Marsha Norman
Encyclopedia
Marsha Norman is an American
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...

, 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:...

, and novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....

ist. She received the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for Drama
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...

 for her play 'night, Mother
'night, Mother
'Night, Mother is a 1983 play by Marsha Norman about a daughter, Jessie, and her mother, Thelma . The play opens with Jessie calmly telling Mama that by morning she will be dead, as she plans to commit suicide that very evening...

. She wrote the book and lyrics
Lyrics
Lyrics are a set of words that make up a song. The writer of lyrics is a lyricist or lyrist. The meaning of lyrics can either be explicit or implicit. Some lyrics are abstract, almost unintelligible, and, in such cases, their explication emphasizes form, articulation, meter, and symmetry of...

 for such 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...

 musicals as The Secret Garden
The Secret Garden (musical)
The Secret Garden is a musical based on the 1911 novel of the same name by Frances Hodgson Burnett. The musical's book and lyrics are by Marsha Norman, with music by Lucy Simon...

, for which she won a Tony Award
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...

 and 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...

, and The Red Shoes
The Red Shoes (musical)
The Red Shoes is a musical with a book by Marsha Norman, lyrics by Norman and Bob Merrill and music by Jule Styne...

, as well as the libretto
Libretto
A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata, or musical. The term "libretto" is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as mass, requiem, and sacred cantata, or even the story line of a...

 for the musical The Color Purple
The Color Purple
The Color Purple is an acclaimed 1982 epistolary novel by American author Alice Walker. It received the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Award for Fiction...

.

Early years

Norman was born in Louisville, Kentucky
Louisville, Kentucky
Louisville is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kentucky, and the county seat of Jefferson County. Since 2003, the city's borders have been coterminous with those of the county because of a city-county merger. The city's population at the 2010 census was 741,096...

. As a child, she read, played the piano and had an imaginary friend named Bettering. She later began attending productions by the newly-founded Actor's Theatre of Louisville. After graduating from Agnes Scott College
Agnes Scott College
Agnes Scott College is a private undergraduate college in the United States. Agnes Scott's campus lies in downtown Decatur, Georgia, nestled inside the perimeter of the bustling metro-Atlanta area....

 with a degree in philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...

, she began working as a journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...

 for The Louisville Times
The Louisville Times
The Louisville Times was a newspaper that was published in Louisville, Kentucky. It was founded in 1884 as the afternoon counterpart to The Courier-Journal, the dominant morning newspaper in Louisville and the commonwealth of Kentucky for many years. The two newspapers published a combined edition ...

 newspaper, and writing for Kentucky Educational Television. She also taught young children and adolescents in mental institutions and hospitals. These were perhaps her biggest influence on her writing, especially a 13-year-old girl who influenced her play Getting Out. She also taught English at the J. Graham Brown School in Louisville.

Career

Norman wrote her first play Getting Out
Getting Out
Getting Out is a play by Marsha Norman.-Production history:Getting Out was presented by Lester Osterman, Lucille Lortel, and Marc Howard at the Theatre de Lys in New York City, on 15 May 1979. The cast was as follows:*Arlene - Susan Kingsley...

 which was produced at the Actors Theatre of Louisville. The play deals with a young woman just paroled after serving an eight-year prison sentence for robbery
Robbery
Robbery is the crime of taking or attempting to take something of value by force or threat of force or by putting the victim in fear. At common law, robbery is defined as taking the property of another, with the intent to permanently deprive the person of that property, by means of force or fear....

, kidnapping
Kidnapping
In criminal law, kidnapping is the taking away or transportation of a person against that person's will, usually to hold the person in false imprisonment, a confinement without legal authority...

 and manslaughter
Manslaughter
Manslaughter is a legal term for the killing of a human being, in a manner considered by law as less culpable than murder. The distinction between murder and manslaughter is said to have first been made by the Ancient Athenian lawmaker Dracon in the 7th century BC.The law generally differentiates...

