THE DIFFICULTY OF CROSSING A FIELDTHE DIFFICULTY OF CROSSING A FIELD

Mac Wellman is an experimental playwright, author, and poet. His work is known for an exacting attention to language and he often creates site-specific, politically pointed plays.

Prior to receiving his 2003 Grants to Artists award, Wellman authored many plays, including Starluster (1979), The Self-Begotten (1982), The Bad Infinity (1985), Harm's Way (1985), The Nain Rouge (1986), Cleveland (1986), Cellophane (1988), Bad enny (1989), Crowbar (1990), Sincerity Forever (1990), 7 Blowjobs (1991), The Land of Fog and Whistles (1993), The Sandalwood Box (1994), I Don't Know Who He Was and I Don't Know What He Said (1998), Jennie Richie (2000), Bitter Bierce (2002), and the opera The Difficulty of Crossing a Field (2002) with composer David Lang.

With support from his 2003 FCPA grant, Wellman worked on October Surprise (2004), School for Devils (2004), and The Invention of Tragedy (2005). His subsequent plays include 1965 UU (2008) for performer Paul Lazar, and directed by Stephen Mellor at the Chocolate Factory; 3 2's; or AFAR (2011) at Dixon Place and the Central Academy of Drama in Beijing; the monologues Horrocks (and Toutatis Too) and Woo World Wu (2013), performed at Emerson College with Erin Mallon and Tim Sirgusa; and Muazzez (2014), a monologue performed by Steve Mellor at the Chocolate Factory as part of Performance Space 122's COIL festival.

In 2006, Wellman's third novel, Q's Q, was published by Green Integer. In 2008, Trip Street Press published a volume of Wellman's stories, A Chronicle of the Madness of Small Worlds, and in the same year his collection of plays The Difficulty of Crossing a Field was released by Minnesota Press. His books of poetry include Miniature (2002), Strange Elegies (2006), Left Glove (2011), and Split the Stick (2012).

After receiving his 2003 Grants to Artists Award, Wellman was a playwright-in-residence at Pratt Institute (2004), Yaddo (2004, 2005, 2007, 2008, 2010), and The MacDowell Colony (2004, 2005, 2006, 2010). Also, his novel Linda Perdido won the Fiction Collective Two (Fc2) Catherine Doctorow Innovative Fiction Prize (2011). Prior to his 2003 FCPA grant, Wellman has received numerous honors, including three New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowships in Playwriting (1986, 1990, 1998), a McKnight Foundation Fellowship (1989), a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship (1989), a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship (1990), and National Endowment for the Arts Grants (1990, 1995). He received Obie awards for Best New American Play (for Bad Penny,Crowbar, Terminal Hip) (1990) and Sincerity Forever (1991), and an Obie for Lifetime Achievement (2003).

Wellman graduated with a B.A. in International Relations from American University and an M.A. in English from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He is the Donald I. Fine Distinguished Professor of Play Writing at Brooklyn College. Wellman has also taught playwriting at The Yale School of Drama, Princeton University, New York University, Rhode Island School of Design, Pratt Institute, Brown University, University of Texas at Austin, and Mount Holyoke College. He is a co-founder of The Flea Theater and has served as editor of Breathing Space.

Bob McGrath is an American director, producer, and Professor. In 1982 McGrath co-found Pink which later became Ridge Theater in New York City directing multimedia collaborative productions such as: POUND IN A CAGE (1982), THE ABORTION TAPES (1983), PINK FRANKENSTEIN (1983), PROMETHEUS 84 (1984), PINKO or THE ARTIST IN SPITE OF HIMSELF (1985), WHITE POWER (1986), I KILLED JOHN BELUSHI (1986), ALL MY THREE SONS (1987), CZOLGOSZ (1988), JACK BENNY! (1989), THE MANSON FAMILY (1990), JUNGLE MOVIE (1992), PHOTO OP (1992), EVERYDAY NEWT BURMAN (1993), RIDGE IN FRAGMENTS (1994), MATHEW IN SCHOOL OF LIFE, (1995), ALICE IN BED (1996), THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI (1997), CHAOS (1998), CHARLIE IN THE HOUSE OF RUE (1999), CARBON COPY BUILDING (2000), HYPATIA (2000), DEATH OF KLINGHOFFER (2003), JENNIE RICHEE (2003/2001), GOTHAM (2004), OEDIPUS (2005),
THE DIFFICULTY OF CROSSING A FIELD (2006), DECASIA (2007), HENRYK GORECKI SYMPHONY NO. 3 (2007), THE SINKING OF THE TITANIC (2007), THE SLUG BEARERS OF KAYROL ISLAND (2008), LIGHTNING AT OUR FEET (2008), SHELTER (2005), PERSEPHONE (2010), TERRA NOVA: SINFONIA ANTARCTICA (2010), THE GLASS MENAGERIE (2012), THE RITE OF SPRING (2013), SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER (2013), WOYZECK (2012), THE DEMO (2014)
THE WOMEN OF BERLIN (2015), ANATOMY THEATER (2017), LUCID POSSESSION (2018/2013), FANTINI FUTURO (2020/2019), LULU (2020), INHERENT RESOLVE (2021), and COMPANSHOP (2022). These productions were done in classic Off-Broadway venues like La MaMa, E.T.C., Brooklyn Academy of Music, The Vineyard Theatre, The Kitchen, American Repertory Theater as well as symphony halls and universities throughout this country and abroad. Obie Awards for Best Production, THE CARBON COPY BUILDING (2000); and for Direction, JENNIE RICHEE (2001); and an Obie Award for Sustained Achievement (1994) as well as nominations in Direction for both the Lucille Lortel Award and Drama Desk Award for THE SLUG BEARERS OF KAYROL ISLAND; . He has received arts residencies at UC Davis (2015) and Yellow Springs Institute and a Fellowship at The Foundation for Performance Art. He teaches and has taught devised theater, directing, script analysis, multimedia theater/aesthetics, and performance media at universities including New York University, Virginia Tech, Harvard, Sarah Lawrence, Columbia, The Juilliard School, Carnegie Mellon, UC Davis.

In High School a seminal moment was finding a John Guare play, COP-OUT, from his drama teacher’s library, Guare’s play introduced him to the non-linear direct address fragmented form. His very first directing production was COP-OUT as a student at L.A. City College. McGrath used all the multimedia elements available in 1974 (slide projections, over-head projectors, sound and found music surrounding the audience and unorthodox lighting effects ). In this production McGrath discovered his form. As a student at Carnegie Mellon University he was open to every influence, particularly the visiting Romanian director Radu Penchulesque and Professor Leon Katz. Penchulesque who introduced him to Epic Theatre and his former student, director Andrei Serban. Katz exposed him to the writings of Antonin Artaud, he also brought in groups such as Squat, The Ridiculous Theatrical Company, Mabou Mines & The Wooster Group. McGrath’s studies solidified for him an approach to plays we now consider “immersive” and ground breaking.