Biography of Joanna McClelland Glass

Joanna McClelland Glass was born in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Her plays have been produced in many North American regional theatres, as well as in England, Ireland, Australia, and Germany. Her one-act plays, CANADIAN GOTHIC and AMERICAN MODERN, were first produced at the Manhattan Theatre Club in New York City in 1972. ARTICHOKE, starring Colleen Dewhurst, was first produced at Long Wharf Theatre, New Haven, CT, in 1974. TO GRANDMOTHER'S HOUSE WE GO, starring Eva LeGallienne, was first produced at the Alley Theatre, Houston, Texas, moving to Broadway in 1980. PLAY MEMORY, directed by Harold Prince, was first produced at the McCarter Theatre, Princeton, New Jersey, moving to Broadway in 1984. PLAY MEMORY won a Tony Award nomination that year. YESTERYEAR was originally produced by the Canadian Stage Company in Toronto in 1989. IF WE ARE WOMEN premiered in the U.S. in the summer of 1993, at the Williamstown Theatre Festival, Williamstown, MA. The Canadian premiere was a co-production between the Vancouver Playhouse and Canadian Stage Company, Toronto, 1994. The British premiere was in London, starring Joan Plowright, directed by Richard Olivier. Ms. Glass has written two novels, "Reflections on a Mountain Summer," published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1975, and "Woman Wanted," published by St. Martin's Press in 1984. She has adapted both novels into screenplays, for Lorimar Studios and Warner Bros. Woman Wanted was filmed in 1998, starring and directed by Kiefer Sutherland, also starring Holly Hunter and Michael Moriarty. In 1984-85, Ms. Glass was awarded a Rockefeller grant. She was playwright-in-residence at Yale Repertory Theatre. Other grants: the National Endowment for the Arts, 1980, and the Guggenheim Fellowship in 1981. Ms. Glass won the Francesca Primus Award in 1994, and the Berrilla Kerr Award in 2000. TRYING was first presented by Victory Gardens Theatre in Chicago in the spring of 2004; the play won Chicago's prestigious Jefferson Award for Best New Play. TRYING was then produced in New York City at The Promenade Theatre, in the fall/winter of 2004-2005. TRYING has now enjoyed over forty productions; with several more planned for 2007-2008 at theatres in both the United States and Canada. Ms. Glass presently resides in suburban Chicago. Her agent is Barbara Hogenson, 165 West End Avenue, New York, N. Y., 10023, Phone: 212-874-8084.