Nicky Silver is an American playwright. Formerly of Philadelphia, he resides in London. Many of his plays have been produced off-Broadway, and also at the Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company in Washington, D.C.

Biography

Early life

Silver was born in 1960 in Philadelphia and as teen, attended Stagedoor Manor Performing Arts Training Center in upstate New York. He graduated from the New York University (NYU) Tisch School of the Arts.[1]

Career

Many of his early plays were originally produced off-off-Broadway at the Vortex Theatre in New York. Later, his plays premiered at Off-Broadway venues such as the Vineyard Theatre and Playwrights Horizons. Silver noted: "My first real break came when the artistic director of the Woolly Mammoth Theatre in Washington, D.C. happened to walk in and saw, 'Fat Man in Skirts.'"[1] Several of his plays received premieres at the Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company in Washington, DC, including Fat Men in Skirts (1991), Free Will and Wanton Lust (January 1993)[2] and The Food Chain (1993-94 season).[3] In her review of Fat Men in Skirts at Woolly Mammoth Theatre for The Washington Post, Lloyd Rose wrote: "Silver is a modern American absurdist in the tradition of John Guare or Harry Kondoleon, but more of a lowbrow. His go-for-the-laugh instincts are as naked as any sitcom writer's. The dizzying, rather wonderful thing about "Fat Men in Skirts" is that such a shallow technique is made to serve such a deep and anguished vision. Silver never met a pain he couldn't laugh at."[4]

Pterodactyls was produced Off-Broadway at the Vineyard Theatre in October 1993. Ben Brantley wrote in his New York Times review: "His grimly witty play 'Pterodactyls' recycles all the cliches of the unraveling all-American family and scales them up to the point that they become poignantly grotesque symbols of a species on the verge of extinction... staged with firecracker snap by David Warren and illuminated by several incandescent performances, 'Pterodactyls' offers, for its first three-quarters, as much antic fizz as any comedy in town."[5] Pterodactyls gained additional recognition in the media because the play was produced with large dinosaurs by sculptor Jim Gary in its sets. Raised in Captivity was produced at the Vineyard Theater in March 1995. Ben Brantley wrote in his New York Times review: "The roads to alienation, as modern literature can testify, are many and varied. But they have seldom been mapped out with the fearless combination of comic artifice and heart-wrenching empathy that Mr. Silver brings to them. 'Raised in Captivity' is about guilt, redemption and self-punishment, and against all odds, it is also very funny."[6]

His plays Pterodactyls and Raised in Captivity received back-to-back Drama Desk Award nominations for Outstanding Play in 1994 and 1995, respectively.

His play The Food Chain ran Off-Broadway at the Westside Theatre in August 1995 to June 1996, (initially produced at the Woolly Mammoth Theatre) with direction by Robert Falls and a cast that featured Hope Davis, Patrick Fabian and Phyllis Newman. Ben Brantley in his New York Times review wrote: "In 'The Food Chain,' Nicky Silver's toxic, fractured tale of sex, loneliness and the importance of being thin, the pursuit of love is an even more convoluted process than usual. It's hard, after all, to forge a relationship when all you can really hear is the sound of your own voice. For the poisonously funny, image-obsessed Manhattanites in the play, all the world's a mirror. It's no accident that much of this breathless comedy of neuroses at the Westside Theater is made up of monologues, even though there are nearly always at least two people onstage."[7] The play was nominated for the Outer Critics Circle Award as Outstanding Off-Broadway Play, and won the Obie Award, Performance for Tom McGowan.[8]

Silver wrote the new book for the Broadway revival of the Rodgers and Hart musical, The Boys from Syracuse, produced by the Roundabout Theater Company in 2002.[9]

The Lyons, opened on Broadway in April 2012, after an Off-Broadway run at the Vineyard Theater in 2011. It was his first play to be produced on Broadway. The play starred Linda Lavin and Dick Latessa.[10]

His play Too Much Sun premiered Off-Broadway at the Vineyard Theatre on May 1, 2014 in previews, officially on May 18, with direction by Mark Brokaw and starring Linda Lavin and Jennifer Westfeldt.[11]

This Day Forward premiered Off-Broadway on November 21, 2016 at the Vineyard Theatre. The play, a comedy, is directed by Mark Brokaw and features Holley Fain and Michael Crane.[12]

Original plays (select)

  • Fat Men in Skirts 1989 (Vortex Theatre); 1991 (Woolly Mammoth)
  • Pterodactyls - 1993
  • Free Will and Wanton Lust - 1993[13]
  • Raised in Captivity - 1995[14]
  • The Food Chain - 1995
  • Fit to be Tied - 1996
  • The Maiden's Prayer - 1998
  • The Eros Trilogy, consisting of Claire, Philip and Roger and Miriam - 1999[15]
  • The Altruists - 2000[16]
  • Beautiful Child - 2004
  • The Agony and the Agony - 2006[17]
  • Three Changes - 2008[18]
  • The Lyons - 2011
  • Too Much Sun - 2014
  • This Day Forward – 2016

