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38-562: Sidney Howard (1891-1939) was an American playwright and screenwriter. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1925 for his play They Knew What They Wanted , which was later adapted for the screen by the first Memorial Award winner, Robert Ardrey . In 1932 he was nominated for an Academy Award for his adaptation of the Sinclair Lewis novel Arrowsmith , and he was nominated again in 1936 for Dodsworth , which he had adapted for

76-517: A Mafia hit. Bennett's last lover was Gene Pruit. In 1986 both Pruit and friend Bob Herr lived with Bennett for the last eight months of his life in Tucson, Arizona , where he received care at the University of Arizona Medical Center. Bennett died from AIDS-related lymphoma at the age of 44. He left a portion of his estate to fund research to fight the pandemic. Bennett's memorial service took place at

114-922: A few months they separated and eventually divorced in 1979. In the late 1970s, Sabine Cassel, the then-wife of French actor Jean-Pierre Cassel left her family in Paris to live with Bennett in Manhattan, but the relationship soured. During his adult life, Bennett "took elaborate pains to ensure that the public never suspected he was gay. When he was diagnosed with AIDS in December 1985, (he) carefully disguised that fact as well". Bennett's addictions to alcohol and drugs, notably cocaine and quaaludes , severely affected his ability to work and affected many of his professional and personal relationships. His paranoia grew as his dependency did. Worried by his celebrity and his father's Italian background, he began to suspect he might fall victim to

152-626: A lifelong friend. In 1985, Bennett abandoned the nearly-completed musical Scandal , by writer Treva Silverman and songwriter Jimmy Webb , which had been developing for nearly five years through a series of workshop productions. The show was sexually daring, but the conservative climate and the growing AIDS panic made it unlikely commercial material. He was then signed to direct the West End production of Chess but had to withdraw in January 1986 due to his failing health, leaving Trevor Nunn to complete

190-400: A rehearsal studios complex for dance and theatre. In 1986, he was forced to sell it for $ 15 million due to stress-induced angina and the financial losses of the property. Two tenants purchased the building, and it remains a rehearsal facility for American Ballet Theatre , Eliot Feld 's Ballet Tech, Gibney Dance Company, and others. He always collaborated with his assistant Bob Avian, who was

228-533: A tractor. Books Atkinson called the event "A Broadway calamity." Following his tragic death his colleagues from the Playwrights' Company established the prize in his memory. Literary Prizes and their Winners gives the following description of the prize: In 1939 the five directors of the Playwrights' Company , Maxwell Anderson , S. N. Behrman , Elmer Rice , Robert E. Sherwood , and John F. Wharton , established

266-446: Is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes that are annually awarded for Letters, Drama , and Music . It is one of the original Pulitzers, for the program was inaugurated in 1917 with seven prizes, four of which were awarded that year. (No Drama prize was given, however, so that one was inaugurated in 1918, in a sense.) It recognizes a theatrical work staged in the U.S. during the preceding calendar year. Until 2007, eligibility for

304-483: Is the only person to have been named a finalist thrice without winning. Lin-Manuel Miranda and Jeanine Tesori are the only people to be named as a finalist twice for writing and composing a musical, with Miranda winning in 2016. Michael Bennett (theater) Michael Bennett (April 8, 1943 – July 2, 1987) was an American musical theatre director, writer, choreographer, and dancer. He won seven Tony Awards for his choreography and direction of Broadway shows and

342-816: The Tony Award for Best Play or the Tony Award for Best Musical Ten musicals have won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, roughly one per decade from the 1930s to the 2020s¹. They are: George and Ira Gershwin 's Of Thee I Sing (1932), Rodgers and Hammerstein 's South Pacific (1950), Bock & Harnick 's Fiorello! (1960), Frank Loesser 's How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (1962), Marvin Hamlisch , Edward Kleban , James Kirkwood, Jr. , and Nicholas Dante 's A Chorus Line (1976), Stephen Sondheim 's and James Lapine 's Sunday in

380-680: The Drama Prize ran from March 1 to March 2 to reflect the Broadway "season" rather than the calendar year that governed most other Pulitzer Prizes. The drama jury, which consists of one academic and four critics, attends plays in New York and in regional theaters. The Pulitzer board can overrule the jury's choice; in 1986 , the board's opposition to the jury's choice of the CIVIL warS resulted in no award being given. In 1955 Joseph Pulitzer, Jr. pressured

418-501: The Drama Pulitzer was awarded 91 times; none were given in 15 years and it was never split. The most recipients of the prize in one year was five, when Michael Bennett , James Kirkwood, Jr. , Nicholas Dante , Marvin Hamlisch , and Edward Kleban shared the 1976 prize for the musical A Chorus Line . † marks winners of the Tony Award for Best Play . * marks winners of the Tony Award for Best Musical . ≠ marks nominees of

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456-478: The Park with George (1985), Jonathan Larson 's Rent (1996), Brian Yorkey and Tom Kitt 's Next to Normal (2010), Lin-Manuel Miranda 's Hamilton (2016), and Michael R. Jackson 's A Strange Loop (2020). Though it did not win for Drama, Oklahoma! was awarded a special Pulitzer Prize in 1944. Of note, South Pacific won the 1950 Pulitzer for Drama but its source material, James Michener's Tales of

