George Wolfe

Now firmly ensconced on Joseph Papp's throne at NYC's Public Theatre, black playwright-director-producer George C Wolfe grew up in the segregated city of Frankfort, Kentucky and received an early exposure to Gotham at the tender age of 12, accompanying his mother while she was taking doctoral courses in education at New York University during the summer of 1967. He attended Broadway performances of "Hello, Dolly!" with Pearl Bailey and a revival of "West Side Story" which knocked him out and pointed him in the direction of his life's work. Escaping to California from Kentucky, he taught acting in addition to writing and directing for small theaters in the Los Angeles area before moving to NYC in 1979, eventually enrolling in the masters program in dramatic writing and musical theater at NYU. While at NYU, he started the play that would catch Papp's attention, "The Colored Museum". This stinging satire on black stereotypes opened to critical raves at the Public in 1986 although some within the black community were offended by the characters presented.

After winning an OBIE for his direction of "Spunk" (1989-90), which he had adapted from three stories by Zora Neale Hurston, Wolfe earned his first Tony nominations for the book and direction of "Jelly's Last Jam" (1992), a musical about the life of jazz musician Jelly Roll Morton. He then became the first black director of a Broadway production that was not black-themed when he helmed Tony Kushner's Pulitzer Prize-winning drama about politics, AIDS and religion "Angels in America: Millennium Approaches", winning the 1993 Tony as Director of a Play. He picked up another Tony nomination the following year for staging the second part of Kushner's epic, "Angels in America: Perestroika", and garnered two more Tony nods in 1996 for helming "The Tempest", starring Patrick Stewart, and the Savion Glover dance musical "Bring in 'Da Noise, Bring in 'Da Funk", winning for the latter. The magic ran out with his 1998 revival of "On the Town" when his controversial decision to replace Jerome Robbins' signature choreography came back to haunt him, and though critical response was slightly better for "The Wild Party" (2000), which he directed and co-scripted, it paled in comparison to his triumphs in the 90s.

Wolfe became one of the Public's three resident directors in 1990 and replaced Papp's hand-picked successor JoAnne Akalaitis after her troubled 20-month tenure in 1993, becoming the only person besides Papp in the theater's history to hold the title of producer. In the first five years after taking over the theater's reins, he saw its endowments quadruple from $10 million to $40 million. Though criticized in some circles for championing his own projects more than the other works at the Public, Wolfe proved an able administrator, returning the institution to the black by 1995 after seven years of operating at a deficit. As producer, his decision to move "The Tempest" to Broadway for a limited run netted a modest $325,000, while moving "Bring in 'Da Noise, Bring in 'Da Funk" to Broadway and the unprecedented decision to promote the show's national tour as well amounted to a huge windfall for America's most influential and powerful not-for-profit theater.

• Also Credited As:
  George C. Wolfe, George Costello Wolfe
• Born:
  September 23, 1954 in Frankfort, Kentucky, USA
• Job Titles:
  Artistic director, Director, Theater administrator, Lyricist, Playwright, Producer

Family

• Brother: William Wolfe. kidney donor for Wolfe s transplant operation; lives in Philadelphia; born c 1947
• Father: Costello Wolfe. worked for the Department of Corrections in Frankfort, Kentucky
• Grandmother: Addie President. maternal grandmother
• Mother: Anna Wolfe. was principal at the all-black private elementary school that Wolfe attended in Frankfort; died December 1996 of heart disease

Education

• Frankfort High School, Frankfort, Kentucky, 1972
• Pomona College, Claremont, California, directing, BA, 1976
• Kentucky State University, Frankfort, Kentucky
• Rosenwald School, Frankfort, Kentucky

