American Playhouse
Encyclopedia
American Playhouse is an anthology television series periodically broadcast by Public Broadcasting Service
(PBS) in the United States
.
It premiered on January 12, 1982 with The Shady Hill Kidnapping, written and narrated by John Cheever
and directed by Paul Bogart
. Its final broadcast, In the Wings: Angels in America
on Broadway, a rerun of a behind-the-scenes look at Tony Kushner
's award-winning play in two parts, aired on January 1, 1994.
The series proved to be the springboard for the careers of numerous performers, including David Marshall Grant
, Laura Linney
, A Martinez
, Conchata Ferrell
, Eric Roberts
, Lynne Thigpen
, John Malkovich
, Peter Riegert
, Lupe Ontiveros
, Ben Stiller
, and Megan Mullally
.
Public Broadcasting Service
The Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....
(PBS) in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
.
It premiered on January 12, 1982 with The Shady Hill Kidnapping, written and narrated by John Cheever
John Cheever
John William Cheever was an American novelist and short story writer. He is sometimes called "the Chekhov of the suburbs." His fiction is mostly set in the Upper East Side of Manhattan, the Westchester suburbs, old New England villages based on various South Shore towns around Quincy,...
and directed by Paul Bogart
Paul Bogart
Paul Bogart is an American television and film director. He directed episodes of the television series "Coronet Blue" in 1967 Get Smart and All In The Family from 1976 to 1979...
. Its final broadcast, In the Wings: Angels in America
Angels in America
Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes is the 1993 Pulitzer Prize winning play in two parts by American playwright Tony Kushner. It has been made into both a television miniseries and an opera by Peter Eötvös.-Characters:...
on Broadway, a rerun of a behind-the-scenes look at Tony Kushner
Tony Kushner
Anthony Robert "Tony" Kushner is an American playwright and screenwriter. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1993 for his play, Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes, and co-authored with Eric Roth the screenplay for the 2005 film, Munich.-Life and career:Kushner was born...
's award-winning play in two parts, aired on January 1, 1994.
The series proved to be the springboard for the careers of numerous performers, including David Marshall Grant
David Marshall Grant
David Marshall Grant is an American actor and playwright.-Life and career:Grant was born in Westport, Connecticut, to physician parents...
, Laura Linney
Laura Linney
Laura Leggett Linney is an American actress of film, television, and theatre. Linney has won three Emmy Awards, two Golden Globes, and a Screen Actors Guild Award. She has been nominated for three times for an Academy Award and once for a BAFTA Award...
, A Martinez
A Martinez
Adolfo Larrue Martinez, III , better known as A Martinez, is an American actor and singer with roles in the daytime soap opera Santa Barbara and the primetime dramas L.A. Law and Profiler.-Early life:...
, Conchata Ferrell
Conchata Ferrell
Conchata Galen Ferrell is an American actress. She is best known for playing Berta the housekeeper in the CBS sitcom Two and a Half Men, for which she received two Emmy Award nominations in 2005 and 2007.-Personal life:...
, Eric Roberts
Eric Roberts
Eric Anthony Roberts is an American actor. His career began with King of the Gypsies , earning a Golden Globe nomination for best actor debut. He starred as the protagonist in the 1980 dramatisation of Willa Cather's 1905 short story, Paul's Case...
, Lynne Thigpen
Lynne Thigpen
Cherlynne Theresa “Lynne” Thigpen was an American stage and television actress, most famous as "The Chief" in the various Carmen Sandiego television series.-Early life:...
, John Malkovich
John Malkovich
John Gavin Malkovich is an American actor, producer, director and fashion designer with his label Technobohemian. Over the last 25 years of his career, Malkovich has appeared in more than 70 motion pictures. For his roles in Places in the Heart and In the Line of Fire, he received Academy Award...
, Peter Riegert
Peter Riegert
Peter Riegert is an American actor, screenwriter, and film director, best known for his role as Boon from Animal House and crooked New Jersey State Assemblyman Ronald Zellman on the HBO original series The Sopranos.-Early life:...
, Lupe Ontiveros
Lupe Ontiveros
Lupe Ontiveros is an American film and television actress. Ontiveros has acted in numerous films and television shows, most often playing a maid or, more recently, an all-knowing grandmother; she estimates she has played a maid between 150 and 300 times on screen.-Early life:Ontiveros was born...
, Ben Stiller
Ben Stiller
Benjamin Edward "Ben" Stiller is an American comedian, actor, writer, film director, and producer. He is the son of veteran comedians and actors Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara....
, and Megan Mullally
Megan Mullally
Megan Mullally is an American actress and singer.After working in the theatre in Chicago, Mullally moved to Los Angeles in 1985 and began to appear in supporting roles in film and television productions. She made her Broadway debut in Grease in 1994 and she has since appeared in several Broadway...
