George C. Wolfe
Encyclopedia
George Costello Wolfe is an American playwright
Playwright
A playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...

 and director of theater and film
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...

. He won a Tony Award in 1993 for directing Angels in America: Millennium Approaches and another Tony Award in 1996 for his direction of the musical, Bring in 'da Noise/Bring in 'da Funk
Bring in 'da Noise/Bring in 'da Funk
Bring in 'da Noise, Bring in 'da Funk is a musical that debuted Off-Broadway at the New York Shakespeare Festival/Public Theater in 1995 and moved to Broadway in 1996. The show was conceived and directed by George C. Wolfe, and featured music by Daryl Waters, Zane Mark and Ann Duquesnay; lyrics by...

.

Early life and education

Wolfe was born in Frankfort, Kentucky
Frankfort, Kentucky
Frankfort is a city in Kentucky that serves as the state capital and the county seat of Franklin County. The population was 27,741 at the 2000 census; by population it is the 5th smallest state capital in the United States...

, the son of Anna (née Lindsey), an educator, and Costello Wolfe, a government clerk. He attended an all-black private school where his mother taught. After a family move, he began attending the integrated Frankfort public school district.

He attended Frankfort High School
Frankfort High School (Kentucky)
Frankfort High School is located at 328 Shelby Street in Frankfort, Kentucky. It is part of the Frankfort Independent School District which consists of Second Street School, Wilkinson Street School, and Frankfort High School. Notable graduates include George C. Wolfe, and the writer, Walter...

 where he began to pursue his interest in the theatre arts, and wrote poetry and prose for the school's literary journal. After high school, Wolfe enrolled at the historically black
Historically Black Colleges and Universities
Historically black colleges and universities are institutions of higher education in the United States that were established before 1964 with the intention of serving the black community....

 Kentucky State University
Kentucky State University
Kentucky State University is a four-year institution of higher learning, located in Frankfort, Kentucky, United States, the Commonwealth's capital. The school is an historically black university, which desegregated in 1954...

, the alma mater of his parents. Following his first year, he transferred to Pomona College
Pomona College
Pomona College is a private, residential, liberal arts college in Claremont, California. Founded in 1887 in Pomona, California by a group of Congregationalists, the college moved to Claremont in 1889 to the site of a hotel, retaining its name. The school enrolls 1,548 students.The founding member...

 in Claremont, California
Claremont, California
Claremont is a small affluent college town in eastern Los Angeles County, California, United States, about east of downtown Los Angeles at the base of the San Gabriel Mountains. The population as of the 2010 census is 34,926. Claremont is known for its seven higher-education institutions, its...

, where he pursued a BA
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...

 in theater. Wolfe taught for several years in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

 at the Inner City Cultural Center and later in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

. He earned an MFA
Master of Fine Arts
A Master of Fine Arts is a graduate degree typically requiring 2–3 years of postgraduate study beyond the bachelor's degree , although the term of study will vary by country or by university. The MFA is usually awarded in visual arts, creative writing, filmmaking, dance, or theatre/performing arts...

 in dramatic writing and musical theater at New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...

 in 1983.

Career

In 1977, Wolfe gave C. Bernard Jackson
C. Bernard Jackson
C. Bernard Jackson was an award-winning American playwright who founded the Inner City Cultural Center in Los Angeles. Inner City was one of the first arts institutions in the United States to promote multiculturalism...

, the executive director of the Inner City Cultural Center in the Los Angeles, the first scene of a play he was working on. Rather than suggest that he finish writing it, Jackson said, "Here's some money, go do it." The name of the play was "Tribal Rites, or The Coming of the Great God-bird Nabuku to the Age of Horace Lee Lizer." Wolfe stated in an article he wrote about Jackson for the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....

 that "this production was perhaps the most crucial to my evolution" as an artist.

Among Wolfe's first major offerings—the musical Paradise (1985) and his play The Colored Museum
The Colored Museum
The Colored Museum is a play by the African American dramatist George C. Wolfe. It had its premiere in 1986 at The Crossroads Theatre in New Brunswick, NJ and won its author the Dramatists Guild Award in the same year....

(1986)--were off-Broadway productions that met with mixed reviews. In 1989, however, Wolfe won an Obie Award
Obie Award
The Obie Awards or Off-Broadway Theater Awards are annual awards given by The Village Voice newspaper to theatre artists and groups in New York City...

 for best off-Broadway director for his play Spunk
Spunk (play)
Spunk is a play by American playwright George C. Wolfe and is an adaptation of three stories by Zora Neale Hurston. Wolfe won a 1989 Obie award for best off-Broadway director for Spunk....

, an adaptation of three stories by Zora Neale Hurston
Zora Neale Hurston
Zora Neale Hurston was an American folklorist, anthropologist, and author during the time of the Harlem Renaissance...

