Swados, Elizabeth 1951- (Elizabeth A. Swados, Liz Swados)

PERSONAL:

Born February 5, 1951, in Buffalo, NY; daughter of Robert Orville (a lawyer) and Sylvia (an actress and poet) Swados. Education: Bennington College, B.A., 1972. Religion: Jewish.

ADDRESSES:

Home—112 Waverly Pl., New York, NY 10011. Agent—Sam Cohn, International Creative Management Co., 40 W. 57th St., New York, NY 10019-4001.

CAREER:

Writer, novelist, composer, performer, screenwriter, and director. Peter Brooks's International Theatre Group, France, Africa, and United States, composer and music director, 1972-73; Columbia Broadcasting System, Inc., composer "Camera Three" shows, 1973-74; La Mama Experimental Theatre Club, New York, NY, composer-in-residence, 1977—. Member of faculty, Carnegie-Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, 1974, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY, 1976-77, Sarah Lawrence College, Bronxville, NY, 1976-77, and Bennington College, Bennington, VT. Performer at Mark Taper Forum, Los Angeles, CA, 1985, Jerusalem Oratorio, Rome, 1985, and Carnegie Hall.

MEMBER:

Broadcast Music, Inc., Actors Equity Association.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Obie Awards, Village Voice, 1972, for Medea, and 1977, for Nightclub Cantata; grants from Creative Artists Service Program, 1976, and for playwriting from New York State Arts Council, 1977—; Outer Critics Circle Award, 1977; Antoinette Perry (Tony) Award nominations for best musical, musical score, direction of a musical, choreography, and musical book, all 1978, all for Runaways; Special Pen Citation; Cine Award; Mira Award; Guggenheim Fellowship; Ford Fellowship; Covenant Foundation Grant. Recipient of honorary degree from Hobart/William Smith College.

WRITINGS:

The Girl with the Incredible Feeling (juvenile), Persea Books (New York, NY), 1976.

Runaways, Bantam (New York, NY), 1979.

Lullaby, Harper (New York, NY), 1980.

Sky Dance, Harper (New York, NY), 1980.

Leah and Lazar (novel), Summit Books (New York, NY), 1982.

Listening Out Loud: Becoming a Composer, Harper (New York, NY), 1988.

Inside Out: A Musical Adventure (juvenile), Little, Brown (Boston, MA), 1990.

The Four of Us: The Story of a Family (memoir), Farrar, Straus (New York, NY), 1991.

The Myth Man, Viking (New York, NY), 1994.

Flamboyant, Picador USA (New York, NY), 1998.

Dreamtective: The Dreamy and Daring Adventures of Cobra Kite, Kid Genesis (Columbus, MS) 1999.

Hey You! C'Mere!: A Poetry Slam (children's book), illustrated by Joe Cepeda, Arthur A. Levine Books (New York, NY), 2002.

(Author of music and lyrics) Jewish Girlz (libretto), S. French (New York, NY), 2005.

My Depression: A Picture Book, Hyperion (New York, NY), 2005.

The Animal Rescue Store (children's book), illustrated by Anne Wilson, Arthur A. Levine Books (New York, NY), 2005.

At Play: Teaching Teenagers Theater, Faber and Faber (New York, NY), 2006.

STAGE PRODUCTIONS

(Adapter, composer, director, and member of cast) Nightclub Cantata (revue), first produced Off-Broadway at Village Gate Theatre, January 9, 1977.

(Adapter, with Andrei Serban, and composer) Agamemnon (play; adapted from the work by Aeschylus), first produced in Lenox, MA, at Lenox Arts Theatre, 1976; produced on Broadway at Vivian Beaumont Theatre, May 18, 1977.

(Adapter, composer, and director) Wonderland in Concert, first produced Off-Broadway at New York Shakespeare Festival Newman Theatre, 1978.

(Author, composer, and director) Runaways (revue), first produced Off-Broadway at Public Theatre Cabaret, March 9, 1978, produced on Broadway at Plymouth Theatre, May 6, 1978.

