Kaufman, Moises

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KAUFMAN, Moises

PERSONAL: Born in Venezuela.

ADDRESSES: Offıce—Tectonic Theater Project, 204 West 84th Street, New York, NY 10024. E-mail— [email protected].

CAREER: Tectonic Theater Project, New York, NY, founder, artistic director; 42nd Street Collective, directing teacher. Director of plays, including Women in Beckett, In the Winter of Cities, The Nest, and Marlowe's Eyes.

MEMBER: Thespis.

AWARDS, HONORS: Lucille Lortel Award for Best Play, Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Off-Broadway Play, Garland Award for Best Play, Carbonell Award for Best Play, Circle Award for Direction, Bay Area Theater Critics, GLAAD Media Award for New York Theater, and Joe A. Callaway Award for Direction, Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers, all for Gross Indecency; Artist of the Year, Casa del Artista, 1999; Guggenheim fellowship in playwriting, 2002.

WRITINGS:

Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde, Vintage Books (New York, NY), 1998.

The Laramie Project, Vintage Books (New York, NY), 2001.

ADAPTATIONS: The Laramie Project was adapted for film for HBO.

SIDELIGHTS: Moises Kaufman is a playwright, director, and founder of the Tectonic Theater Project. In his first published book, Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde, Kaufman tells the story of well-known British playwright Oscar Wilde's trials, resulting from his homosexuality. In 1895 Wilde was arrested, went through three trials, and was imprisoned for two years for what was called the gross indecency of sodomy. When he was released from prison he was shunned by many in his community and died shortly after. Time contributor Richard Zoglin called the book "A surprise success." Gross Indecency "rivals the best work of the season," observed Greg Evans in a Variety review.

The Laramie Project, a play by Kaufman that was later adapted as an Home Box Office (HBO) film, is set in Laramie, Wyoming. It is an reenactment of interviews Kaufman and the members of Tectonic Theater Project conducted with the people of Laramie a month after twenty-one-year-old gay student Matthew Shepard was murdered in 1998 by two local men. Hollywood Reporter contributor Kirk Honeycutt concluded, "The Laramie Project achieves an intimacy that is heartfelt and deeply unsettling." Backstage.com contributor Victor Gluck called The Laramie Project "the most ambitious and powerful new American play of the past year."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

periodicals

Advocate, March 3, 1998, Luis Alfaro, "Oscar in America," p. 62; August 14, 2001, "Moises Kaufman," p. 81.

American Theatre, November, 1997, Jesse McKinley, "As Far as He Could Go," p. 24.

Back Stage, September 30, 1994, Dan Isaac, review of The Nest, p. 44; March 3, 2000, Sandra C. Dillard, "Denver," p. 44; June 2, 2000, Victor Gluck, review of The Laramie Project, p. 56; February 2, 2001, Sandra C. Dillard, "Denver," p. 49.

Back Stage West, June 14, 2001, Jean Schiffman, "Audience Rating," p. 6; August 16, 2001, Charlene Baldridge, review of The Laramie Project, p. 16.

Booklist, September 1, 2001, Jack Helbig, review of The Laramie Project, p. 43.

Daily Variety, January 14, 2002, Dennis Harvey, review of The Laramie Project, p. 13; March 11, 2002, Bill Higgins, Lily Oei, "High Drama from HBO," p. 35.

Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide, fall, 2000, Allen Ellenzweig, "Current Event Theater," p. 64.

Hollywood Reporter, January 14, 2002, Kirk Honeycutt, review of The Laramie Project, p. 20; March 14, 2002, "Moises Kaufman Has Signed with ICMW," p. 24.

Lambda Book Report, January, 2002, Krandall Kraus, "Reality TV Comes to the Stage," p. 23.

Library Journal, September 1, 2001, Howard Miller, review of The Laramie Project, p. 179.

Nation, July 28, 1997, Laurie Stone, review of Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde, p. 34.

New Leader, June 2, 1997, Stefan Kanfer, review of Gross Indecency, p. 22.

New Republic, July 7, 1997, Robert Brustein, review of Gross Indecency, p. 28; June 19, 2000, Robert Brustein, "On Theater—The Staged Documentary," p. 29.

New York Times, November 22, 1991, Mel Gussow, "Listen to the Women of Beckett," p. C17.

School Library Journal, November, 2001, Emily Lloyd, review of The Laramie Project, p. 194.

Time, June 16, 1997, Richard Zoglin, review of Gross Indecency, p. 75.

Variety, June 9, 1997, Greg Evans, review of Gross Indecency, p. 88; May 22, 2000, Charles Isherwood, review of The Laramie Project, p. 37; January 14, 2002, Dennis Harvey, review of The Laramie Project, p. 49.