, and reflects Norman's experience working with disturbed adolescents at Kentucky
Kentucky
The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state, more specifically in the East South Central region. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth...

's Central State Hospital.

Norman's success with Getting Out led her to move to New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 where she continued to write for the Actor's Theatre of Louisville and she produced a full length play, Circus Valentine in 1979. Her next play, 'night, Mother
'night, Mother
'Night, Mother is a 1983 play by Marsha Norman about a daughter, Jessie, and her mother, Thelma . The play opens with Jessie calmly telling Mama that by morning she will be dead, as she plans to commit suicide that very evening...

, would turn out to be her best-known work given its initial success on Broadway and the star-powered film version. night, Mother brought Norman a great deal of recognition. The play, dealing frankly with the subject of suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...

, won the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for Drama as well as the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize
Susan Smith Blackburn Prize
The Susan Smith Blackburn Prize established in 1978, is for English-language women playwrights. Named for Susan Smith, alumna of Smith College, who died of breast cancer.-Winners:* 1978-79 Mary O'Malley* 1979-80 Barbara Schneider...

, the Hull-Warriner, and the Drama Desk Award
Drama Desk Award
The Drama Desk Awards, which are given annually in a number of categories, are the only major New York theater honors for which productions on Broadway, Off-Broadway, Off-Off-Broadway compete against each other in the same category...

. However, her follow-up play Traveller in the Dark received scathing reviews from the New York critics, some of whom were as blunt to say that she could not have written the play! On account of such a hostile reception, Norman put off "serious" drama and applied her talents to musical theatre.

Norman wrote the book and lyrics for the musical version of the Frances Hodgeson Burnett novel The Secret Garden
The Secret Garden
The Secret Garden is a novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett. It was initially published in serial format starting in the autumn of 1910, and was first published in its entirety in 1911. It is now one of Burnett's most popular novels, and is considered to be a classic of English children's...

, and won the Tony Award
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...

 for Best Book in 1991. Her work in musical theatre continued with her writing the book and lyrics for the musical The Red Shoes. She also wrote the libretto
Libretto
A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata, or musical. The term "libretto" is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as mass, requiem, and sacred cantata, or even the story line of a...

 for the musical version of The Color Purple which opened in 2005.

Norman currently serves on the faculty of the Juilliard School
Juilliard School
The Juilliard School, located at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City, United States, is a performing arts conservatory which was established in 1905...

 in New York City, and is Vice-President of the Dramatists Guild of America
Dramatists Guild of America
The Dramatists Guild of America is a professional organization for playwrights, composers, and lyricists working in the U.S. theatre market.Membership as an Associate Member is open to any person having written at least one stage play. Active Members are playwrights who have had at least one play...

. She has written occasional screenplays for episodes of the HBO series In Treatment
In Treatment
In Treatment is an American HBO drama, produced and developed by Rodrigo Garcia, about a psychologist, 50-something Dr. Paul Weston, and his weekly sessions with patients, as well as those with his own therapist at the end of the week. The program, which stars Gabriel Byrne as Paul, debuted on...

. She will be honored at the 2011 William Inge Festival for Distinguished Achievement in the American Theatre.

External links

  • Marsha Norman Downstage Center XM radio interview at American Theatre Wing.org
    American Theatre Wing
    The American Theatre Wing is a New York City-based organization "dedicated to supporting excellence and education in theatre," according to its mission statement...

    , October 2006
  • The Playwright - Working in the Theatre seminar video at American Theatre Wing.org
    American Theatre Wing
    The American Theatre Wing is a New York City-based organization "dedicated to supporting excellence and education in theatre," according to its mission statement...

    , February 2006
  • The Playwright - Working in the Theatre seminar video at American Theatre Wing.org
    American Theatre Wing
    The American Theatre Wing is a New York City-based organization "dedicated to supporting excellence and education in theatre," according to its mission statement...

    , September 1985
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