Plays
About
Lee Blessing’s play A WALK IN THE WOODS was produced on Broadway and London’s West End. His Off-Broadway productions include A BODY OF WATER, Primary Stages; GOING TO ST. IVES, Primary Stages (Outer Critic’s Circle Award, Best Play, Obie for ensemble performance); THIEF RIVER, Signature Theatre (Drama Desk nomination, Best Play); COBB, Lucille Lortel Theatre (Drama Desk award, best ensemble); CHESAPEAKE, New York Stage and Film at Second Stage; ELEEMOSYNARY, Manhattan Theatre Company, and DOWN THE ROAD, the Weissberger Group at the Atlantic Theatre. The Signature Theatre dedicated its 1992-93 season to his work, consisting of FORTINBRAS, LAKE STREET EXTENSION, TWO ROOMS, and the world premiere of PATIENT A. Recent world and regional premieres of his work include an adaptation of Thornton Wilder’s HEAVEN’S MY DESTINATION which had its world premiere at the Cleveland Play House in Spring 2009, GREAT FALLS in the 2008 Humana New Play Festival of the Actors Theatre of Louisville, A BODY OF WATER at the Guthrie Theater and the Old Globe Theatre, LONESOME HOLLOW, FLAG DAY, and WHORES at the Contemporary American Theatre Festival, THE SCOTTISH PLAY at La Jolla Playhouse, BLACK SHEEP at Florida Stage, and THE WINNING STREAK at George Street Playhouse. Other plays include INDEPENDENCE, RICHES, OLDTIMERS GAME, NICE PEOPLE DANCING TO GOOD COUNTRY MUSIC, and PERILOUS NIGHT. Productions of Blessing’s plays have earned awards such as The American Theater Critics Circle Award, the L.A. Drama Critics Award, The Great American Play Award, The Humanitas Award, and the George and Elisabeth Marton Award, among others. He has received nominations for Tony and Olivier awards, as well as the Pulitzer Prize. Blessing is married to playwright and TV writer Melanie Marnich and lives in New York. He heads the graduate playwriting program at Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University.