Ken Ludwig
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ken Ludwig is an American playwright and theatre director.
Born in York, Pennsylvania, Ludwig was educated at Haverford College, Harvard Law School, and Trinity College at Cambridge University. His first Broadway play, Lend Me a Tenor (1989), garnered him his first Tony Award nomination; his second was for Best Book of a Musical for Crazy for You (1992), which won the Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle, Helen Hayes, and Laurence Olivier Awards as Best Musical. Other Broadway credits include Moon Over Buffalo (1995) with Carol Burnett, the book for an ill-fated musical adaptation of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (2001), and a new adaptation of the classic Ben Hecht-Charles MacArthur play Twentieth Century (2004).
Among Ludwig's other works are Shakespeare in Hollywood, which was presented at Arena Stage in Washington, D.C. in 2003 and won the Helen Hayes Award for Best Play of the Year; Leading Ladies, premiered at The Cleveland Playhouse in 2004; Be My Baby, again at the Alley Theatre, with Hal Holbrook and Dixie Carter; and the completion of Thornton Wilder's adaptation of George Farquhar's Restoration comedy The Beaux’ Stratagem, staged at the Shakespeare Theatre in Washington, D.C in 2006. Ludwig’s adaptation of The Three Muskeeters opened at Bristol Old Vic in England in December 2006.
Ludwig's latest projects are an adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island, scheduled to premiere at the Alley Theatre in April 2007, and a stage adaptation of the George and Ira Gershwin film An American in Paris, currently a work-in-progress.
Ludwig’s other plays include Sullivan and Gilbert, premiered by the National Art Center of Canada and the Kennedy Center, and Postmortem,which appeared off-Broadway.
Over the years, Ludwig has earned an Olivier Award, two Tony Award nominations, two Helen Hayes Awards, the Edwin Forest Award, and an honorary doctorate from York University.
In 2006, the London Times called Ludwig “the purveyor of light comedy to Middle America. ...There is hardly a regional theatre in America that hasn’t a work of his scheduled.” His work has been performed in over 25 countries throughout the world, with translations into at least 16 languages.
Ludwig practiced law for several years with the Washington D.C. firm of Steptoe & Johnson. He has lectured on drama at universities throughout the country.
Ludwig, his wife Adrienne George, and their children Olivia and Jack reside in Washington, D.C..