.

Wolfe gained a national reputation with his 1991 musical Jelly's Last Jam
Jelly's Last Jam
Jelly's Last Jam is a musical with a book by George C. Wolfe, lyrics by Susan Birkenhead, and music by Jelly Roll Morton and Luther Henderson...

, a musical about the life of jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

 musician Jelly Roll Morton
Jelly Roll Morton
Ferdinand Joseph LaMothe , known professionally as Jelly Roll Morton, was an American ragtime and early jazz pianist, bandleader and composer....

; after a Los Angeles opening, the play moved to Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

, where it received 11 Tony
Tony Award
The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...

 nominations and won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Book of a Musical
Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Book of a Musical
The Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Book of a Musical is presented by the Drama Desk, a committee which comprises New York City theatre critics, writers, and editors...

. Two years later, Wolfe directed 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 Angels in America: Millennium Approaches
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:...

to great critical acclaim, as well as a Tony award. Wolfe also directed the world premiere of the second part of "Angels
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:...

", entitled Perestroika
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:...

, the following year.

From 1993 to 2004, Wolfe served as artistic director and producer of the New York Shakespeare Festival
New York Shakespeare Festival
New York Shakespeare Festival is the previous name of the New York City theatrical producing organization now known as the Public Theater. The Festival produced shows at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park, as part of its free Shakespeare in the Park series, at the Public Theatre near Astor Place...

/Public Theater
Public Theater
The Public Theater is a New York City arts organization founded as The Shakespeare Workshop in 1954 by Joseph Papp, with the intention of showcasing the works of up-and-coming playwrights and performers. It is headquartered at 425 Lafayette Street in the former Astor Library in the East Village...

, where in 1996 he created the musical Bring in 'Da Noise, Bring in 'Da Funk, an ensemble of tap
Tap dance
Tap dance is a form of dance characterized by using the sound of one's tap shoes hitting the floor as a percussive instrument. As such, it is also commonly considered to be a form of music. Two major variations on tap dance exist: rhythm tap and Broadway tap. Broadway tap focuses more on the...

 and music starring Savion Glover
Savion Glover
Savion Glover is an American tap dancer, actor, and choreographer. As a learning prodigy, he was taught by notable dancers from previous generations. Glover is currently interested in restoring African roots to tap...

; the show moved to Broadway's Ambassador Theatre
Ambassador Theatre (New York)
The Ambassador Theatre is a legitimate Broadway theatre located at 219 West 49th Street between Broadway and 8th Avenue in Midtown Manhattan.Designed by architect Herbert J. Krapp for the Shuberts, the structure is unusual in that it is situated diagonally on its site to fit the maximum number of...

. His work won a second Tony Award for direction and was an enormous financial success.

In 2000, Wolfe co-wrote the book and directed the Broadway production The Wild Party
The Wild Party (LaChiusa musical)
The Wild Party is a musical with a book by Michael John LaChiusa and George C. Wolfe and music and lyrics by LaChiusa. It is based on the 1928 Joseph Moncure March narrative poem of the same name...

.

In late 2004, Wolfe announced his intention to leave the theater for film direction, beginning with the well-received HBO film Lackawanna Blues.

Despite this move, Wolfe continues to direct plays, such as 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 Caroline, or Change
Caroline, or Change
Caroline, or Change is a through-composed musical with book and lyrics by Tony Kushner and score by Jeanine Tesori that combines spirituals, blues, Motown, classical music, and Jewish klezmer and folk music....

and Suzan-Lori Parks
Suzan-Lori Parks
Suzan-Lori Parks is an African American playwright and screenwriter. She received the MacArthur Foundation "Genius" Grant in 2001, and the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for her play, Topdog/Underdog.-Early years:...

' Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize for Drama
The Pulitzer Prize for Drama was first awarded in 1918.From 1918 to 2006, the Drama Prize was unlike the majority of the other Pulitzer Prizes: during these years, the eligibility period for the drama prize ran from March 2 to March 1, to reflect the Broadway 'season' rather than the calendar year...

-winning play Topdog/Underdog
Topdog/Underdog
Topdog/Underdog is a play by Suzan-Lori Parks. Parks received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2002 for the work.The play chronicles the adult lives of two African American brothers, Lincoln and Booth, as they cope with women, work, poverty, gambling, racism, and their troubled upbringings...

. In the summer of 2006, he directed a new translation of Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director.An influential theatre practitioner of the 20th century, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and theatrical production, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the...

's Mother Courage and Her Children
Mother Courage and Her Children
Mother Courage and Her Children is a play written in 1939 by the German dramatist and poet Bertolt Brecht with significant contributions from Margarete Steffin...

at the Delacorte Theatre in Central Park; it starred Meryl Streep
Meryl Streep
Mary Louise "Meryl" Streep is an American actress who has worked in theatre, television and film.Streep made her professional stage debut in 1971's The Playboy of Seville, before her screen debut in the television movie The Deadliest Season in 1977. In that same year, she made her film debut with...

