroproductions.org Archived February 19, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
  9. "404 - McCarter Theatre". www.mccarter.org. Archived from the original on 2011-05-04. Retrieved 2010-04-16. {{cite web}}: Cite uses generic title (help)

Further reading
  • Alexis Greene: Emily Mann : rebel artist of the American theater, Guilford, Connecticut : Applause, [2021], ISBN 978-1-4930-6032-0
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