Gretchen Cryer

Gretchen Cryer (born October 17, 1935) is an American playwright, lyricist, and actress.

Cryer was born Gretchen Kiger in Dunreith, Indiana, the daughter of Louise Gerladine (née Niven; 1911-1991) and Earl William "Bill" Kiger, Jr. (1911-2004), who sold school supplies and ran a home printing business. Cryer attended DePauw University as an English major.

In one of her music classes, she met Nancy Ford, and the two forged a friendship that eventually led to a number of professional collaborations as the only female composer-lyricist team in Off-Broadway and Broadway New York theater. Their first work, For Reasons of Royalty, was produced at DePauw University and their musical Rendezvous was done at Boston University.

Their first professional New York production was Now Is The Time For All Good Men (1967), a highly political piece about Cryer's pacifist brother, who spent time as a teacher in a conservative mid-western high school, that was panned by the critics. Undaunted, they mounted The Last Sweet Days of Isaac – with Austin Pendleton and Fredricka Weber – in 1970, winning not only rave reviews, but the Obie, Drama Desk, and Outer Critics Circle Awards as well. From there they moved to Broadway, but the musical, Shelter (1973), was not a success, despite a few good reviews. It would prove to be their only Broadway production.

Using the pseudonym Sally Niven (Niven is her mother's maiden name), Cryer played the leading role in "Now Is the Time ..." opposite her real-life husband, David. Dagne Crane had originally been cast in the part, but left shortly before the opening to become a regular on the soap opera "As the World Turns".

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