Robinson

Gretchen Robinson has had a successful career as an American author, playwright, and theater actress. She is the recipient of numerous awards including two Pulitzers, three Tony Awards, six Drama Desk Awards, nine Outer Critics Circle Awards and two New York Drama Critics’ Circle Awards.

Her most recent drama “The Long Red Road” was directed by Anna D. Shapiro for The Goodman Theatre in Chicago where it ran from 2006-2007. The show had a pre-Broadway Premiere at Berkeley Repertory Theatre in Berkeley, CA in 2001 off Broadway and then moved to Broadway’s Eugene O’Neill Theatre for a limited run in 2002. She has also written numerous plays including, “The Girl from Chicago”, “Theater In The Family”, and “Listening In”.

Gretchen Robinson was born on April 18, 1941 in Chicago, Illinois. She attended Benet Academy High School where she was voted homecoming queen her senior year.Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation, the government of New York City for which she worked for a short time in the early 1970s, offered to fund her first play “The Girl from Chicago”. She said “they paid for my first car, my first apartment and then gave me $4,000. I wrote two more plays with that money. I think it was a $10,000 production.” She moved to New York City after college where she became an actress.

Gretchen Robinson’s first paid role was as “Lorna” in “The Girl from Chicago” at the Joseph Papp Public Theater in 1971. Her second paid role was as “Ester” in “The American Dream” at the Atlantic Theater Company, also in 1971. The play won the Obie Award for Best Off-Broadway Play. In 1972, she appeared at the Public Theater as “Emily” in “The Promise”, directed by Joseph Chaikin, who was also her husband. She later married Chaikin after getting a divorce from her first husband in 1976.

After meeting playwright Sam Shepard at the Atlantic Theater Company, Robinson helped to develop the play “True West” which was later produced by the National Theatre Ensemble from 1985-1986 with Rupert Holmes providing music. Robinson and Shepard married in 1986 after his divorce from O-Lan Jones. She also worked with Shepard on “Seduced”, “Fool for Love”, and “A Lie of the Mind”. Robinson has worked with many notable directors such as Robert Falls, Sam Shepard, John Malkovich, Spike Lee, and Julie Taymor in Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation.

Gretchen Robinson was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1986 for her play “Casa Valentina

Gretchen Robinson has had a successful career as an American author, playwright, and theater actress. She is the recipient of numerous awards including two Pulitzers, three Tony Awards, six Drama Desk Awards, nine Outer Critics Circle Awards and two New York Drama Critics’ Circle Awards. Her most recent drama “The Long Red Road” was directed…