Murray Mednick (born 1939) is an American playwright and poet. He is best known as founder of the Padua Hills Playwrights Workshop/Festival, where he served as artistic director from 1978 to 1995. He has received numerous awards for his plays, including two Rockefeller Grants and an OBIE.

Life and career

Born in 1939 to a family with Jewish roots, Mednick attended Brooklyn College and became involved with New York's off-off-Broadway company

Theatre Genesis Theatre Genesis was an off-off-Broadway theater founded in 1964 by Ralph Cook. Located in the historic St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery in the East Village of Manhattan, it produced the work of new American playwrights, including Lanford Wilson, ...

, where much of his early work was staged. He was eventually appointed to the post of artistic co-director in 1970. In 1974, Mednick moved to Los Angeles after being evicted from his apartment while on a trip to the Yucatán on a Guggenheim grant. Mednick founded the long-running summer workshop Padua Hills Playwrights Workshop/Festival in 1978 with funding from LaVerne University, where he was teaching at the time. The workshop was meant to be an extension of his collaborations with Ralph Cook, his mentor and founder of Theatre Genesis. In his teachings at Padua, Mednick stressed a strong grounding in theater and literary history, specifically the

Ancient Greeks Ancient Greece ( el, Ἑλλάς, Hellás) was a northeastern Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of classical antiquity ( AD 600), that comprised a loose collection of cult ...

Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's natio ...

, and Beckett. Language was especially important. In a 2001 interview, Mednick said that Padua's teaching was "based in a literary knowledge, with a seriousness of purpose that isn't necessarily commercial. Both the writing and the acting are like realism-plus. Ordinary exchanges of life are put in an occasion that heightens them. The dialogue is really the action; it has a life of its own. The story is reflected by the dialogue." Notable participants in the Workshop/Festival included

Maria Irene Fornes Maria may refer to: People * Mary, mother of Jesus * Maria (given name), a popular given name in many languages Place names Extraterrestrial * 170 Maria, a Main belt S-type asteroid discovered in 1877 * Lunar maria (plural of ''mare''), large, ...

Sam Shepard Samuel Shepard Rogers III (November 5, 1943 – July 27, 2017) was an American actor, playwright, author, screenwriter, and director whose career spanned half a century. He won 10 Obie Awards for writing and directing, the most by any write ...

, John Steppling, John O'Keefe, Jon Robin Baitz and Kelly Stuart". Padua ceased operation in 1995 and reemerged in 2001, premiering three Mednick works as part of a tribute series honoring influential local playwrights. Mednick has been mentioned as influencing other playwrights, including

Eduardo Machado Eduardo Oscar Machado (born June 11, 1953) is a Cuban playwright living in the United States. Notable plays by Machado include ''Broken Eggs'', '' Havana is Waiting'' and ''The Cook''. Many of his plays are autobiographical or deal with Cuba in ...

, and

David Scott Milton David Scott Milton (September 15, 1934 – January 13, 2020) was an American author, playwright, screenwriter, and actor. His plays are known for their theatricality, wild humor, and poetic realism, while his novels and films are darker and more ...

. Murray Mednick met Sam Sheppard in 1965, they went on to start a band called "The Heavy Metal Kid." Murray Mednick directed

's play ''Action'' starring

Patti Smith Patricia Lee Smith (born December 30, 1946) is an American singer, songwriter, poet, painter and author who became an influential component of the New York City punk rock movement with her 1975 debut album ''Horses''. Called the "punk poet ...

. Mednick and Sheppard were a part of the Off- Off broadway movement in NY.

Works

Mednick's current productions include ''

Mayakovsky Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky (, ; rus, Влади́мир Влади́мирович Маяко́вский, , vlɐˈdʲimʲɪr vlɐˈdʲimʲɪrəvʲɪtɕ məjɪˈkofskʲɪj, Ru-Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky.ogg, links=y; – 14 Apr ...

and

Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretar ...

'', which premiered in Los Angeles starting in October 2018, and will move to the

Cherry Lane Theatre The Cherry Lane Theatre is the oldest continuously running off-Broadway theater in New York City. The theater is located at 38 Commerce Street between Barrow and Bedford Streets in the West Village neighborhood of Greenwich Village, Manhattan, ...

in New York, 201

''The Gary Plays'' (8 separate works/ premiered in Los Angeles 201

'' François Villon, Villon (''premiered in Los Angeles, 2014). Past productions include; Scar (starring actor

Ed Harris Edward Allen Harris (born November 28, 1950) is an American actor and filmmaker. His performances in ''Apollo 13'' (1995), '' The Truman Show'' (1998), '' Pollock'' (2000), and '' The Hours'' (2002) earned him critical acclaim and Academy Award ...

), an autobiographical series ''16 Routines'', ''Joe and Betty'' (concerning his parents' difficult marriage, starring John Diehl and Annabel Gurwitch, which performed in New York starting in June 2002), and ''Mrs. Feuerstein,'' ''as'' well as ''Sand'', ''The Hawk'', Fedunn (produced by the Audrey Skirball-Kenis theatre), ''The Coyote Cycle'', a series of one-act plays performed outdoors from twilight till dawn, involving four characters such as

Spider Grandmother Spider Grandmother ( Hopi ''Kokyangwuti'', Navajo ''Na'ashjé'ii Asdzáá'') is an important figure in the mythology, oral traditions and folklore of many Native American cultures, especially in the Southwestern United States. Southwest Ho ...

drawn from traditional Native American folklore. The Coyote character was also featured in ''Destruction of the Fourth World'', part of the 2009 series performed by Padua Playwrights. His published plays include ''VILLON and other plays (2016)'', ''Hipsters in Distress'' (2005), ''Three Plays (2003), The Coyote Cycle (1993),'' by Padua Hills Press. His play ''Switchback'' was published in 1997 by (Sun and Moon Press). Anthologized plays include ''Freeze'', ''The Deer Kill'', ''Willie the Germ'', ''The Hawk'', ''Sand'', ''Switchback'', ''Taxes'', and others.

Awards and recognition

Mednick is the recipient of two Rockefeller Foundation grants, a Guggenheim Fellowship, an OBIE (''The Deer Kill''), several Bay Area Critics Awards, two ''LA Weekly'' Playwriting Awards (for ''Dictator'' and'' Fedunn''), the American Theater Critics Association/Steinberg New Play Citation (for ''Joe and Betty''), an Ovation Lifetime Achievement Award from Theatre LA for outstanding contributions to Los Angeles Theatre, a Local Hero Garland Award from Back Stage West for a Distinguished Body of Work, a Career Achievement Award from the ''LA Weekly'', and the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle’s most prestigious honor, the Margaret Harford Award for “Sustained Excellence in Theater.”

References

External links

Awards information noted on Barnes & Noble synopsis of Three Plays

IMDB

More biographical details from official site for A Girl on a Bed

New Works By Murray Mednick
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Lortel Archives The Internet Off-Broadway Database (IOBDB), also formerly known as the Lortel Archives, is an online database that catalogues theatre productions shown off-Broadway. The IOBDB was funded and developed by the non-profit Lucille Lortel Foundatio ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mednick, Murray Living people 1939 births Brooklyn College alumni