Summary
''The finest American playwright of his generation' (Sunday Times) Glen Garry Glen Ross (also made in to a film starring Jack Lemmon and Al Pacino) 'his superb play about real estate salesmen in a cut-throat sales competition' (New Society); in Prairie du Chien a railway carriage speeding through the Wisconsin night is the setting for a violent story of obsessive jealousy, murder and suicide, told within shooting distance of a card-hustler and his victim. 'A short poignant study in violence and the twin drives of love and money, told with hypnotic power through a travelling raconteur' (City Limits); The Shawl shows a clairvoyant wondering whether to cheat a bereaved woman of her inheritance and 'confirms Mamet's place as about the best living writer of vivid American dialogue' (Daily Telegraph). Set in the cut-throat world of Hollywood, Speed-the-Plow sees two old-time movie collaborators manipulate the aspirations of a young woman who will do anything to attain her dream of success a brilliant black comedy, a 'dazzling dissection of Hollywood cupidity'. (Newsweek)''
David Mamet, November 30, 1947 - David Mamet was born on November 30, 1947 in Flossmoor, Illinois. He attended Goddard College in Vermont and the Neighborhood Playhouse School of Theater in New York. He began his career as an actor and a director, but soon turned to playwriting.
He won acclaim in 1976 with three Off-Broadway plays, "The Duck Variations," "Sexual Perversity in Chicago" and "American Buffalo." His work became known for it's strong male characters and the description of the decline of morality in the world. In 1984, Mamet received the Pulitzer Prize in Literature for his play, "Glengarry Glen Ross."
In 1981, before he received the Pulitzer, Mamet tried his hand at screenwriting. he started by adapting "The Postman Always Rings Twice," and then adapting his own "Glengarry Glen Ross" as well as writing "The Untouchables" and Wag the Dog." He also taught at Goddard College, Yale Drama School and New York University.
Mamet won the Jefferson Award in 1974, the Obie Award in 1976 and 1983, the New York Drama Critics Circle Award in 1977 and 1984, the Outer Circle Award in 1978, the Society of West End Theater Award in 1983, The Pulitzer Prize in 1984, The Dramatists Guild Hall-Warriner Award in 1984, and American Academy Award in 1986 and a Tony Award in 1987. He is considered to be one of the greatest artists in his field.
(Bowker Author Biography)
