Mary Zimmerman

Mary Zimmerman
Occupation	Theatre director, playwright

Mary Zimmerman is an American theatre director and playwright, born in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Career

Zimmerman is a member of the Lookingglass Theatre Company and is an Artistic Associate of the Goodman Theatre in Chicago, Illinois. She received her BS, MA and PhD from Northwestern University, where she is currently a faculty member in the Performance Studies department. She has earned national and international recognition in the form of numerous awards, including the prestigious John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Fellowship (1998). She has won more than 20 Joseph Jefferson Awards for her creative work and received a 2002 Tony Award for Best Direction for Metamorphoses. Other productions include Eleven Rooms of Proust and The Secret In The Wings.

In 2004 she directed a production of Pericles, Prince of Tyre at the Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, D.C. Her production was re-staged in 2006 at the Shakespeare Theatre Company Free For All. The following year, Zimmerman directed another Shakespeare play, Cymbeline, at Northwestern University.^[1]

Zimmerman has directed several theatrical adaptations of literary works in addition to Metamorphoses, including Journey to the West, The Odyssey, Silk, The Arabian Nights (1994), and The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (2003). In 2006 she directed a version of the Greek story of Jason and the Argonauts' search for the Golden Fleece, Argonautika, at the Lookinglass, and then toured it at the Berkeley Repertory Theater in 2007 and at the Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, D.C. in 2008.^[2][3]

She has also worked in the opera world. She is the director and co-librettist of the 2002 opera Galileo Galilei, music by Philip Glass, commissioned by the Goodman Theatre. In 2007, Zimmerman directed the first of a series of new productions for the Metropolitan Opera. She was engaged to stage a new production of Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor starring Natalie Dessay, which opened the company's 2007-2008 season. The production received mixed reviews, but was a success at the box office.^[4] Zimmerman's Lucia was revived in 2008-2009 with Diana Damrau and Anna Netrebko as Lucia. It was broadcast worldwide in the Met's Live in HD series with Netrebko and tenor Piotr Beczała.

In March, 2009 the Met premiered Zimmerman's production of Vincenzo Bellini's La Sonnambula (starring Dessay and Juan Diego Flórez). The production, which moved the opera's setting to a contemporary rehearsal hall, received mixed-to-negative reviews in the press.^[5] It was also presented in the Live in HD series. For the company's 2009-2010 season Zimmerman directed a new production of Gioachino Rossini's opera seria Armida starring Renée Fleming .^[6]

References

1. ^ "'Cymbeline'" theatreinchicago.com, accessed February 7, 2011
2. ^ Hernandez, Ernio.Zimmerman's Argonautika Makes West Coast Debut at Berkeley Rep Nov. 2 playbill.com, November 2, 2007
3. ^ "Zimmerman on 'Argonautika'" shakespearetheatrecompany, accessed February 7, 2011
4. ^ Tommasini, Anthony (2007-09-26). "A Grand Opening at the Opera". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/26/arts/music/26lucia.html?fta=y. Retrieved 2010-05-12. 
5. ^ Tommasini, Anthony (2009-03-04). "Lovelorn Sleepwalker, Caught Between Rehearsal and Reality". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/04/arts/music/04sonn.html. Retrieved 2010-05-12. 
6. ^ http://www.metoperafamily.org/metopera/season/production.aspx?id=10450

• Staff writers (2002). "Biography: Mary Zimmerman". American Theatre Wing. http://www.americantheatrewing.org/biography/detail/mary_zimmerman. Retrieved 2008-05-28. 

External links

• Mary Zimmerman at the Internet Broadway Database
• Internet Off-Broadway Database listing, Mary Zimmerman
• Mary Zimmerman at the Internet Movie Database
• Works by or about Mary Zimmerman in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Mary Zimmerman collected news and commentary at The New York Times

Persondata
Name	Zimmerman, Mary
Alternative names
Short description	American theatre director and playwright
Date of birth
Place of birth
Date of death
Place of death