494-702: The Sidney Howard Memorial Award of $ 1500. The prize ... is given annually to a new American playwright who, with no previous noteworthy success in the theater, has shown talent through the production of one or more of his plays in New York. The award is not designed to honor the "best play of the season," but to give support to a promising playwright." The inaugural prize was awarded to Robert Ardrey for his play Thunder Rock , which had floundered on Broadway but went on to be an international classic. Pulitzer Prize for Drama The Pulitzer Prize for Drama

532-541: The South Pacific , also won the 1948 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Sunday in the Park with George and Next to Normal are the only musicals that won the Pulitzer Prize and did not also win the Tony Award for Best Musical ; the latter won the authors Tonys for Best Original Score and Best Orchestrations . Of Thee I Sing opened before the Tony Awards existed. The award goes to the playwright, although production of

570-505: The US and European tours of West Side Story . He gave himself a new last name when he pursued this life in the arts, taking inspiration from his high school. Bennett's career as a Broadway dancer began in the 1961 Betty Comden – Adolph Green – Jule Styne musical Subways Are for Sleeping , after which he appeared in Meredith Willson 's Here's Love and the short-lived Bajour . In

608-479: The cast, in Dreamgirls he has choreographed the set. Bennett's use of [the plexiglass towers that dominated the set] was revolutionary. The towers moved to create constantly changing perspectives and space, like an automated ballet. They energized the action, driving it forcefully along. It's why there were no set-piece dance routines in the show: dance and movement were organic to the entire action. But Bennett had made

646-399: The characters behind it. The song "One" from A Chorus Line functions in a different way. The various phases of construction/rehearsal of the number are shown, and because the show is about professional dancers, the last performance of the song-and-dance routine has all the gloss and polish expected of Broadway production values. Bennett's choreography also reveals the cost of the number to

684-572: The hit musical Promises, Promises on Broadway. With a contemporary pop score by Burt Bacharach and Hal David , a wisecracking book by Neil Simon and Bennett's well-received production numbers, including " Turkey Lurkey Time ", the show ran for 1,281 performances. Over the next few years, he earned praise for his work on the straight play Twigs with Sada Thompson and the musical Coco with Katharine Hepburn . These were followed by two Stephen Sondheim productions, Company and Follies , co-directed with Hal Prince . In 1973, Bennett

722-489: The many international companies of the musical demanded his full-time attention. Bennett would later become a creative consultant for the 1985 film version of the musical but left due to creative differences. He always sought creative control over his projects, but Hollywood producers were unwilling to give him the influence he demanded. There are some filmed records which testify to the show's initial power. Television talk-show host Phil Donahue devoted an entire program to

760-495: The mechanical set his dancers." Bennett was bisexual. In his younger days, Bennett had a relationship with Larry Fuller , a dancer, choreographer and director. He had a long professional and personal relationship with the virtuoso dancer Donna McKechnie , who danced his work in both Promises, Promises and Company and won the 1976 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical in the role he had created for her in A Chorus Line . They married on December 4, 1976, but after only

798-535: The mid-1960s he was a featured dancer on the NBC pop music series Hullabaloo , where he met fellow dancer Donna McKechnie . Bennett made his choreographic debut with A Joyful Noise (1966), which lasted only twelve performances, and in 1967 followed it with another failure, Henry, Sweet Henry (based on the Peter Sellers film The World of Henry Orient ). Success finally arrived in 1968, when he choreographed

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836-701: The musical in question opened in New York during either the preceding calendar year or the preceding Broadway season. The following individuals received two or more Pulitzer Prizes for Drama: The following individuals received two or more nominations: Lynn Nottage is the only female playwright to win the prize twice. She and August Wilson are the only playwrights of color to accomplish this feat. Jon Robin Baitz, Gina Gionfriddo, John Guare, A.R. Gurney, Richard Greenberg, Tina Howe, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Stephen Karam, Sarah Ruhl and Jeanine Tesori have each been named finalists twice without winning. David Henry Hwang

874-435: The original cast, during which they reminisce and recreate some of the musical numbers. The 2008 feature-length documentary Every Little Step chronicles the casting process of the musical's 2006 revival, with re-created choreography by Bennett's long-time associate Baayork Lee , and, in the course of the film, the saga of the original production is re-told as well, through the use of old film clips and revealing interviews from

912-488: The original collaborators, including Lee, Bob Avian (who was the show's original co-choreographer with Bennett and the director of the revival), composer Marvin Hamlisch and the original's leading lady, Donna McKechnie . Bennett's next musical was a project about late-life romance called Ballroom . Although financially unsuccessful, it garnered seven Tony Award nominations, and Bennett won one for Best Choreography. He admitted that any project that followed A Chorus Line

