James Lapine
James Elliot Lapine (luh-pine, like the tree) was born on January 10, 1949 in Mansfield, OH to parents Lillian and David Sanford Lapine. In his early teenage years, his family moved to Stamford, CT, and once he had finished public school left for Lancaster, PA. Here Lapine majored in History at the Franklin and Marshall College. Lapine continued his education and received an MFA in Design from the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, CA.
After receiving his MFA, Lapine moved to New York City and found himself working several jobs, which included restaurant serving, freelance photography and graphic design, giving guided tours at NBC studios, and working as a preservationist at the Architectural League of New York.
One of his freelance gigs happened to be designing the magazine for the Yale School of Drama; upon seeing his work, Lapine was offered a full-time job designing all of the printed materials for the School of Drama, as well as the Yale Repertory Theatre. He was also offered the opportunity to teach an advertising design course, and his students actually urged him to direct a play for the first time.
The play was a piece by Gertrude Stein, Photograph, which is five acts long but only three pages in length. After hearing about it, director Lee Breuer arranged for a performance space to be made available in SoHo, where Photograph would be produced for 3 weeks. Lapine won an Obie Award for this work, and thus he left the visual arts to pursue a theatrical career in playwriting and directing.
On Broadway, Lapine continued making a name for himself and worked with several huge names in theatre:
Stephen Sondheim; Lapine wrote the books for Sunday in the Park with George, Into the Woods, Passion
William Finn; Lapine wrote the books for Falsettos, Little Miss Sunshine, A New Brain. He also directed The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee
David Henry Hwang; Lapine directed Golden Child
Lapine also directed the 2012 revival of Annie on Broadway, directed The Diary of Anne Frank written by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett in 1997, and wrote the screenplay for the film adaptation of Into the Woods (directed by Rob Marshall).
Lapine has been nominated for 12 Tony Awards during his career and has won 3. He also received the Pulitzer Prize with Sondheim for Sunday in the Park with George, and in 2011, James Lapine was inducted into the Theatre Hall of Fame.
