James Glossman Biography

The Special Prisoner will mark his debut production with PTNJ, where he directed a staged reading of Prisoner last spring, just after it also won the Southwest Festival of New Plays in Houston. This marks a return to work based on the fiction of Jim Lehrer, whose coming-of-age novel, Kick the Can, he adapted and directed in 1996, both at Luna Stage in NJ, and in a workshop at MetroStage in Washington DC. For PTNJ, he is also director of the Rose City Project, an ongoing series of readings of new works in conjunction with the State Arts Council of NJ, featuring Jayne Atkinson, Mason Adams, Jay Sanders, Maryann Plunkett, Sam Coppola, Ron McClarty, Patricia Hodges, Pam Payton-Wright, Joe Morton, and many others. In the fall he directed a workshop of Jeffrey Sweet's play, The Value of Names (w/Edward Asner and Howard Morris) at the Matrix Theatre in L.A., and this June will direct a full run of the same play with Jack Klugman and Louis Zorich at the Nebraska Repertory Theatre. Last year he directed the East Coast premiere of Jeffrey Sweet's play Bluff (w/John Astin) at the Shadowland Theatre in Ellenville, NY, as well Pinter's The Collection and a workshop of his own play, Behind the Scenes at the Museum (from Kate Atkinson's award-winning novel), both at Luna Stage. Currently at work on two film projects, Kurt Vonnegut's Bluebeard (w/Ed Asner, Jack Warden, Jay Sanders, Joe Morton, and others) and an original comedy thriller, Gateway (w/Jay Sanders and Mason Adams), he recently rediscovered and directed the lost American political thriller Spread Eagle at L.A. Theatre Works with a cast including Edward Asner, Sharon Gless, Fred Savage, and Jamey Sheridan. He has adapted and directed works by Twain, Faulkner, O Henry, Joyce, Fitzgerald, Cheever, Runyon, and others. Other projects of recent years include Blood Knot (w/Joe Morton & Cotter Smith), The Lion in Winter (w/Edward Asner & Pamela Payton- Wright), Old Times (w/Mary Alice, Pam Payton-Wright, and Louis Zorich), Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (w/Joe Morton & Cotter Smith), No Man's Land (w/Frankie Faison & Louis Zorich), Making History (w/ Joe Morton), and productions of True West, Travesties, Waiting for Godot (w/Vin Scelsa and Paul Murphy: Special Ensemble Award, Star-Ledger of Newark), and Macbeth at Luna Stage, and his own adaptation, for radio, of Stephen Crane's The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky for NPR Playhouse. His performance as Charlie in The Foreigner was nominated for Best Comic Performance by the Star-Ledger of Newark. Co- author of a series of musicals with composer Stephen Randoy, one of which (In Orbit) had its world premiere with actress Gwyneth Paltrow as Halley's Comet. His adaptation of Twain's The Man Who Corrupted Hadleyburg is published by Dramatic Publishing, with recent productions in Chicago, Indiana, Kansas, and California. Mr Glossman is a graduate of Northwestern University, ACT, BADA-Oxford, and the Yale School of Drama, and has taught and directed at the University of the Arts, St Ann's, and currently runs the theatre program at Far Brook School.