Warren Leight
Warren Leight’s play, Side Man, won the 1999 Tony Award for Best Play. Side Man also won the 1998 Oppenheimer Award, the George & Elisabeth Marton Playwriting Award and was named a finalist for the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Following its 18-month run on Broadway, Side Man was presented at the John F. Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. The play has also been produced at the Guthrie, the Steppenwolf, the Galway Arts Festival, and London’s Apollo Theatre on the West End. The Steppenwolf production of Side Man, directed by Anna Shapiro, was a featured event at the Melbourne International Festival in October 2001.
Glimmer, Glimmer, and Shine, was first presented at the Williamstown Theatre Festival (as Glimmer Brothers) in July 1999 and received a second production at the Penguin Repertory Company in November 1999. In the fall of 2000 it was produced in Cincinnati by the Ensemble Theatre, where it received an American Theater Critics Association Nomination for Best New
Play. In January 2001, Evan Yionoulis directed a Los Angeles production of Glimmer, Glimmer and Shine at the Mark Taper Forum. This production opened off-Broadway at the Manhattan Theatre Club in May 2001.
Warren’s other plays include Stray Cats, a collection of monologues produced by All Seasons Theatre Group, and Five Bedrooms (formerly titled The Loop). The Loop was produced at the Harold Clurman Theatre and starred Calista Flockhart, Austin Pendleton, and Felicity Huffman. Warren also wrote the book to the musical Mayor, for which he received a Drama Desk Nomination (published by Samuel French); and co-wrote the book and lyrics to the High Heeled Women Cabaret Act, which won an Outer Circle Critics Award. Fame Takes A Holiday, co-written by Warren and based on the story of the High Heeled Women, opened at La Mama ETC in the fall of 2000. Warren’s one-acts have been performed at the EST Marathon, the Chicago Humanities Festival, the Atlantic Theatre Company, Naked Angels (member), Circle Rep, Alice’s Fourth Floor, and many other theaters.
Warren’s film work includes The Night We Never Met, starring Matthew Broderick and Annabella Sciorra, which Warren wrote and directed. He also wrote Me and Him, a romantic comedy starring Griffin Dunne, directed by Doris Dorrie. He co-wrote Before The Nickelodeon, a documentary about early American cinema that premiered at the New York Film Festival.
Warren’s one-act, The Final Interrogation of Ceaucesu’s Dog, was published in both the EST Marathon 2000 collection (Farrar, Straus & Giroux) and in Bomb magazine. His I Hate New York Guidebook (Dell) has also been published in England (Hodder and Stoughton) and Japan. From Here To Maternity, another humor book, was adapted into an HBO special.
Mr. Leight is the Vice-President of the Writers’ Guild of America East Council, and a member of the Dramatists’ Guild Council.
