Susan Yankowitz

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Susan Yankowitz (born February 20, 1941, in Newark, New Jersey) is an American dramatist and novelist who has created works on mortality, violence against women, and the Jonestown Massacre.[1][2]

Personal life

Yankowitz gave birth to a son, Gabriel, in 1983.

Career

Yankowitz completed her undergraduate degree at

Yale School of Drama.[3] She subsequently submitted a play to Joseph Chaikin and The Open Theater.[4]

In 1968, Chaiken invited her to attend workshops at which The Open Theater was developing a performance piece on the topic of mortality.

AIDS epidemic.[4]

Based upon her success with The Open Theater, Yankowitz was recognized as a collaborative playwright, and she worked with various other theatrical troupes in that capacity. However, she found that none of these collaborations had the depth of her experience with The Open Theater. As a result, she began writing her first novel, Silent Witness and declined an opportunity to collaborate with Peter Brooks in order to complete it.[4]

According to Yankowitz, she has increasingly had difficulty in having her plays produced because she writes in an expressionistic style, rather than a naturalistic style.

Jonestown massacre ('Slain In The Spirit), and aphasia (Night Sky
).

In 2007, Yankowitz collaborated with six other women playwrights, including

Thumbprint tells the story of Mai.[4]

According to Yankowitz, the "topsy-turvy" world of a playwright is best illustrated by her aborted efforts to collaborate on the book for the 1983 Broadway musical Baby.[4] Yankowitz and her co-writer had a dispute about certain language proposed to be used in the script.[4] Since they were both represented by the same agent, they agreed to have the agent mediate the dispute.[4] The dispute was resolved by Yankowitz withdrawing but being accorded with the billing “based upon a story developed with Susan Yankowitz.”[4] She was also accorded .5% royalty.[4] Yankowitz has reported that she has earned more money from that small royalty than she has earned from all of the royalties from her other plays combined.[4]

In 2016, Yankowitz completed the last play that she will ever write: The Crazy But True Tragical-Farcical Trial of Madame P, A Theatrical Bestiary Inspired by Trials of the Middle Ages wherein a Pig and Various 4-Legged and Winged Creatures Are Prosecuted for Theft, Murder, Bestiality and Diverse Crimes against Humankind.[4] The play explores the trial of a 200-pound sow, who has devoured a baby, and is narrated by the sow's defense attorney.[4] The play has not yet been produced.[4]

Yankowitz's papers are held in the Kent State University Special Collections.[4] The papers cover Yankowitz's full career, and she submits additional items to the collection biannually.[4]

Awards

Joseph E. Levine Fellowship in Screenwriting[3]

Drama Desk Award for most promising playwright 1970

Massachusetts Circle Award for best play 2016 for Night Sky

Selected plays

(the dates are those of production and/or publication)

  • Rats’ Alley
  • That Old Rock-a-Bye
  • The Ha-Ha Play
  • The Lamb
  • Terminal (1970)
  • Slaughterhouse Play (1971)
  • Wooden Nickels (1973)
  • Boxes (later revised as *A Z Boxes) (1973)
  • True Romances (1977) musical with music by Elmer Bernstein
  • A Knife in the Heart (1982)
  • Alarms (1986)
  • Night Sky (1991)
  • Real Life (1993)
  • Under The Skin (1996)
  • 1969 Terminal 1996 (1996)
  • Phaedra In Delirium (1998)
  • Cheri (2000) an opera with music by Michael Dellaira
  • Slain In The Heart musical with music by Taj Mahal
  • Seven (2008) the segment on Muhkjar Mai
  • Night Sky (revised) (2009)
  • Thumbprint (2014) an opera with music by Kamala Sankaram
  • Gun published in The Methuen Drama Anthology of American Playwrights 1970-2020 (2020) Wesley Brown & Aimee K. Michel, editors, Bloomsbury Publishing
  • The Crazy But True Tragical-Farcical Trial of Madame P.

Other literary works

  • Silent Witness, novel about a deafmute, 1976

References

  1. ^ Encyclopedia of American Drama Third Edition. Biographical entry page 1677-1678
  2. ^ Columbia Encyclopedia of Modern Drama
  3. ^ a b William M. Hoffman, editor, New American Plays, volume 4 (1971) A Mermaid Drama Book / Hill & Wang, p.3.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s The Primary Stages Off-Broadway Oral History Project (“Oral History Project"), https://primarystagesoffcenter.org/interviews/u-z/susan-yankowitz.html, October 10, 2017 interview with Susan Yankowitz, accessed 25 April 2024.
  5. ^ Otis L. Guernsey, Jr. The Best Plays of 1969 – 1970 (1970) Dodd, Mead & Company, pp. 369-70.
  6. ^ Otis L. Guernsey, Jr. The Best Plays of 1969 – 1970 (1970) Dodd, Mead & Company, pp. 405-406.
  7. ^ susanyankowitz.com, accessed April 24, 2020.
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