(Adapter and composer) The Incredible Feeling Show (also see below; adapted from Swados's The Girl with the Incredible Feeling), first produced in New York, NY at First All Children's Theatre, 1979.

(Adapter, composer, and director) Dispatches (adapted from the work by Michael Herr), first produced at Public Theatre Cabaret, 1979.

Lullaby and Goodnight (opera), first produced at Public Theatre Cabaret, August, 1980.

(Adapter, composer, and director) Haggadah, first produced Off-Broadway at New York Shakespeare Festival Luester Theatre, 1980.

The Beautiful Lady (musical), 1984.

(And composer) Alice in Concert, S. French (New York, NY), 1987.

(And composer) The Red Sneaks, S. French, 1991.

COMPOSER

Medea (adapted from the work by Euripides; also see below), first produced Off-Broadway at La Mama Experimental Theatre, 1969.

Elektra (adapted from the work by Euripides; also see below), first produced at La Mama Experimental Theatre, 1970.

The Trojan Women (adapted from the work by Euripides; also see below), first produced at La Mama Experimental Theatre, 1974.

Fragments of a Trilogy (contains Medea, Elektra, and The Trojan Women), first produced at La Mama Experimental Theatre, 1974.

The Good Women of Setzuan (adapted from the work by Bertholt Brecht), first produced at La Mama Experimental Theatre, February, 1975.

The Cherry Orchard (adapted from the work by Anton Chekhov), first produced in New Haven, CT, at Yale Theatre, 1977.

As You Like It (adapted from the work by William Shakespeare), first produced at La Mama Experimental Theatre, 1979.

Doonesbury: A Musical Comedy (adapted from the comic strip by Garry Trudeau), Holt (New York, NY), 1984.

(And director) Swing, produced at Brooklyn Academy of Music, 1987.

(And composer and director) Jabu (two-act play), produced at the Flea Theater, 2005.

Composer of music for films Step by Step, 1978, and Sky Dance, 1979, and for television, including Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) short story series, 1979, A Year in the Life (miniseries), 1987, and various specials for Columbia Broadcasting System, Inc. (CBS-TV) and National Broadcasting Co., Inc. (NBC-TV). Composer of Rap Master Ronnie, 1986.

Contributor to periodicals, including Vogue, O, New York Times, and New York Times Magazine.

OTHER

The Girl with the Incredible Feeling (screenplay), Phoenix Films, 1977.

The Incredible Feeling Show (television script), Children's Television Workshop, 1979.

Also adapter of Works of Yehuda Amichi and Book of Jeremiah.

SIDELIGHTS:

The music of author, playwright, and musician Elizabeth Swados goes beyond conventional classification, combining elements of calypso, East Indian ragas, rock and roll, American Indian chants, ragtime, disco, Japanese theatre music, cabaret, and even birdcalls. Her first major success came with Nightclub Cantata, a theater revue based on text by major poets, including Sylvia Plath, Pablo Neruda, Isabella Leitner, Muriel Rukeyser, and Nazim Hikmet. It was, according to New York Times critic Clive Barnes, "the most original and perhaps the most pleasurable form of nightclub entertainment I have encountered."

Swados addressed the dichotomy of her work—major poets in informal cabaret settings—in an interview with Jean Ross for CA: "There's a feeling that one should either be extremely ‘cultural’ or one should be entertainment oriented," she told Ross. "I feel the two can be combined. I will not sway from that. I absolutely believe that's the way the Renaissance theater was and that's the way the Greek theater was too. It was both culturally oriented and entertainment oriented. I think we've gotten so specialized, and both areas have suffered by it. The cultural area has gotten too elite, and the entertainment business has gotten really tacky."

