Born in Brooklyn in 1954, Donald Margulies grew up in Trump
Village, a Coney Island housing project built by Donald Trump's
father. Margulies was exposed early to the theatre. His father,
a wallpaper salesman, played show tunes on the family hi-fi and,
despite a limited income, often took his children to Manhattan
to attend Broadway plays and musicals.
Margulies studied visual arts at the Pratt Institute before
transferring to State University of New York to pursue a degree
in playwriting. During the early 80s, he collaborated with Joseph
Papp, and his first Off-Broadway play, Found a Peanut,
was produced at the Public Theatre. In 1983, he moved with his
wife to New Haven, Connecticut, so that she could attend Yale
Medical School.
In 1992, Margulies' career really began to take off when Sight
Unseen won an Obie for Best New American Play. Some of his
other plays include The Loman Family Picnic; Pitching to the
Star; Zimmer; Luna Park; What's Wrong With This Picture?; The
Model Apartment; Broken Sleep; July 7, 1994, and The
God of Vengeance. Dinner With Friends--which tells the story
of a seemingly happy couple who re-examine their own relationship
when their best friends decide to divorce--won Margulies a 2000
Pulitzer Prize for Drama. He had previously been nominated for
a Pulitzer for Collected Stories, a play about a Jewish
writer who is betrayed by her young disciple.
Elected to the Dramatists Guild Council in 1993, Margulies
has received grants from Creative Artists Public Service (CAPS),
New York Foundation for the Arts, the National Endowment for
the Arts, and the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation. His plays
have premiered at Manhattan Theatre Club, South Coast Repertory,
The New York Shakespeare Festival and the Jewish Repertory Theatre.
He lives in New Haven, Connecticut, where he teaches playwriting
at the Yale School of Drama.
- Search eBay! for Donald Margulies collectibles
|