Rob Urbinati

Rob Urbinati (born August 12, 1952) is a freelance playwright, screenwriter, book author and theater director based in New York City. He is the director of new play development at Queens Theatre.

Rob Urbinati
Urbinati in 2014
Born (1952-08-12) August 12, 1952
Framingham, Massachusetts
Occupationstage director, playwright, book author

Background and education

Rob Urbinati was born in Framingham, Massachusetts and currently resides in New York City.[1] He received a BA from the University of Massachusetts, an MA from the University of Nebraska Omaha and in 1994 was awarded a PhD in theatre arts from the University of Oregon College of Arts and Sciences.[2]

Career overview

Plays written by Rob Urbinati include an adaptation of August Strindberg's 1888 play Miss Julie, Miss Julie in Hollywood (1993), produced in Seattle at Northwest Actors Studio in 1994, starring Heidi Schreck; Hazelwood Jr. High (1996), about the Murder of Shanda Sharer, which premiered at The New Group and starred Chloë Sevigny;[3] Cruel and Barbarous Treatment (1999) based on the 1939 Mary McCarthy short story, at Gloucester Stage Company;[4] Karaoke Night at the Suicide Shack (2002)[5] and The Queen Bees (formerly named Shangri-La) (2006) at Queens Theatre;[6] Rebel Voices (2006), an adaptation of Howard Zinn and Anthony Arnove's Voices of a People's History of the United States at Culture Project with a rotating cast including Staceyann Chin, Steve Earle, Danny Glover, Lenelle Moïse, Rich Robinson, Lili Taylor, and Wallace Shawn;[7] Murder on West Moon Street (2006) which was based on Lord Arthur Savile's Crime, an Oscar Wilde short story[8] and Cole Porter’s Nymph Errant (2001)[9][10] produced by the Prospect Theatre Company; UMW: University of Mostly Whites (2012) commissioned and produced by Linfield College;[11]

Poster designed by Ryan Fagan for the 2018 Live Theatre Workshop production of Rob Urbinati's Death by Design

Death By Design (2010) written in a mash-up of styles of Noël Coward and Agatha Christie, commissioned and produced by Houston Family Arts Center;[12] Mama's Boy (2013), based on the lives of Marguerite Oswald and Lee Harvey Oswald, which premiered at Good Theater in Maine (2015)[13] and Our Boy (2017) which premiered at the Minnesota Fringe Festival in 2017.[14] Hazelwood Jr. High, Murder on West Moon Street, Mama's Boy and Death By Design (as well as an alternate version with songs by Peter Mills) and Jane Austen's Lady Susan are published by Samuel French. Cole Porter’s Nymph Errant, UMW: University of Mostly Whites and The Queen Bees are published by Steele Spring Stage Rights. His plays have received over two hundred productions worldwide.

His book, Play Readings: A Complete Guide for Theatre Practitioners (2015) is published by Focal Press/Routledge, who also published his article, Virtual Play Readings: A Model for Theatre Practitioners.

In New York, Urbinati directed the world premieres Staceyann Chin’s Border/Clash for the Culture Project;[15] Eric Bogosian’s Griller for the Lincoln Center Director's Lab; James Armstrong's Foggy Bottom, Jan Buttram's The President and Her Mistress and Al Letson’s Summer in Sanctuary at the Abingdon; Kirk Bromley's Syndrome at the Greenwich Street Theatre,[16] Bromley and Jessica Grace Wing's Lost at the Connelly Theatre;[17] and Anne DeSalvo's Mamma Roma at Cherry Lane Theatre.[18]

Also in New York, Urbinati directed Villa Diodati for the New York Musical Theatre Festival, (and at York Theatre Company),[19] Angel Street at Pearl Theatre Company;[20][21] 365 Days/365 Plays at The Public Theatre; Springtime at HERE Arts Center, The Man with the Flower in His Mouth at Classic Stage Company, and Minstrel Show, or the Lynching of William Brown at Connelly Theatre, and then in Nebraska, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Colorado.[22]

Urbinati has directed at universities and colleges across the country including Concordia College in Minnesota, Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania, Doane College in Nebraska, LaGuardia Community College in New York City, Clark University in Massachusetts, University of Oregon, University of Nebraska Omaha and New York University, where he directed Jeff Whitty’s Suicide Weather.

