John Pielmeier
Encyclopedia
John Pielmeier is an American
playwright
and screenwriter
.
Born in Altoona, Pennsylvania
, Pielmeier earned a Bachelor of Arts
degree from the Catholic University of America in 1970 and a Master of Fine Arts
degree from Pennsylvania State University
in 1978. He began his career as an actor
, working with such repertory companies
as Actors Theater of Louisville and the Guthrie Theater
.
In 1976, Pielmeier's first play, A Chosen Room, was produced in Minneapolis. Three years later, Agnes of God
was performed in a staged reading at the O'Neill National Playwrights' Conference in Waterford, Connecticut
and won the 1979 Great American Play Contest. A full production was mounted for the Humana Festival of New American Plays
at the Actors Theatre of Louisville in 1980, and the Broadway
production opened in March 1982 at the Music Box Theatre
, where it ran for 599 performances. His screenplay
for the 1985 screen adaptation
earned him a nomination for the Writers Guild of America Award
for Best Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium.
Pielmeier has written extensively for the stage, but his later work never achieved the success he experienced with Agnes of God. On Broadway, The Boys of Winter (1985) and Sleight of Hand (1987) both ran for 31 previews and 9 performances, and Voices in the Dark (1999) ran for 12 previews and 64 performances. Other plays include Courage, a one-man show about J. M. Barrie
that was filmed by Kentucky Educational Television
; Young Rube, a musical
based on the early years of cartoonist/inventor Rube Goldberg
; and Willi, a one-man show based on the speeches of mountaineer Willi Unsoeld, a member of the first American expedition to reach the summit of Mount Everest
.
In 1983, Pielmeier penned the television movie
Choices of the Heart, about murdered American missionaries
in El Salvador
, for which he received the Christopher Award
, the Humanitas Award, a Writers Guild of America nomination, and an honorary
Doctorate of Letters
from St. Edward's University
in Austin, Texas
. Additional television credits include The Shell Seekers
(1989), An Inconvenient Woman
(1991), Through the Eyes of a Killer
(1992), The Last P.O.W.? The Bobby Garwood
Story (1992), Flowers for Algernon
(2000), Sins of the Father
(2002), Hitler: The Rise of Evil
(2003), Sybil
(2007), The Capture of the Green River Killer
(2008), The Memory Keeper's Daughter
(2008) and The Pillars of the Earth
(2010).
Pielmeier has been married to poet/author Irene O'Garden since October 1982. The couple lives in Garrison, New York
.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
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 screenwriter
Screenwriter
Screenwriters or scriptwriters or scenario writers are people who write/create the short or feature-length screenplays from which mass media such as films, television programs, Comics or video games are based.-Profession:...
.
Born in Altoona, Pennsylvania
Altoona, Pennsylvania
-History:A major railroad town, Altoona was founded by the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1849 as the site for a shop complex. Altoona was incorporated as a borough on February 6, 1854, and as a city under legislation approved on April 3, 1867, and February 8, 1868...
, Pielmeier earned a Bachelor of Arts
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...
degree from the Catholic University of America in 1970 and a Master of Fine Arts
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...
degree from Pennsylvania State University
Pennsylvania State University
The Pennsylvania State University, commonly referred to as Penn State or PSU, is a public research university with campuses and facilities throughout the state of Pennsylvania, United States. Founded in 1855, the university has a threefold mission of teaching, research, and public service...
in 1978. He began his career as an actor
Actor
An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...
, working with such repertory companies
Repertory
Repertory or rep, also called stock in the United States, is a term used in Western theatre and opera.A repertory theatre can be a theatre in which a resident company presents works from a specified repertoire, usually in alternation or rotation...
as Actors Theater of Louisville and the Guthrie Theater
Guthrie Theater
The Guthrie Theater is a center for theater performance, production, education, and professional training in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is the result of the desire of Sir Tyrone Guthrie, Oliver Rea, and Peter Zeisler to create a resident acting company that would produce and perform the classics in...
.
