This article was originally published in the September 29th issue of the TheatreZine e-mail newsletter. To subscribe (for free), enter your e-mail address in the form on the right side of this page.
Chicago director David Cromer is among twenty-three individuals who were named as recipients of the MacArthur Fellows Program (otherwise known as the MacArthur “Genius” Grant). According to the MacArthur Foundation, Cromer is “reinvigorating classic American plays and illuminating their relationship to the present.”
The award has a monetary value of $500,000, paid out over five years. The MacArthur Foundation explains that the awards aren’t given as rewards for past accomplishments, but instead are “an investment in a person’s originality, insight, and potential” and the purpose of the program is “to enable recipients to exercise their own creative instincts for the benefit of human society.” Recipients are allowed to use the money for whatever they choose, from new projects to living expenses. Cromer has spoken of the opportunity the award will give him to return to his roots in small, experimental Chicago theatres.
Cromer began his theatrical work in Chicago, directing popular productions of A Streetcar Named Desire and William Inge’s Picnic. His great skill at interpretation and directing soon led to the short-lived Broadway production of Brighton Beach Memoirs and the recent Off-Broadway Our Town, which began life in Chicago. He is set to direct Nicole Kidman in Tennessee Williams’ Sweet Bird of Youth next fall, and has his name attached to virtually every planned remounting of classic American plays.
Links
A profile of Cromer at the MacArthur Foundation’s site, with a video interview.
The complete list of recipients.
Additional Reading
2008 New York Times profile of Cromer by Charles Isherwood.