Milestones

• 1967 Accompanied mother to NYC the summer before turning 13 while she was working on her doctorate in education at New York University
• 1975 Had first successes as playwright with Up for Grabs while still enrolled in college
• 1976 Second play, Block Party , produced
• 1978 Directed Summer Suns/Tales of Night at the Inner City Cultural Center
• 1978 Penned play with music Back Alley Tales , produced at the Inner City Cultural Center in L.A.
• 1979 Relocated to NYC
• 1985 Wrote book and lyrics for musical flop, Paradise! ; produced at Playwrights Horizons
• 1986 Authored libretto of Queenie Pie . Duke Ellington s unfinished musical; left project over creative differences with producers
• 1986 Penned the episodic play with music The Colored Museum , also wrote lyrics; opened to rave reviews at the Public Theatre s Susan Stein Shiva Theatre; engendered some controversy, however, in the black community for its skewering of stereotypes; reportedly several actors refused to audition for roles
• 1989 Adapted three stories of Zora Neale Hurston as Spunk , produced at L.A. s Mark Taper Forum
• 1989 Wrote Hunger Chic , a 30-minute comedy directed by Buck Henry, broadcast as part of the PBS anthology series Trying Times
• 1990 Named by Public Theatre founder Joseph Papp as one of its three resident directors along with David Greenspan and Michael Grief
• 1990 Spunk restaged at NYC s Public Theater
• 1991 Appeared as himself in docudrama Finding Christa
• 1991 Co-directed and adapted The Colored Museum for PBS Great Performances
• 1991 Last play produced (to date), Blackout
• 1991 Wrote book and staged the biographical musical Jelly s Last Jam , about jazz musician Jelly Roll Morton at L.A. s Mark Taper Forum; lead role played by Obba Babatunde
• 1992 Staged a revised version of Jelly s Last Jam on Broadway, with Gregory Hines in the lead; earned Tony nominations for Book of a Musical and as Director of a Musical; also directed the behind-the-scenes PBS special Jammin : Jelly Roll Morton on Broadway
• 1993 Assumed leadership of the Public Theatre, replacing Papp s hand-picked successor JoAnne Akalaitis after her troubled 20-month tenure; became first person in its history other than Papp to have the title of producer
• 1993 Became first black director of a Broadway production that was not black-themed, Tony Kushner s Angels in America: Millennium Approaches ; won Tony for his direction
• 1993 Directed Fires in the Mirror , an American Playhouse (PBS) adaptation of Anna Deveare Smith s play chronicling the racial tensions that escalated in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, in the summer of 1992 when an automobile driven by a Hasidic man jumped the curb and killed a seven-year-old black child
• 1993 Staged the second half of Kushner s epic Angels in America: Perestroika ; garnered a 1994 Tony nod for Direction of a Play
• 1994 Had a cameo as a cat lover in Shu Lea Cheang s straight-to-video, experimental, sci-fi feature Fresh Kill
• 1994 Helmed the New York Shakespeare Festival (NYSF) production of Oliver Mayer s Blade to the Heat , a flawed look into the Hispanic boxing community of the 1950s
• 1994 Reteamed with Anna Deveare Smith to stage her acclaimed Twilight: Los Angeles 1992 , examining the aftermath of the Rodney King beating in L.A.
• 1995 Served as producer of Michael John LaChiusa s musical The Petrified Prince
• 1996 Helmed NYSF Central Park production of The Tempest , starring Patrick Stewart; restaged production on Broadway for a critically-acclaimed limited run; earned Tony nod as Director of a Play
• 1996 Won second Tony Award for helming the musical Bring in Da Noise, Bring in Da Funk , starring Savion Glover
• 1997 Directed the Public s Central Park revival of On the Town , dropping Jerome Robbins signature choreography; production moved indoors in 1998 with new choreography but failed to impress critics or audiences
• 1997 Fire destroyed home in Greenwich Village
• 1997 Profiled in PBS documentary, Signature: George C. Wolfe
• 1998 Produced Arthur Miller s The Ride Down Mt. Morgan , starring Stewart, at the Public Theatre; show remounted on Broadway in 2000
• 1998 Underwent kidney transplant on March 24
• 2000 Co-wrote (with Michael John LaChiusa) the libretto for The Wild Party , the second of two musicals bowing that year based on the Jazz Age poem by Joseph Moncure March; also directed
• 2001 Helmed the stage play Topdog/Underdog
• 2005 Directed first feature, the HBO original movie Lackawanna Blues, based on Ruben Santiago-Hudson s play that centers around a boarding house in Lackawanna, New York; earned an Independent Spirit Award Nomination for Best First Feature
• Enrolled in summer theater program at Miami University (in Oxford, Ohio) where his mother was continuing her doctoral work; got rid of his stutter
• Raised in Frankfort, Kentucky
• Taught acting in Los Angeles while directing and writing plays for small theaters; spent three years working at Los Angeles Inner City Cultural Center
• Taught at City College of New York and the Richard Allen Center for Cultural Art