David Mamet is one of America’s most important contemporary writers. He won the Pulitzer Prize and received Tony nominations for his plays Glengarry Glen Ross and Speed-the-Plow. As a screenwriter, he received Oscar nominations for The Verdict and Wag the Dog. He is a founding member of the Atlantic Theater Company. Many of his plays have been premiered by the St Nicholas Theatre company, Chicago, of which Mamet was a founding member and Artistic Director. In 1978 he became Associate Artistic Director of the Goodman Theatre, Chicago, where American Buffalo had been first staged in 1975, subsequently winning an Obie Award and opening on Broadway in 1977 and at the National Theatre in 1978. His greatest hits, Glengarry Glen Ross and Oleanna, followed in 1983 and 1993 respectively. Mamet received the PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater Award for Grand Master of American Theater in 2010.