Critical analysis

In the preface to his interview with Silver, David Savran locates Silver's work in the tradition of dark farce created by gay playwrights such as Oscar Wilde, Joe Orton, and Christopher Durang.[19] Theatre scholar Jordan Schildcrout has noted the recurring theme of the prodigal son in Silver's plays, and sees Todd in Pterodactyls as a symbolic figure who challenges and subverts homophobic stereotypes used to vilify gay men during the AIDS crisis.[20]

Awards and honors

  • 1994 - Pterodactyls - nominated for Outstanding Play, Drama Desk Awards
  • 1995 - Raised in Captivity - nominated for Outstanding Play, Drama Desk Awards
  • 2012 - The Lyons - nominated for Outstanding New Broadway Play; Mark Brokaw (Outstanding Director of a Play); and Linda Lavin (Outstanding Actress in a Play), Outer Critics Circle Award[21]

References

  1. 1 2 Horwitz, Simi. "Face to Face : Nicky Silver Answers - "The Maiden's Prayer'" backstage.com, March 13, 1998
  2. ↑ Rose, Lloyd. "Theater;'Free Will's' Flip Sides;Frenetic Pain and Mirth At Woolly Mammoth", The Washington Post, January 19, 1993
  3. ↑ "Wooly Mammoth History" Archived 2013-07-03 at the Wayback Machine woollymammoth.net, accessed April 5, 2012
  4. ↑ Rose, Lloyd. " 'Fat Men': Big Laughs, Politely Spoken", The Washington Post, June 17, 1991, Style, p. C1
  5. ↑ Brantley, Ben. "Review/Theater: Pterodactyls; Mining the Humor From the Decline of a Class" The New York Times, October 21, 1993
  6. ↑ Brantley, Ben. "Theater Review. RAISED IN CAPTIVITY; Alienation, AIDS and Murder, But Keeping a Sense of Humor" The New York Times, March 1, 1995
  7. ↑ Brantley, Ben. "Theater Review. Love as a Comical Fugue Of Thin, Lonely Voices" The New York Times, August 25, 1995
  8. ↑ " The Food Chain, Westside Theatre" Archived 2012-10-16 at the Wayback Machine Internet Off-Broadway Database listing, accessed April 6, 2012
  9. ↑ Brantley, Ben. "Theater Review. No Sobs, No Sorrows, No Sighs" The New York Times, August 19, 2001
  10. ↑ Jones, Kenneth. " 'The Lyons', Led By Linda Lavin and Dick Latessa, Set Up Their Den on Broadway" Archived 2012-04-06 at the Wayback Machine playbill.com, April 5, 2012
  11. ↑ Purcell, Carey. " 'Too Much Sun', Reuniting Linda Lavin With Nicky Silver, Opens Off-Broadway" playbill.com, May 18, 2014
  12. ↑ Clement, Olivia. " 'This Day Forward' Opens at The Vineyard Tonight" Playbill, November 21, 2016
  13. ↑ Rose, Lloyd. "Flip Sides; Frenetic Pain and Mirth At Woolly Mammoth" The Washington Post, reprint in hbmonsters.blogspot.com, January 19, 1993
  14. ↑ Meeks, Christopher. Raised in Captivity Variety, October 23, 1995
  15. ↑ Brantley, Ben. "Giving Mom A Break (Sort of) In a Star Turn" The New York Times, February 9, 1999
  16. ↑ Sommer, Elyse. "A CurtainUp Review 'The Altruists'" Curtainup.com, March 2, 2000
  17. ↑ Hernandez, Ernio. "Nicky Silver Explores 'The Agony and the Agony' in New Play Beginning Dec. 8" playbill.com, December 8, 2006
  18. ↑ Gans, Andrew and Jones, Kenneth. "Nicky Silver's 'Three Changes' Extends Run; Hopper to Join Cast" playbill.com, September 5, 2008
  19. ↑ Savran, David. The Playwright’s Voice: American Dramatists on Memory, Writing and the Politics of Culture. New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1999.
  20. ↑ Schildcrout, Jordan. "No Tragedy: Queer Evil in the Metaphysical Comedies of Nicky Silver" We Will Be Citizens: New Essays on Gay and Lesbian Drama, ed. James Fisher, Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 2008, ISBN 978-0-7864-3418-3, pp 90ff
  21. ↑ Gans, Andrew. "62nd Annual Outer Critics Circle Award Nominations Announced; 'Nice Work' Receives Nine Nods" Archived 2012-04-26 at the Wayback Machine playbill.com, April 23, 2012
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