950-478: The people behind it. Bennett was influenced by the work of Jerome Robbins . "What Michael Bennett perceived early in Robbins' work was totality, all the sums of a given piece adding to a unified whole". In Dreamgirls , Bennett's musical staging was described as a "mesmerizing sense of movement": The most thrilling breakthrough of the extraordinary show is that whereas in A Chorus Line Michael Bennett choreographed

988-421: The play is also taken into account. In the case of a musical being awarded the prize, the composer, lyricist and book writer are generally the recipients. An exception to this was the first Pulitzer ever awarded to a musical: when Of Thee I Sing won in 1932, book authors George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind, as well as lyricist Ira Gershwin, were cited as the winners, while composer George Gershwin's contribution

1026-499: The prize jury into presenting the Prize to Cat on a Hot Tin Roof , which the jury considered the weakest of the five shortlisted nominees ("amateurishly constructed... from the stylistic points of view annoyingly pretentious"), instead of Clifford Odets ' The Flowering Peach (their preferred choice) or The Bad Seed , their second choice. Edward Albee 's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

1064-410: The production using Bennett's already commissioned sets. Unlike his more famous contemporary Bob Fosse , Bennett was not known for a particular choreographic style. Instead, Bennett's choreography was motivated by the form of the musical involved, or the distinct characters interpreted. In act 2 of Company , Bennett defied the usual choreographic expectations by deliberately taking the polish off

1102-510: The stage in 1934. In 1940 he was awarded a posthumous Academy Award for the screenplay for Gone with the Wind . During his career he wrote or adapted over seventy plays and eleven films. Sidney Howard was one of the founding members of the Playwrights' Company. Howard died in 1939 at the age of forty-eight. He was working on his farm in Massachusetts when he was accidentally crushed to death by

1140-408: The standard Broadway production number. The company stumbled through the steps of a hat and cane routine ("Side By Side") and thus revealed to the audience the physical limitations of the characters' singing and dancing. Bennett made the audience aware that this group had been flung together to perform, and that they were in over their heads. He intended the number to be not about the routine, but rather

1178-416: Was asked by producers Joseph Kipness and Larry Kasha to take over the ailing Cy Coleman – Dorothy Fields musical Seesaw . In replacing the director Ed Sherin and choreographer Grover Dale , he asked for absolute control over the production as director and choreographer and received credit as "having written, directed, and choreographed" the show. Bennett's next project was A Chorus Line . The musical

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1216-505: Was born Michael DiFiglia in Buffalo, New York , the son of Helen (née Ternoff), a secretary, and Salvatore Joseph DiFiglia, a factory worker. His father was Italian American and his mother was Jewish . He studied dance and choreography in his teens and staged a number of shows in his local high school - Bennett High School in Buffalo, NY - before dropping out to accept the role of Baby John in

1254-470: Was bound to be an anti-climax. Bennett had another hit in 1981 with Dreamgirls , a backstage epic about a girl group like The Supremes and the expropriation of black music by a white recording industry. In the early 1980s, Bennett worked on various projects, one of which was titled The Children's Crusade , based on a legendary story " Children's Crusade ", but none of them reached the stage. In 1978, he purchased 890 Broadway and converted it for use as

1292-532: Was first disclosed, five musicals have been finalists for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. They are: Lee Breuer and Bob Telson 's The Gospel at Colonus (1985); Lin-Manuel Miranda and Quiara Alegría Hudes ' In the Heights (2009); Jeanine Tesori and Lisa Kron 's Fun Home (2014); Taylor Mac 's A 24-Decade History of Popular Music (2017); and David Henry Hwang and Jeanine Tesori 's Soft Power (2020). ¹All listed dates are Prize years. Generally,

1330-449: Was formed out of twenty hours of taped sessions with Broadway dancers. Bennett was invited to the sessions originally as an observer but soon took charge. He co-choreographed and directed the production, which debuted in July 1975 off-Broadway . It won nine Tony Awards and the 1976 Pulitzer Prize for Drama . He later claimed that the worldwide success of A Chorus Line became a hindrance, as

1368-469: Was nominated for an additional eleven. Bennett choreographed Promises, Promises , Follies and Company . In 1976, he won the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical and the Tony Award for Best Choreography for the musical A Chorus Line . Bennett, under the aegis of producer Joseph Papp , created A Chorus Line based on a workshop process which he pioneered. He also directed and co-choreographed Dreamgirls with Michael Peters . Bennett

1406-461: Was overlooked by the committee. The reason given was that the Pulitzer Prize for Drama is a dramatic award, and not a musical one. However, by 1950 the Pulitzer committee included composer Richard Rodgers as a recipient when South Pacific won the award, in recognition of music as an integral and important part of the theatrical experience. Additionally, since 1983, when the identity of finalists

1444-421: Was selected for the 1963 Pulitzer Prize for Drama by that award's committee. However, the committee's selection was overruled by the award's advisory board, the trustees of Columbia University , because of the play's then-controversial use of profanity and sexual themes. Had Albee been awarded, he would be tied with Eugene O'Neill for the most Pulitzer Prizes for Drama (four). In its first 106 years to 2022,

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