Playwright Awarded Arts First Medal

Playwright Christopher Durang ’71, a onetime Dunster House resident, will return to his alma mater to receive the Harvard Arts Medal, an annual honor awarded to alumni that have demonstrated artistic excellence and contributed to raising student interest in the arts, the Office for the Arts announced Wednesday.

Durang will be the 12th to add his name to the list of notable alumni artists, including cellist Yo-Yo Ma ’76, director Peter Sellers ’80 and author John Updike ’54, who have earned the medal.

In May, University President Lawrence H. Summers will present the award to Durang during the 14th annual Arts First celebration, a four-day festival of theater, dance, music, and film produced by Harvard students.

“I think he’s one of the great iconoclast writers of his generation,” said Robert E. Woodruff, artistic director of the American Repertory Theater. “I think his humor is biting. It’s social, it’s political, truly an American voice.”

Durang’s most popular plays include “Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All For You” and “The Marriage of Bette and Boo,” both winners of the prestigious Obie awards, the Off-Broadway Theater Awards bestowed by The Village Voice.

The Harvard theater community has maintained a close relationship with Durang, performing his plays and sketches several times over the past decades.

Benjamin J. Toff ’05, who directed a lesser-known Durang play, “The Vietnamization of New Jersey,” just last year, was in contact with Durang throughout the production. Toff was also co-chair of The Crimson’s editorial board.

Durang now teaches in the Playwriting Program at the Juilliard School in New York City.

The Harvard-Radcliffe Dramatic Club’s publicity coordinator, Mary E. Birnbaum ’07, wrote in an e-mail that “Durang is an incredible theater artist and certainly an inspiration” to club members.

The director of Harvard’s Office of the Arts, Jack C. Megan, said that, “as both a creative force, a playwright, and as an actor himself, he will be able to relate to our students because he was once one of them.”

Durang’s dark and satiric work has often focused on the Catholic Church, pushing buttons and boundaries along the way. In fact, the Archdiocese of Boston almost shut down one of his performances in the 1970s, which only increased the play’s popular appeal, according to Megan.

“It’s comical, but not so comfortable,” Megan said of Durang’s style.

After the medal ceremony, actor John A. Lithgow ’67, who performed in Durang’s 1982 Broadway show “Beyond Therapy,” will lead a discussion with the playwright. The talk will focus on Durang’s artistic ideas, influences, creative process, and the honoree will also be taking questions from the audience. Overall, Megan said he expects a “very informal, festive, upbeat, and informative afternoon.”

Tickets for the May 5 ceremony and discussion, which are free, will be offered first to undergraduates on April 21 and will be available to the public the next week. “We want to make sure that students will actually be in the room,” said Megan, adding that he anticipates tremendous Boston area interest.

—Abe J. Riesman contributed to the reporting of this story.

—Staff writer Lindsay A. Maizel can be reached at lmaizel@fas.harvard.edu.