Swados is best known for her Broadway hit show Runaways. In it, actors ranging in age from early teens to early twenties deliver songs and soliloquies on such problems as growing up, child abuse, neglect, divorce, "making it" on the streets, and becoming a child prostitute. "With Runaways, Swados steps right into the front line of popular American theatrical composers," assessed Mel Gussow in the New York Times. Concluding that the show was a "triumph," Gussow added that it was "buoyant entertainment, filled with the bright colors, language, and vivacity of the street," but at the same time was "an eloquent and mature vision, a musical that touches our hearts."

In his review of Runaways, Gussow hailed the show as "a statement of power, brilliance, and honesty. Its impact lingers in the mind long after its music is forgotten. It shouts for the unhappy, and bruises with the bruised."

Swados herself had some qualms about the show. "I didn't know if I was putting on this show about exploiting children by exploiting children," she told Ross. "I didn't know if I was saying people use children to work out their own problems by using children to work out my own problems. But … the reason I chose to do it was that the situation of family life in the United States, and the situation of the child in family life, is at a desperate low. If there was a possibility to relay to parents and children in some way—whether it was to infuriate them, to delight them, to at least engage them, even to bore them—some way to get that across, I felt that it was worth the possible compromising of these nineteen kids." Swados explained to Ross that "I have a very strong, almost spiritual belief that as a human being I have a responsibility to my fellow human beings on this earth, particularly to the children of this earth, to interpret and work out this world, to understand it better, to fight for a higher quality of living…. It's more than having been given talent, which one should be incredibly grateful for, but I was given a real sense of mission almost."

Family life also plays an important role in some of Swados's other works. In the novel Leah and Lazar and the memoir The Four of Us: The Story of a Family, she explores the circumstances of her own childhood—the alcoholism and depression that drove her mother to commit suicide, and her brother's descent into madness. "By seeking not to apportion blame or justify mistakes but to understand," wrote Ellin Stein in the New York Times Book Review, "Ms. Swados has created an unsparing yet compassionate picture of the particular way in which this unhappy family was unhappy."

Swados herself suffers from the effects of depression, and in My Depression: A Picture Book, she attacks the problem in a manner designed to summarize it, simplify it, and successfully overcome it. She looks at the reasons one might sink into depression, from rejection to loss to missed opportunities. She notes the course her depression takes as it intensifies and itemizes in detail the symptoms and repercussions, from insulting her friends to simply not having the energy or desire to even get out of bed. She clarifies the harsh and abject emotional lows that can result, and how the depression is intensified by added feelings of fear, self-hatred, and anxiety. Yet the book is also hopeful, as Swados describes in detail the sometimes small but effective steps she uses to wend her way out of the darkness and quell the depression when it comes. Swados's "candid, seemingly simple tale conveys a wealth of helpful information and dispels the gloom a bit" with insight and humor, observed Donna Seaman in Booklist. A reviewer in O, The Oprah Magazine called Swados's examination of depression a "funny, funky, oddly reassuring book."

Hey You! C'Mere!: A Poetry Slam is an upbeat collection of free-verse poems with a rap sensibility in which seven city neighborhood kids express their thoughts, perceptions, and feelings about everyday experiences. Throughout the sixteen poems, the seven multiracial kids consider their friendships, the dread of a neighborhood bully, the ways in which adults communicate on the telephone, fear of the unknown, making up for a mistake, the fleeting joy of summer, and more. The poems display "bounce and pop and innocence, and would perform well for a group in readers' theater or on stage," commented a Kirkus Reviews critic. Swados stresses the presence of poetry in the everyday, exuberantly encouraging young people to find the poetry in their friends, their play, in everything they do. The author's "theatrical flair and storytelling skills are evident in this collection," remarked School Library Journal reviewer Nina Lindsay. Lynda Jones, writing in Black Issues Book Review, called the book a "rich, powerful and moving poetry slam that parents will enjoy as much as their kids."

