Don Cummings
Cummings in 2019
Cummings in 2019
BornBronxville, New York, US
Alma mater
GenrePlays, Films, Memoir
SpouseAdam Waring

Don Cummings is an American playwright, author, actor, and composer.

Early life and education

Don Cummings was born in Bronxville, New York, and raised in Suffern. After graduating from Tufts University, where he wrote his first play, he took the two-year program of the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre in New York.[1][2]

Career

As an actor, Cummings made recurring appearances from 1998 to 2001 on the television series Dharma & Greg as a waiter.[3] His other TV appearances include Mad About You, Lucky, Still Standing, and Half & Half. In film, he had the lead role in the Houston Film Festival winner The Appointment, directed by Todd Wade, and also appeared in Noho, directed by David Schrader. His stage appearances, on both coasts and in regional theaters, includie Macbeth in Macbeth, Mr. Bungee in A New Brain, Berenger in Exit the King, Ray in Lone Star, and The Man in Alan Ball's Power Lunch. His one-man show American Air was presented at Theater/Theatre,[4] The HBO Workspace, and The Powerhouse Theatre in Los Angeles, and in part at Soho Repertory Theatre and Ensemble Studio Theatre in New York under the title What Do Men Live By?

Cummings' one-act play Piss Play is About Minorities so It’s Really Important was presented as part of the New York Cringe Festival 2009,[5] where it received the Golden Pineapple for best play. His The Winner, also one act, was produced at West Coast Ensemble and was a finalist for the Heideman Award at Actors Theatre of Louisville; His Live Work Space opened in Los Angeles in 2010.[2]

The Fat of the Land was presented in New York City in 2006 in Ensemble Studio Theatre's Octoberfest directed by Billy Hopkins, featuring Henry Wolfe Gummer, and in Los Angeles by The New Theatre at The Theatre District. It was a finalist for the Kaufman & Hart Prize for New American Comedy awarded by Arkansas Repertory Theatre, and Dan Alemshah received The L.A. Ovation Award for best featured actor in a play for the role of Claudia Vestibule.[6] A Good Smoke, originally produced by The Production Company in Los Angeles, was a semifinalist for the Eugene O'Neill theater conference. It received a reading in 2009 at The Public Theater in New York starring Meryl Streep, Henry Wolfe Gummer, Grace Gummer, Joe Paulik, John Rothman and Debra Monk, directed by Pam MacKinnon,[7][8] and was optioned for Broadway. Hannah Prichard and Christopher Reiling received Stage Scene LA awards for their performances in Cummings' The Water Tribe in its first performance in Los Angeles in January–February 2020.[9][10]

Cummings wrote the screenplay for Box, a short film starring Marsha Dietlein Bennett, Lou Liberatore, Dylan Chalfy, Andreas Damm, and Mink Stole that was an official selection in 2013 at The Dam Short Film Festival,[11] the New Film Makers New York Festival, the Twin Rivers Media Festival, and The Toronto Independent film festival. It was picked up for distribution by TVShortsInternational.

As a composer and musician, Cummings was musical director for the 2002 revival of Frank Galati's The Grapes of Wrath at West Coast Ensemble,[12] which received the LA Weekly Award for Best Revival Production. He composed and performed the music for I'm Really Different (Now)! with Karen Kilgariff in Los Angeles.

Personal life

Cummings is married to Adam Waring; they live in Los Angeles.[1] His 2019 memoir, Bent But Not Broken, deals with his experience of Peyronie's disease.[13][14][15][16]

Works

Plays

  • The Water Tribe
  • A Good Smoke
  • The Fat Of The Land
  • The Winner (one act)
  • Piss Play Is About Minorities, So It's Really Important (one act)
  • American Air (one-man show)
  • Stark Raving Mad
  • Feed The Children!
  • Solid Joints
  • Live Work Space
  • Exempt
  • The Horse Latitudes
  • Don't Touch the Orangutan

Film scripts

  • Box (short, 2013)[11]

Books

Bent But Not Broken, Heliotrope Books, 2019[15][16][17]


References

  1. 1 2 Mastrogiovanni, Heidi (January 1, 2020). "A Conversation With Playwright/Writer/Actor Don Cummings". Better Lemons (interview). Retrieved October 2, 2022.
  2. 1 2 Wood, Jeff (Winter 2011). "A Conversation With Don Cummings". The Coachella Review. Archived from the original on February 5, 2011.
  3. ↑ "Celebrity: Don Cummings". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved October 2, 2022.
  4. ↑ Collins, Scott (February 6, 1996). "Inspired Presentation Helps, Lack of Focus Hurts, in 'Air'". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved October 2, 2022.
  5. ↑ Sierra, Gabrielle (June 24, 2009). "Int'l Cringe Fest Hosts Your Money Or Your Art Benefit 7/24, Awards Golden Pineapples". Broadway World. Retrieved October 2, 2022.
  6. ↑ Cummings, Don (Winter 2011). "The Fat of the Land". The Coachella Review (excerpt). Archived from the original on March 6, 2019.
  7. ↑ Gans, Andrew (May 19, 2009). "Meryl Streep, Debra Monk and More Set for Reading of A Good Smoke". Playbill. Archived from the original on October 9, 2012.
  8. ↑ Schulman, Michael (August 24, 2009). "Mamma Mia - Meryl Streep's family of actors". The New Yorker. Retrieved October 2, 2022.
  9. ↑ Stanley, Steven (January 25, 2020). "The Water Tribe". Stage Scene LA. Retrieved October 2, 2022.
  10. ↑ "Scenies 2019–2020". Stage Scene LA. August 18, 2020. Retrieved October 2, 2022.
  11. 1 2 Bell, Josh (February 13, 2013). "Josh Bell's favorites from this year's Dam Short Film Festival". Las Vegas Weekly. Retrieved October 2, 2022.
  12. ↑ Nichols, David C. (October 4, 2002). "'Grapes of Wrath' Looks Into the Faces of Poverty". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved October 2, 2022.
  13. ↑ Cummings, Don (Fall 2019). "A Body of Work: The Tour". Rain Taxi. Retrieved October 2, 2022.
  14. ↑ Cummings, Don (April 30, 2019). "Book Passage: Don Cummings // The Body, the Self, a Book". Cagibi. Retrieved October 2, 2022.
  15. 1 2 Brody, Jane E. (February 11, 2019). "A New Treatment for a Painful Penis Curvature". The New York Times. Retrieved October 2, 2022.
  16. 1 2 Mastrogiovanni, Heidi (2019). "Bent But Not Broken, Don Cummings". New York Journal of Books. Retrieved October 2, 2022.
  17. ↑ "Bent But Not Broken by Don Cummings: A blunt medical account that explores surprising terrain". Kirkus Reviews. March 21, 2019. Retrieved October 2, 2022.
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