In Nebraska, he directed for Lied Center for Performing Arts, The Rose Theatre, Nebraska Shakespeare Festival, Nebraska Repertory Theatre, and Blue Barn Theatre, where his adaptation of Toxic Avenger: the Musical premiered.[23][24]

Queens Theatre

Urbinati is Director of New Play Development at Queens Theatre, where he curates New American Voices (formerly Immigrant Voices Project), a new play program which develops plays by writers who represent the diverse demographic of New York City. IVP/NAV has presented readings, workshops, full productions and co-productions of new work by over eighty writers including, Mashuq Mushtaq Deen, Kristoffer Diaz, Rajiv Joseph, Qui Nguyen, Heather Raffo, Saviana Stănescu, Caridad Svich, Cori Thomas and Lauren Yee. At Queens Theatre, Urbinati has directed many plays including Marry Me A Little, Angel Street, Master Class, and To Kill A Mockingbird.

Since receiving a Directing Fellowship from The Drama League, he has served on their Nominating Committee and various Selection Committees. For The Drama League, he directed William Inge's The Boy in the Basement, the world premieres of Tom Grady's Global Village[25] and Max Sparber's The Older Gentleman and Cruelties. He wrote the Drama League Benefits honoring James Earl Jones, Bernadette Peters, and David Hyde Pierce and beginning Fall 2020, became an Inaugural Member of the Drama League's Directors Council.[26]

In March 2009, on the International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade to mark the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade, the United Nations, in association with the Culture Project, presented Breaking the Silence, Beating the Drum to which Urbinati contributed material. It was performed in the United Nations General Assembly Hall and directed by Kenny Leon, with Nile Rodgers as Musical Director, featuring Akon, The Blind Boys of Alabama, Izaline Calister, CCH Pounder, Toumani Diabate, Gilberto Gil, Salif Keita, Danny Glover, Whoopi Goldberg, Bill T. Jones, Ky-Mani Marley, Phylicia Rashad, and Stew.[27]

Recently, Urbinati directed Al Letson’s The Centre Cannot Hold at the Hot Docs Festival in Toronto and the Five and Dime Theatre in Jacksonville, Florida.[28]

Urbinati's play, As A Mighty River, which he co-wrote with Melissa Maxwell, was selected for a workshop by the 2019 Black and Latino Playwrights Celebration at Texas State University, curated by Eugene Lee.[29]

Three productions he directed, Lost, Syndrome, and Border/Clash,[30] and one that he wrote, Hazelwood Jr. High,[31] were videotaped for the Billy Rose Theatre on Film and Tape Archive at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

Affiliations

Rob Urbinati is a member of the Dramatists Guild of America, and the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers.

He is a participating member of the Drama Desk Awards as well as a critic covering New York City area theater for EDGE Media Network.[32]

Urbinati has conducted numerous playwriting and directing workshops at various Regions of the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival and has previously served as Theatre Consultant for Home Box Office, Literary Manager for The Private Theatre and Artistic Adviser for Houston Family Arts Center.

He served on the Advisory Panel for the 2020 Queens Council on the Arts, Artist Commissioning Program.[33]

Awards

In 2007 the Prospect Theater Company production of Urbinati's Murder on West Moon Street was nominated for 8 New York Innovative Theatre Awards for Outstanding Full Length Play, Outstanding Production of a Play, Outstanding Director, Outstanding Actress in a Lead Role, 2 for Outstanding Actor in a Lead Role, Outstanding Actress in a Featured Role and Outstanding Costume Design. In the same year, the Queens Theatre production of his musical Shangri La was also nominated for 4 New York Innovative Theatre Awards for Outstanding Production of a Musical, Outstanding Choreography/Movement, Outstanding Sound Design and Outstanding Actress in a Leading Role.[34][35]

The Culture Project's 2005 production of Staceyann Chin's Border/Clash directed by Urbinati was nominated for the 2006 GLAAD Media Award, Outstanding New York Theater: Broadway and Off-Broadway.[36]