In 1976, Pielmeier's first play, A Chosen Room, was produced in Minneapolis. Three years later, Agnes of God
Agnes of God
Agnes of God is a play by John Pielmeier which tells the story of a novice nun who gives birth and insists that the dead child was the result of a virgin conception. A psychiatrist and the mother superior of the convent clash during the resulting investigation...
was performed in a staged reading at the O'Neill National Playwrights' Conference in Waterford, Connecticut
Waterford, Connecticut
Waterford is a town in New London County, Connecticut, United States. It is named after Waterford, Ireland. The population was 19,152 at the 2000 census. The town center is listed as a census-designated place .-Geography:...
and won the 1979 Great American Play Contest. A full production was mounted for the Humana Festival of New American Plays
Humana Festival of New American Plays
Humana Festival of New American Plays is an internationally renowned festival that celebrates the contemporary American playwright. Produced annually in Louisville, Kentucky by Actors Theatre of Louisville, this prestigious event showcases new theatrical works and draws producers, critics,...
at the Actors Theatre of Louisville in 1980, and the 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...
production opened in March 1982 at the Music Box Theatre
Music Box Theatre
The Music Box Theater is a Broadway theatre located at 239 West 45th Street in midtown-Manhattan.The once most aptly named theater on Broadway, the intimate Music Box was designed by architect C. Howard Crane and constructed by composer Irving Berlin and producer Sam H. Harris specifically to...
, where it ran for 599 performances. His screenplay
Screenplay
A screenplay or script is a written work that is made especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated...
for the 1985 screen adaptation
Agnes of God (film)
Agnes of God is a 1985 American film starring Jane Fonda, Anne Bancroft and Meg Tilly. It was adapted by John Pielmeier from his own play of the same name, and directed by Norman Jewison. The film was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Actress in a Leading Role , Best Actress in a Supporting...
earned him a nomination for the Writers Guild of America Award
Writers Guild of America Award
The Writers Guild of America Award for outstanding achievements in film, television, and radio has been presented annually by the Writers Guild of America, East and Writers Guild of America, West since 1949...
for Best Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium.
Pielmeier has written extensively for the stage, but his later work never achieved the success he experienced with Agnes of God. On Broadway, The Boys of Winter (1985) and Sleight of Hand (1987) both ran for 31 previews and 9 performances, and Voices in the Dark (1999) ran for 12 previews and 64 performances. Other plays include Courage, a one-man show about J. M. Barrie
J. M. Barrie
Sir James Matthew Barrie, 1st Baronet, OM was a Scottish author and dramatist, best remembered today as the creator of Peter Pan. The child of a family of small-town weavers, he was educated in Scotland. He moved to London, where he developed a career as a novelist and playwright...
that was filmed by Kentucky Educational Television
Kentucky Educational Television
Kentucky Educational Television, also known as KET: The Kentucky Network, is Kentucky's non-commercial educational public television state network...
; Young Rube, a musical
Musical theatre
Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...
based on the early years of cartoonist/inventor Rube Goldberg
Rube Goldberg
Reuben Garrett Lucius Goldberg was an American cartoonist, sculptor, author, engineer and inventor.He is best known for a series of popular cartoons depicting complex gadgets that perform simple tasks in indirect, convoluted ways. These devices, now known as Rube Goldberg machines, are similar to...
; and Willi, a one-man show based on the speeches of mountaineer Willi Unsoeld, a member of the first American expedition to reach the summit of Mount Everest
Mount Everest
Mount Everest is the world's highest mountain, with a peak at above sea level. It is located in the Mahalangur section of the Himalayas. The international boundary runs across the precise summit point...
.
In 1983, Pielmeier penned the television movie
Television movie
A television film is a feature film that is a television program produced for and originally distributed by a television network, in contrast to...
Choices of the Heart, about murdered American missionaries
Missionary
A missionary is a member of a religious group sent into an area to do evangelism or ministries of service, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care and economic development. The word "mission" originates from 1598 when the Jesuits sent members abroad, derived from the Latin...
in El Salvador
El Salvador
El Salvador or simply Salvador is the smallest and the most densely populated country in Central America. The country's capital city and largest city is San Salvador; Santa Ana and San Miguel are also important cultural and commercial centers in the country and in all of Central America...
, for which he received the Christopher Award
Christopher Award
The Christopher Award is presented to the producers, directors, and writers of books, motion pictures and television specials that "affirm the highest values of the human spirit"...
, the Humanitas Award, a Writers Guild of America nomination, and an honorary
Honorary degree
An honorary degree or a degree honoris causa is an academic degree for which a university has waived the usual requirements, such as matriculation, residence, study, and the passing of examinations...