, Kevin Kline
Kevin Kline
Kevin Delaney Kline is an American theatre, voice, film actor and comedian. He has won an Academy Award and two Tony Awards, and has been nominated for five Golden Globe Awards, two BAFTA Awards and an Emmy Award.- Early life :...

, and Austin Pendleton
Austin Pendleton
Austin Pendleton is an American film, television, and stage actor, a playwright, and a theatre director and instructor.-Life and career:...

.

His latest movie, Nights in Rodanthe
Nights in Rodanthe
Nights in Rodanthe is a 2008 American/Australian film adaptation of the novel with the same name by Nicholas Sparks. The film stars Richard Gere and Diane Lane in their third screen collaboration after Unfaithful and The Cotton Club . The film is rated PG-13 by the MPAA for "some sensuality" and...

, opened in theatres in September 2008.

Wolfe is bringing his artistic talent to the design of the upcoming Center for Civil & Human Rights
Center for Civil & Human Rights
The National Center for Civil and Human Rights is a proposed center in Atlanta, Georgia. It will be located adjacent to the World of Coca-Cola and the Georgia Aquarium on the site of Pemberton Place...

 in Atlanta as its new chief creative officer.

Wolfe is openly gay
Gay
Gay is a word that refers to a homosexual person, especially a homosexual male. For homosexual women the specific term is "lesbian"....

.

Broadway

Year Title Credit Venue
1992 Jelly's Last Jam
Jelly's Last Jam
Jelly's Last Jam is a musical with a book by George C. Wolfe, lyrics by Susan Birkenhead, and music by Jelly Roll Morton and Luther Henderson...

Director, writer (book) Virginia Theatre
1993 Angels in America: Millennium Approaches Director, producer Walter Kerr Theatre
Walter Kerr Theatre
The Walter Kerr Theatre is a legitimate Broadway theatre. Located at 219 West 48th Street, it is owned and operated by Jujamcyn Theaters. One of the smaller auditoriums in the theatre district, it seats 975....

1993 Angels in America: Perestroika Director, producer Walter Kerr Theatre
Walter Kerr Theatre
The Walter Kerr Theatre is a legitimate Broadway theatre. Located at 219 West 48th Street, it is owned and operated by Jujamcyn Theaters. One of the smaller auditoriums in the theatre district, it seats 975....

1994 Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 Director, producer Cort Theatre
Cort Theatre
The Cort Theatre is a legitimate Broadway theatre located at 138 West 48th Street in the Theatre District of midtown Manhattan in New York City...

1995 The Tempest
The Tempest
The Tempest is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1610–11, and thought by many critics to be the last play that Shakespeare wrote alone. It is set on a remote island, where Prospero, the exiled Duke of Milan, plots to restore his daughter Miranda to her rightful place,...

Director, producer Broadhurst Theatre
Broadhurst Theatre
The Broadhurst Theatre is a legitimate Broadway theatre located at 235 West 44th Street in midtown Manhattan.It was designed by architect Herbert J. Krapp, a well-known theatre designer who had been working directly with the Shubert brothers; the Broadhurst opened 27 September 1917...

1996 Bring in 'Da Noise, Bring in 'Da Funk Director, producer, lyrics, idea Ambassador Theatre
Ambassador Theatre
Ambassador Theatre can refer to:* Ambassador Theatre * Ambassador Theatre * Ambassador Theatre * Ambassadors Theatre...

1998 Golden Child
Golden Child (play)
Golden Child is an Obie Award-winning play by American playwright David Henry Hwang. Hwang's second Broadway play, it depicts a nineteenth century Chinese family being faced with Westernization. The play was developed Off-Broadway and premiered there on November 19, 1996 at the Joseph Papp Public...

Producer Longacre Theatre
Longacre Theatre
The Longacre Theatre is a Broadway theatre located at 220 West 48th Street in midtown Manhattan.-Theatre History:Designed by architect Henry Beaumont Herts in 1912, it was named for Longacre Square, the original name for Times Square...

1998 On the Town Director, producer George Gershwin Theatre
George Gershwin Theatre
The Gershwin Theatre is a Broadway theatre located at 222 West 51st Street in midtown-Manhattan in the Paramount Plaza building. The theatre is named after composer George Gershwin and lyricist Ira Gershwin...

2000 The Ride Down Mt. Morgan
The Ride Down Mt. Morgan
The Ride Down Mt. Morgan is a play by Arthur Miller.The play's central character is Lyman Felt, an insurance agent and bigamist who maintains families in New York City and Elmira in upstate New York...