Kind-hearted Sidney is the owner of the titular The Animal Rescue Store, a place where he assembles a diverse collection of unwanted animals and works diligently to find homes for them. The poems in the book, a combination of rhyming and free-verse works, introduce the various occupants of Sidney's store, from a street-toughened tomcat to a pompous llama to a slow-moving lobster. Unconventional animals such as tarantulas and buzzards mix with the more traditional cats, dogs, and guinea pigs as children come in to see the menagerie and select new pets. Determined that none of his store's residents will go homeless, Sidney closes up each day, saying "Goodnight my / Vagabond zoo. / I will find a home / For every single / One of you." A Publishers Weekly contributor expressed confidence that "kids will enthusiastically welcome this colorful cast of critters into their homes." The entire collection of poems "begs to be read aloud in dramatic voices or acted out as a class play," observed a Kirkus Reviews contributor. Donna Seaman, writing in Booklist, stated that "collectively [Swados's poems] tell an amusing and sometimes moving tale."

Swados is dedicated to the mission of educating up-and-coming generations of theatrical performers. In At Play: Teaching Teenagers Theater, she addresses many of the fundamental aspects of theatre in a style designed to appeal to teenagers and young adults. She includes more than 400 exercises constructed to take young hopefuls through the basics of theatercraft, covering topics such as voice, characterization, movement, writing, space and time, music, choreography, and improvisation. Swados stresses mastery of material and establishing a connection between performer, material, and audience. She also offers tips for directors seeking to avoid seeming overbearing or micromanaging. Tips for managing crises that invariably arise on opening night can help performers and directors avoid panic. Looking ahead, Swados also addresses longer-term mentorship and guidance for promising students. Her techniques encourage students to be active participants in "every aspect of a dramatic production," observed a reviewer in Reference & Research Book News. Library Journal reviewer Barry X. Miller concluded that At Play "will certainly become a seminal theatrical text."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Contemporary Literary Criticism, Volume 12, Thomson Gale (Detroit, MI), 1980.

Swados, Elizabeth, The Four of Us: The Story of a Family, Farrar, Straus (New York, NY), 1991.

Swados, Elizabeth, The Animal Rescue Store, Arthur A. Levine Books (New York, NY), 2005.

PERIODICALS

Black Issues Book Review, March-April, 2002, Lynda Jones, review of Hey You! C'mere: A Poetry Slam, p. 69.

Booklist, March 15, 2005, Donna Seaman, review of My Depression: A Picture Book, p. 1258.

Kirkus Reviews, February 1, 2002, review of Hey You! C'mere, p. 190; March 1, 2005, review of The Animal Rescue Store, p. 296.

Library Journal, June 1, 2006, Barry X. Miller, review of At Play: Teaching Teenagers Theater, p. 120.

Library Media Connection, August-September, 2005, Carl A. Harvey II, review of The Animal Rescue Store, p. 92.

New York Times, January 10, 1977, Clive Barnes, "Art Is a Cabaret at Top of the Gate in Fine, Unique Nightclub Cantata, p. 29; March 10, 1978, Mel Gussow, "Inspired Runaways; Whither Youth?," review of Runaways, p. C3.

New York Times Book Review, April 26, 1981, Harold H.K. Rice, review of Sky Dance, p. 71; May 9, 1982, Annie Gottleib, review of Leah and Lazer, p. 10; January 22, 1989, Michael Kimmelman, review of Listening Out Loud, p. 10; September 24, 1989, review of Listening Out Loud, p. 60; February 23, 1992, Ellin Stein, review of The Four of Us, p. 17; April 25, 1993, review of The Four of Us, p. 32.

O, The Oprah Magazine, April, 2005, "Going Down?," review of My Depression, p. 160.

Publishers Weekly, February 18, 2002, review of Hey You! C'mere, p. 97; April 4, 2005, review of The Animal Rescue Store, p. 58.

Reference & Research Book News, November, 2006, review of At Play.

School Library Journal, April, 2002, Nina Lindsay, review of Hey You! C'mere, p. 141; March, 2005, Be Astengo, review of The Animal Rescue Store, p. 203.

Variety, March 14, 2005, Marilyn Stasio, theater review of Jabu, p. 54.

ONLINE

Elizabeth Swados Home Page,http://www.lizswados.com (December 10, 2006).