Doctorate of Letters
Doctor of Letters
Doctor of Letters is a university academic degree, often a higher doctorate which is frequently awarded as an honorary degree in recognition of outstanding scholarship or other merits.-Commonwealth:...
from St. Edward's University
St. Edward's University
St. Edward's University is a private Roman Catholic institution of higher learning located south of Lady Bird Lake in Austin, Texas. The university offers a liberal arts education and its campus is located on a hill overlooking the city of Austin. The campus's most notable landmark is Main...
in Austin, Texas
Austin, Texas
Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of :Texas and the seat of Travis County. Located in Central Texas on the eastern edge of the American Southwest, it is the fourth-largest city in Texas and the 14th most populous city in the United States. It was the third-fastest-growing large city in...
. Additional television credits include The Shell Seekers
The Shell Seekers
The Shell Seekers is a 1987 novel by Rosamunde Pilcher. It became one of her most famous best-sellers. It was nominated by the British public in 2003 as one of the top 100 novels in the BBC's Big Read...
(1989), An Inconvenient Woman
An Inconvenient Woman
An Inconvenient Woman is a 1990 novel by Dominick Dunne. Its plot centers on the affair between married Jules Mendelson, an extremely influential member of Los Angeles high society, and Flo March, a diner waitress and aspiring actress whose life is transformed by the illicit relationship until she...
(1991), Through the Eyes of a Killer
Through the Eyes of a Killer
Through the Eyes of a Killer is a 1992 thriller film starring Richard Dean Anderson and Marg Helgenberger.-Plot:A woman has a brief affair with the contractor who is renovating her apartment and he refuses to accept the end of the relationship.-Cast:...
(1992), The Last P.O.W.? The Bobby Garwood
Bobby Garwood
Robert Russell Garwood is a former Vietnam War prisoner of war. Garwood was a United States Marine Corps Private First Class when he was captured on September 28, 1965 at DaNang, in Quang Nam province during the Vietnam War...
Story (1992), Flowers for Algernon
Flowers for Algernon
Flowers for Algernon is a science fiction short story and subsequent novel written by Daniel Keyes. The short story, written in 1958 and first published in the April 1959 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, won the Hugo Award for Best Short Story in 1960...
(2000), Sins of the Father
Sins of the Father (film)
Sins of the Father is a 2002 American docudrama directed by Robert Dornhelm. The teleplay by John Pielmeier is based on a Texas Monthly article by Pamela Colloff chronicling the 1963 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama in which four young African American girls were killed...
(2002), Hitler: The Rise of Evil
Hitler: The Rise of Evil
Hitler: The Rise of Evil is a Canadian TV miniseries in two parts, directed by Christian Duguay and produced by Alliance Atlantis. It explores Adolf Hitler's rise and his early consolidation of power during the years after World War I and focuses on how the embittered, politically fragmented and...
(2003), Sybil
Sybil (2007 film)
Sybil is a 2007 American docudrama directed by Joseph Sargent. The teleplay by John Pielmeier is based on the 1973 book of the same name by Flora Rheta Schreiber, which fictionalized the story of Shirley Ardell Mason, who was diagnosed with multiple personality disorder...
(2007), The Capture of the Green River Killer
Gary Ridgway
Gary Leon Ridgway is an American serial killer known as the Green River Killer. He murdered numerous women in Washington during the 1980s and 1990s, earning his nickname when the first five victims were found in the Green River. He strangled them, usually with his arm but sometimes using ligatures...
(2008), The Memory Keeper's Daughter
The Memory Keeper's Daughter
The Memory Keeper's Daughter is a novel by American author Kim Edwards that tells the story of a man who gives away his newborn baby, who has Down syndrome to one of the nurses. Published by Viking Press in June 2005, the novel garnered great interest via word of mouth in the summer of 2006 and...
(2008) and The Pillars of the Earth
The Pillars of the Earth (TV miniseries)
The Pillars of the Earth is an eight part 2010 TV miniseries, adapted from Ken Follett's novel of the same name. It debuted in the U.S. on Starz and Canada on The Movie Network/Movie Central on July 23, 2010. Its UK premiere was on Channel 4 in October 2010 at 9pm...
(2010).
Pielmeier has been married to poet/author Irene O'Garden since October 1982. The couple lives in Garrison, New York
Garrison, New York
Garrison is a hamlet in Putnam County, New York, United States. It is part of the town of Philipstown and is on the east side of the Hudson River, across from the United States Military Academy at West Point...
.