Michael Cristofer
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Michael Ivan Cristofer is an American playwright. He was born January 22, 1945 in Trenton, New Jersey. He was the 1977 Tony Award winner for Best Play for The Shadow Box, which deals with the process of death and how individuals cope with death around them.
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Michael Cristofer was awarded a Pulitzer Prize and an Antoinette Perry “Tony” Award for the Broadway production of his play, The Shadow Box. Subsequent to New York, the play was produced in every major American city and worldwide from Europe to the Far East.
Other plays include:
- Breaking Up, produced by Primary Stages,
- Ice, produced by Manhattan Theatre Club,
- Black Angel, produced by Circle Repertory Company,
- The Lady and the Clarinet starring Stockard Channing, produced by the Mark Taper Forum, Long Wharf Theater, Off-Broadway and on the London Fringe; and
- Amazing Grace starring Marsha Mason which was produced by Blue Light Theater Co. and which received the American Theater Critics Award as the best play produced in the United States during the 1996-97 season.
Mr. Cristofer’s film work includes the screenplays for:
- The Shadow Box directed by Paul Newman (Golden Globe Award, Emmy nomination)
- Falling in Love, with Meryl Streep and Robert DeNiro,
- The Witches of Eastwick with Jack Nicholson,
- The Bonfire of the Vanities directed by Brian DePalma; and
- Robert Greenwald’s version of Breaking Up, starring Russell Crowe and Salma Hayek
His directing credits include:
- Gia, for HBO Pictures starring Angelina Jolie, Mercedes Ruehl and Faye Dunaway, which was nominated for 5 Emmies and for which he won a Director’s Guild Award
- Body Shots starring Sean Patrick Flanery, Jerry O’Connell, Amanda Peet, and Tara Reid; and
- Original Sin starring Angelina Jolie and Antonio Banderas, which was released in 2001.
For eight years he worked as artistic advisor and finally co-artistic director of River Arts Repertory in Woodstock, N.Y., a company which produced new plays by writers such as Richard Nelson, Mac Wellman, Len Jenkin, Eric Overmeyer and many others including the American premiere of Edward Albee’s Three Tall Women–a production which later moved to Off-Broadway. Also at River Arts, he wrote stage adaptations of the films Love me or Leave Me and the legendary Casablanca, and directed Joanne Woodward in his own adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s Ghosts. His most recent work for the theater, The Whore and Mr. Moore, is in workshop at the Actor’s Studio where he is a member.