.
Notable productions
- For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is EnufFor Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is EnufFor Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf is a 1975 experimental play by Ntozake Shange. Initially staged in California, it has been performed Off-Broadway and on Broadway, and adapted as a book, a television film, and a theatrical film...
, 1982 - Fifth of JulyFifth of JulyFifth of July is a 1978 play by American playwright Lanford Wilson. Set in rural Missouri in 1977, it revolves around the Talley family and their friends, and focuses on the disillusionment with America in the wake of the Vietnam War...
, 1982 - WorkingWorking (musical)Working is a musical with a book by Stephen Schwartz and Nina Faso, music by Schwartz, Craig Carnelia, Micki Grant, Mary Rodgers, and James Taylor, and lyrics by Schwartz, Carnelia, Grant, Taylor, and Susan Birkenhead....
, 1982 - The Skin of Our TeethThe Skin of Our TeethThe Skin of Our Teeth is a play by Thornton Wilder which won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. It opened on October 15, 1942 at the Shubert Theatre in New Haven, Connecticut, before moving to the Plymouth Theatre on Broadway on November 18, 1942...
, 1983 - Miss LonelyheartsMiss LonelyheartsMiss Lonelyhearts, published in 1933, is Nathanael West's second novel. It is an Expressionist black comedy set in New York City during the Great Depression.-Plot summary:...
, 1983 - True WestTrue West (play)True West is a play by American playwright Sam Shepard. Like most of his works it is inspired by myths of American life and popular culture. The play is a more traditional narrative than most of the plays that Shepard has written.-Plot:...
, 1984 - The Gin GameThe Gin GameThe Gin Game is a two-person, two-act play by D.L. Coburn that premiered at American Theater Arts in Hollywood in September 1976, directed by Kip Niven. It was Coburn's first play, and the theater's first production.-Plot:...
, 1984 (originally shown on cable in 1981) - Cat on a Hot Tin RoofCat on a Hot Tin RoofCat on a Hot Tin Roof is a play by Tennessee Williams. One of Williams's best-known works and his personal favorite, the play won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1955...
, 1985 (originally shown on cable) - All My SonsAll My SonsAll My Sons is a 1947 play by Arthur Miller. The play was twice adapted for film; in 1948, and again in 1987.The play opened on Broadway at the Coronet Theatre in New York City on January 29, 1947, closed on November 8, 1947 and ran for 328 performances...
, 1987 - Under the Biltmore Clock, 1986
- The House of Blue LeavesThe House of Blue Leaves (film)The House of Blue Leaves is a 1987 teleplay adapted from the John Guare play of the same title.-Summary:Set in Sunnyside, Queens, in 1965, the day of Pope Paul VI's visit to New York City, the black comedy features nuns, a political bombing, a GI headed for Vietnam, a zookeeper who dreams of making...
, 1987 - The Trial of Bernard Goetz, 1988
- The Land of Little RainThe Land of Little RainThe Land of Little Rain is a book written by American writer Mary Hunter Austin. First published in 1903, it contains a series of interrelated lyrical essays about the inhabitants of the American Southwest, both human and otherwise.-Publication history:...
, 1989 - Andre's MotherAndre's MotherAndre's Mother is a 1990 American drama film directed by Deborah Reinisch. The screenplay by Terrence McNally is an expansion of an eight-minute play written for an anthology called Urban Blight that was produced by the Manhattan Theater Club in 1988....
, 1990 - Zora Is My Name!, 1990
- Into the WoodsInto the WoodsInto the Woods is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by James Lapine. It debuted in San Diego at the Old Globe Theatre in 1986, and premiered on Broadway in 1987. Bernadette Peters' performance as the Witch and Joanna Gleason's portrayal of the Baker's Wife brought acclaim...
, 1991 - TruTru (play)Tru is a play by Jay Presson Allen.Adapted from the words and works of Truman Capote, it is set in the writer's New York City apartment at 870 United Nations Plaza the week before Christmas 1975...
, 1992 - Porgy and BessPorgy and BessPorgy and Bess is an opera, first performed in 1935, with music by George Gershwin, libretto by DuBose Heyward, and lyrics by Ira Gershwin and DuBose Heyward. It was based on DuBose Heyward's novel Porgy and subsequent play of the same title, which he co-wrote with his wife Dorothy Heyward...
, 1993 (produced in partnership with Great PerformancesGreat PerformancesGreat Performances, a television series devoted to the performing arts, has been telecast on Public Broadcasting Service public television since 1972...
) - ShimmerShimmer (play)Shimmer is a 1988 award-winning one-man play by American playwright John O'Keefe. It is a solo performance, portraying multiple characters, that describes life on a harsh juvenile detention farm in the Midwest in the 1950s.-Plot:...
, 1993 - Tales of the City, 1993