Craig Lucas

This former actor and chorus performer made the move to writing in the early 1980s. With encouragement from composer Stephen Sondheim, Craig Lucas fashioned a two-character musical "Marry Me A Little" (1980-81) using Sondheim trunk songs. The show, which was mounted Off-Broadway by the Production cemented a long association with the late director Norman Rene. In 1984, Rene staged Lucas' "Blue Window," a drama about seven New Yorkers at a dinner party which made typical use of fantasy and seemingly banal conversation to make pointed comments about life and relationships. (PBS aired a TV version in 1987.) Admittedly not to everyone's taste, Lucas' work displays a talent for infusing seemingly mundane events with poignancy and deep feelings. "Three Postcards" (1987) was a charming chamber musical written with Craig Carnelia that covered the lives of three life-long female friends who meet for lunch. This jewel of a show was overshadowed by larger, more "popular" fare and did not have the run it deserved,