James Lapine
| James Lapine | |
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Lapine at the 73rd Annual Peabody Awards
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| Born | James Elliot Lapine January 10, 1949 Mansfield, Ohio, United States |
| Occupation | Stage director, filmmaker, playwright, screenwriter, librettist |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | Franklin and Marshall College (1971) |
| Spouse | Sarah Kernochan (1 child) |
| Information | |
| Awards | Pulitzer Prize for Drama (1985) |
James Elliot Lapine (born January 10, 1949) is an American stage director, filmmaker, playwright, screenwriter, and librettist. He has won the Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical three times, for Into the Woods, Falsettos, and Passion. He has frequently collaborated with Stephen Sondheim and William Finn.
Lapine was born in Mansfield, Ohio, the son of Lillian (Feld) and David Sanford Lapine. He graduated from Franklin and Marshall College in 1971.
Lapine did graduate study in both photography and graphic design at the California Institute of the Arts. He was a photographer, graphic designer, and architectural preservationist and taught design at the Yale School of Drama. At Yale University he wrote an adaptation and directed the Gertrude Stein play Photograph, which was produced Off-Broadway at the Open Space in SoHo in 1977. He proceeded to write and direct Off-Broadway plays and musicals, working with composer William Finn on March of the Falsettos in 1981 as director; the musical won the Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Off-Broadway Play. Frank Rich, the New York Times theatre critic, noted "Mr. Lapine's wildly resourceful staging."
In 1982 he was introduced to Stephen Sondheim, and they decided to work on a musical together, which became Sunday in the Park With George, with Lapine writing the book and directing with Sondheim's music and lyrics. It was first produced Off-Broadway in 1983 and then transferred to Broadway in 1984. The pair's next musical was Into the Woods, which premiered on Broadway in 1987. Lapine won both the Tony Award and the Drama Desk Award, Best Book of a Musical. They then collaborated on the musical Passion, for which Lapine wrote the book and directed. The musical ran on Broadway in 1994 and in the West End in 1996, receiving a nomination for the Olivier Award for Best New Musical, and winning the Tony Award for Best Musical and Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical, among other awards and nominations. Their latest collaboration is the revue Sondheim on Sondheim, presented on Broadway in 2010 and winning the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Musical Revue.
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