Marshall W. Mason: Difference between revisions

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Best known for his historic collaboration of over 40 years with playwright '''Lanford Wilson''', he directed more than 60 productions of Mr. Wilson's plays, including the original productions of ''Balm in Gilead'' (1965), ''The HOT L BALTIMORE'' (1973), ''The Mound Builders'' (1975), ''Fifth of July'' (1978), ''Talley's Folly'' (1979), ''Talley & Son''(1981), ''A Poster of the Cosmos''/''The Moonshot Tape'' (1994), ''Sympathetic Magic'' (1997), and the New York premieres of ''Serenading Louie'' (1976) and ''Book of Days'' (2002). Mr. Mason's work off-Broadway received five Obie Awards for Best Director (''The HOT L BALTIMORE'', the New York premiere of Tennessee Williams' ''Battle of Angels'', ''The Mound Builders, Serenading Louie,'' Jules Feiffer's ''Knock Knock'') and a 6th Obie for Sustained Achievement. Other notable off-Broadway work includes the original productions of Edward J. Moore's ''The Sea Horse'', William Mastrosimone's ''Sunshine'', Larry Kramer's ''The Destiny of Me'', William Hoffman's ''As Is'', and Robert Patrick's ''The Haunted Host''.

Mr. Mason has directed internationally from London (''Home Free!'' and ''The Madness of Lady Bright'') to Tokyo (''Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?'') and throughout the United States at theaters such as the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles, the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, the Steppenwolf Theater in Chicago, the Arena Stage and Ford’s Theater in Washington, D.C., Hartford Stage Company, the Pittsburgh Public Theater, the Repertory Theater of St. Louis, the Cincinnati Playhouse, the Milwaukee Rep, the South Coast Rep in California and the Arizona Theater Company.

Mr. Mason is the recipient of the Margo Jones Award, the Theater World Award, the Shubert Foundation Award, the Last Frontier Award, the Inge Festival Award and the Piscator Award, all in recognition of his lifetime achievements. His regional theater work earned him threefour AriZoni Awards and three DramaLogue Awards as Best Director. While he was the chief drama critic for the weekly newspaper New Times, he won an Arizona Press Club Award for distinguished writing. His four television films (''The Mound Builders, Kennedy's Children, The Fifth of July'', and ''Picnic'') for Showtime and PBS received two Ace Cable Award nominations for Best Film. He is past president of the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers, a national labor union.

Mr. Mason was born in Amarillo, Texas on February 24, 1940. He's a graduate of Northwestern University (1961), where he directed his first production ''Cat on a Hot Tin Roof'' at the age of 19. He is Professor Emeritus of Theater at Arizona State University, where he taught for eleven years, and was honored with ASU’s 2001 Creative Activity Award.

. In 1999, Mr. Mason received a special millennium “Mr. Abbott Award” as one of the most innovative and influential directors of the 20th Century. He is the author of '''''Creating Life On Stage: A Director's Approach to Working with Actors''''' (Heinemann Press). He divides his time between his homes in Mazatlán, México and New York City.