Scott McPherson, renowned playwright and actor, was regarded as one of Chicago's most vital artistic and creative forces. McPherson was one of the first openly gay, HIV-positive American artists. Three of McPherson's plays were produced in Chicago: 'Til the Fat Lady Sings, Scraped and most notably, Marvin's Room. Marvin's Room, first produced by the Goodman Theatre in 1990, has also been produced at Hartford Stage, Playwrights Horizon, and at Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. The play received the Drama Desk Award, the Oppenheimer Award, the Obie Drama Award, and the Outer Critics Circle Award. It was later made into a major motion picture starring Meryl Streep, Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, Diane Keaton, and Hume Cronyn. In spite of variable and increasingly failing health, and the illness and death of his lover, political cartoonist Daniel Sotomayor, McPherson continued writing until shortly before his death. He died in Chicago on November 7, 1992.
“ . . . one of the funniest plays of this year as well as one of the wisest and most moving . . . When the American theater gains a new voice this original, this unexpected, you really must hear it for yourself . . . Mr. McPherson's ability to find laughter in such matters as bone marrow transplants are at least minor miracles of absurdist comedy.” —Frank Rich, The New York Times [on Marvin’s Room]
“ . . . the themes of death, love, duty, care and service are frugally intertwined in a play of considerable emotional resonance. Laughing one minute, we are shuddering with a stealthy empathy the next. Death has rarely seemed more interesting or love so complex.” —New York Post [on Marvin’s Room]
“Marvin's Room is a beautifully written, deeply moving new play . . . [with] an assured balance between sorrow and joy, rage and laughter, piercing pain and utter hilarity . . . McPherson [has an] almost breathtaking ability to combine the ridiculous and bizarre with the poignant and profound in an illuminating juxtaposition . . .” —Chicago Tribune
Selected Works