References
  1. Courtney Kochuba, "I Interview Playwrights Part 786: Rob Urbinati", Breaking Character Magazine, September 18, 2015
  2. "In celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Department of Theatre Arts – and in anticipation of their alumni reunion this fall – we share some notable successes of former theater students.", CAScade, Spring 2009
  3. O'Toole, Fintan (March 6, 1998). "Jr. High: Growing Up is Murder". Daily News. New York. p. 50. Retrieved September 20, 2019.
  4. Anne Marie-Donahue, "Deft staging keeps bite in 3 stories", Boston Globe, June 9, 2000
  5. Michael Bracken, "Killing Them Softly, Newsday, April 25, 2003
  6. BWW News Desk, 'qt to premiere New musical THE QUEEN BEES" BroadwayWorld, April 16, 2015
  7. Marilyn Stasio, "Rebel Voices", Variety November 18, 2007
  8. Ginia Bellafante, "Lord Arthur Learns About Love and Death and the Importance of Being Insouciant", The New York Times, May 1, 2007
  9. Michael Sommers, "Cole Porter's rarely-done 1933 musical arrives in a trim package", New Jersey Newsroom, July 14, 2012
  10. Olivia Jane Smith, "Olivia Jane Smith on "Nymph Errant" as presented by Prospect Theater Company" New York Theatre Review, July 20, 2012
  11. "UMW makes world premiere on Linfield stage", Linfield News, March 5, 2013
  12. Jim Tommaney, "Delightful By Design: Rob Urbinati's Vivid Murder Mystery Death By Design at HFAC", Houston Press, September 22, 2011
  13. April Boyle, "Theater Review: Mama's Boy an intriguing play about Oswald family" Portland Press Herald, November 3, 2015
  14. Hee Han, "Our Boy the struggle on sex crimes", High Plains Reader, August 2, 2017
  15. Ernio Hernandez, "Jamaican Journeys to New Life in New York in Border/Clash Opens Off Broadway June 16", Playbill, June 16, 2005
  16. Neil Genzlinger, "THEATER REVIEW; Inside View of Tourette's as a Lifelong Companion"The New York Times, January 25, 2002
  17. Jesse McKinley, "Premiere Draws A Crowd, And Tears, For Absent Composer", The New York Times, August 11, 2003
  18. "Mamma Roma"
  19. BWW News Desk, "Villa Diodati To Be Presented at 45th Street Theatre as Part of NYMF", BroadwayWorld, September 3, 2008
  20. D. J. R. Bruckner, "THEATER REVIEW; Sending Up Gaslight of '44 (With Emphasis on 'Gas')", The New York Times,April 30, 1999
  21. Elyse Sommer, "A CurtainUp Review: Angel Street", CurtainUp. Retrieved August 4, 2019
  22. Naomi Siegel, "Transfixed With a Horror, a Play Doesn't Flinch", The New York Times, October 14, 2007
  23. Jane Palmer, "Hilarious adult fare Avenger makes debut", Omaha World-Herald, July 10, 2004
  24. Jeff Korbelik, "Blue Barn giving a stage life to Toxic Avenger", Lincoln Journal Star, July 22, 2004
  25. Willis, John (2001). Theatre World 1997–1998. Applause. p. 131. ISBN 9781557834096. Retrieved September 20, 2019.
  26. BWW News Desk (November 12, 2020). "The Drama League Announces Formation of Directors Council Featuring Daniel Banks, Melia Bensussen and More". Broadway World. Retrieved November 13, 2020.
  27. Hetrick, Adam (March 10, 2009). "Breaking The Silence, Beating The Drum to Feature Stew, Rashad, Jones, Glover and Goldberg". Playbill. Retrieved September 17, 2019.
  28. Dick Kerkes & Leisla Sansom, "‘'The Centre Cannot Hold’' Another Outstanding Performance by Playwright, Poet, Journalist, Actor and Nationally Known Personality Al Letson", EU Jacksonville, July 18, 2019
  29. "2019 Black and Latino Playwrights Celebration, Texas State University, San Marcos, September 2 – 8, 2019". CTX Live Theatre. September 1, 2019. Retrieved September 16, 2019.
  30. Performing Arts Research Collections video recordings, "Rob Urbinati, Director" New York Public Library
  31. Performing Arts Research Collections video recordings, "Rob Urbinati, Playwright" New York Public Library
  32. Theatre EDGE Media Network
  33. "Meet the 2019-2020 Arts Commissioners". Queens Council on the Arts. Retrieved November 24, 2019.
  34. Doug Strassler, what's on off-off, off off online, August 1, 2007
  35. "2007 IT Awards Nominees & Recipients", September 24, 2007
  36. Lipton, Brian Scott (January 24, 2006). "The Color Purple, Rent, Swimming in the Shallows, et al. Nominated for GLAAD Media Awards". TheaterMania. Retrieved August 25, 2019.
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