David Lindsay-Abaire

David Lindsay-Abaire
Born David Abaire November 30, 1969 (1969-11-30) (age 40) Boston, Massachusetts, USA Occupation Playwright, lyricist Nationality United States Alma mater Sarah Lawrence College Spouse Christine Lindsay-Abaire
Information
Notable work(s)	Fuddy Meers Kimberly Akimbo
Magnum opus	Rabbit Hole
Awards	Pulitzer Prize for Drama (2007)

David Lindsay-Abaire (born November 30, 1969) is an American playwright and lyricist. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2007 for his play, Rabbit Hole.

Early years

Lindsay-Abaire was born David Abaire in South Boston, Massachusetts in a family of five he describes as "very blue collar." His mother was a factory worker and his father worked for the Chelsea fruit market. He attended Boston public schools until the seventh grade, when he received a six-year scholarship to Milton Academy, a New England boarding school. It was there that he first became interested in writing for the theatre and where he contributed what he has called "terrible, terrible plays" as a result of the school's tradition of presenting original student work. He went on to concentrate in theatre at Sarah Lawrence College, and was accepted into the Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwrights Program at the Juilliard School, where he wrote under the tutelage of Marsha Norman and Christopher Durang.

Career

Lindsay-Abaire has received commissions from South Coast Repertory, Dance Theater Workshop, and the Jerome Foundation, as well as awards from the Berilla Kerr Foundation, the Lincoln Center LeComte du Nuoy Fund, Mixed Blood Theater, Primary Stages, the Tennessee Williams/ New Orleans Literary Festival, and the South Carolina Playwrights Festival.

Among his influences, Lindsay-Abaire lists playwrights John Guare, Edward Albee, Georges Feydeau, Eugène Ionesco, and George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart, 1930s screwball comedy films My Man Godfrey, Twentieth Century, and "anything by Preston Sturges, Frank Capra, the Marx Brothers, and Abbott and Costello." Walking a fine line between grave reality and joyous lunacy, the world of his plays is often dark, funny, blithe, enigmatic, hopeful, ironic, and somewhat cockeyed. "My plays tend to be peopled with outsiders in search of clarity."

He returned to the scene of his Fuddy Meers success, the Manhattan Theatre Club, with Wonder of the World, starring Sarah Jessica Parker, about a wife who suddenly leaves her husband and hops a bus to Niagara Falls in search of freedom, enlightenment, and the meaning of life. Other plays include Rabbit Hole, produced in 2006 with Cynthia Nixon, Tyne Daly, and John Slattery, which won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Play, Kimberly Akimbo (2000), Wonder of the World (2000), Dotting and Dashing (1999), Snow Angel (1999), The L'il Plays (1997), and A Devil Inside (1997).

Lindsay-Abaire describes his plays as centering around "outsiders in search of clarity." This view of life stemmed from his being a working-class student in a prestigious boarding school. This aesthetic was encouraged by Christopher Durang at Juilliard. The young playwright has always thought that theatre is a place for absurd things to happen, which is why he tends to stay away from realism in his writings. He specifically looks for characters who look at the world differently than everyone else.

Lindsay-Abaire also has writing credit on two screenplays, Robots (2005) and Inkheart (2007).

Lindsay-Abaire's recent projects include the book for the musical High Fidelity and the book and lyrics for Shrek the Musical.

Personal life

Lindsay-Abaire and wife, Christine, have two children together.

See also

Theatre portal

References

• Peter Marks (12 March 2000). "Finding the Humor and the Hope in Fractured Lives". The New York Times. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F04EFDC1038F931A25750C0A9669C8B63. Retrieved 2008-12-25. 
• "Play Insights - Kimberly Akimbo". South Coast Repertory. 2008. http://www.scr.org/season/00-01season/snl00-01/snlms5.asp. Retrieved 2008-12-25. 

External links

• David Lindsay-Abaire at the Internet Broadway Database
• David Lindsay-Abaire at the Internet Movie Database
• David Lindsay-Abaire at the Internet Off-Broadway Database