Biography of Elizabeth Swados

Elizabeth Swados has composed, written, and directed over 30 theater pieces includingThe Trilogy, Nightclub Cantata, Runaways, Alice in Concert, Doonesbury, Rap Master Ronnie, The Haggadah, Jonah, Job, Esther, Jerusalem (with Yehudah Amichai), The 49 Years, andMissionaries. Her work has been performed at The Flea Theater, La MaMa, The Public Theater, Manhattan Theatre Club, The Brooklyn Academy of Music, Carnegie Hall, on Broadway, Off-Broadway, at regional theaters throughout the United States and at locations all over the world. She has published novels, non-fiction books, children's books and poetry. Recent productions include Atonement, a theatrical oratorio presented by the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, her own adaptation of S. Ansky's The Dybbuk at NYU/Tisch, Spider Operas at PS122 (with Mabou Mines), andPolitical Subversities, a political revue that has been presented in two Culture Project festivals as well as at Joe's Pub. My Depression: A Picture Book, was published in April 2005 and her theater textbook, At Play: Teaching Teenagers Theater, was published by Faber & Faber in June 2006. Ms. Swados recently wrapped a children's CD, Everyone is Different, in conjunction with Forward Face in March, 2007. Currently, she is working on several new musicals, including Kaspar Hauser, Piano Bar, and an evening of Roald Dahl poetry set to music. She is a faculty member at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. Awards include Five Tony nominations, three Obie Awards, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Ford Grant, a Lila Acheson Wallace Grant, a PEN Citation, and others. Most recently Ms. Swados received a special grant to record selections from all of her music from over the past thirty years. These new renderings of her music will be available on CD and the Internet over the next three years.