Producer Ambassador Theatre
Ambassador Theatre
Ambassador Theatre can refer to:* Ambassador Theatre * Ambassador Theatre * Ambassador Theatre * Ambassadors Theatre...

2000 The Wild Party
The Wild Party (LaChiusa musical)
The Wild Party is a musical with a book by Michael John LaChiusa and George C. Wolfe and music and lyrics by LaChiusa. It is based on the 1928 Joseph Moncure March narrative poem of the same name...

Director, producer, writer (book) Virginia Theatre
2002 Elaine Stritch At Liberty Director, producer Neil Simon Theatre
Neil Simon Theatre
The Neil Simon Theatre, formerly the Alvin Theatre, is a Broadway venue built in 1927 and located at 250 West 52nd Street in midtown-Manhattan....

2002 Topdog / Underdog Director, producer Ambassador Theatre
Ambassador Theatre
Ambassador Theatre can refer to:* Ambassador Theatre * Ambassador Theatre * Ambassador Theatre * Ambassadors Theatre...

2003 Take Me Out Producer Walter Kerr Theatre
Walter Kerr Theatre
The Walter Kerr Theatre is a legitimate Broadway theatre. Located at 219 West 48th Street, it is owned and operated by Jujamcyn Theaters. One of the smaller auditoriums in the theatre district, it seats 975....

2004 Caroline, or Change
Caroline, or Change
Caroline, or Change is a through-composed musical with book and lyrics by Tony Kushner and score by Jeanine Tesori that combines spirituals, blues, Motown, classical music, and Jewish klezmer and folk music....

Director, producer Eugene O'Neill Theatre
Eugene O'Neill Theatre
The Eugene O'Neill Theatre is a Broadway theatre located at 230 West 49th Street in midtown-Manhattan.Designed by architect Herbert J. Krapp, it was built for the Shuberts as part of a theatre-hotel complex named for 19th century tragedian Edwin Forrest...

2006 Mother Courage and Her Children
Mother Courage and Her Children
Mother Courage and Her Children is a play written in 1939 by the German dramatist and poet Bertolt Brecht with significant contributions from Margarete Steffin...

Director Delacorte Theatre in Central Park
2011 The Normal Heart
The Normal Heart
The Normal Heart is a largely autobiographical play by Larry Kramer. It focuses on the rise of the HIV-AIDS crisis in New York City between 1981 and 1984, as seen through the eyes of writer/activist Ned Weeks, the gay Jewish-American founder of a prominent HIV advocacy group...

Director John Golden Theatre
John Golden Theatre
The John Golden Theatre is a Broadway theatre located at 252 West 45th Street in midtown-Manhattan. Designed in a Moorish style along with the adjacent Royale Theatre by architect Herbert J. Krapp for Irwin Chanin, it opened as the Theatre Masque on February 24 1927 with the play Puppets of Passion...


Filmography

Year Title Credit Role
1989 Trying Times (TV) Writer (1 episode)
1993 Fires in the Mirror
Fires in the Mirror
Fires in the Mirror is a play by American playwright, author, actress, and professor Anna Deavere Smith. It chronicles the viewpoints of people connected to the Crown Heights, Brooklyn, crisis of 1991.-Context:...

(TV)
Director
1994 Fresh Kill Actor Othello Yellow
2004 Garden State
Garden State (film)
Garden State is a 2004 comedy-drama film written by, directed by, and starring Zach Braff, with Natalie Portman, Peter Sarsgaard, and Sir Ian Holm. The film centers on Andrew Largeman , a 26-year-old actor/waiter who returns to his hometown in New Jersey after his mother dies...

Actor restaurant manager
2005 Lackawanna Blues
Lackawanna Blues
Lackawanna Blues is an American play written by Ruben Santiago-Hudson in 2001. It was later adapted as a television movie that aired in 2005. The play dramatizes the character of the author's primary caregiver when he was growing up in Lackawanna, New York, during the 1950s and 1960s.-Play:The...

(TV)
Director
2006 The Devil Wears Prada
The Devil Wears Prada (film)
The Devil Wears Prada is a 2006 comedy-drama film, a loose screen adaptation of Lauren Weisberger's 2003 novel of the same name. It stars Anne Hathaway as Andrea Sachs, a recent college graduate who goes to New York City and gets a job as a co-assistant to powerful and demanding fashion magazine...

Actor Paul
2008 Nights in Rodanthe
Nights in Rodanthe
Nights in Rodanthe is a 2008 American/Australian film adaptation of the novel with the same name by Nicholas Sparks. The film stars Richard Gere and Diane Lane in their third screen collaboration after Unfaithful and The Cotton Club . The film is rated PG-13 by the MPAA for "some sensuality" and...

Director
TBA The Hairball Director, writer

External links

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