Winnie Holzman | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1953 or 1954 (age 71–72)[1] New York City, U.S. |
| Education | |
| Occupations | |
| Years active | 1984–present |
| Known for | Wicked My So-Called Life |
| Spouse | |
| Children | Savannah Dooley |
Winnie Holzman is an American playwright, screenwriter, actress, and producer. She is best known for writing the script of theTony Award winningBroadway musicalWicked, and for co-writing the screenplays for thetwo films based on the musical,Wicked andWicked: For Good. She also created the television seriesMy So-Called Life. Holzman's other television work includes the seriesThirtysomething andOnce and Again. Her other stage work includes short plays (in which she appeared with her actor husband,Paul Dooley) and the full-length drama,Choice.
Holzman was born in Manhattan, New York, but grew up inRoslyn Heights, New York, onLong Island[1] in a Jewish family.[2] Although she was shy, she wanted to become an actor.[1] At 13, she attended theCircle in the Square Theatre School in New York.[3]
Holzman graduated with a degree in English and a concentration in Creative Writing atPrinceton University. She won many poetry awards, including theAcademy of American Poets Prize.[3]
Holzman had been performing in sketch comedy for years, "determined to never make a dime,"[1] but on the recommendation of a college friend, she applied to attend themusical theater program atNew York University. She eventually got hermaster's degree in Musical Theatre Writing on a full scholarship.Arthur Laurents was one of her mentors.[1] Other teachers includedStephen Sondheim,Hal Prince,Betty Comden,Adolph Green, andLeonard Bernstein.[citation needed]
Holzman contributed scenes to the 1983 satirical musical comedy revueSerious Bizness, which ran at O'Neils Upstairs cabaret in New York City.[4][5]
While at NYU she wrote the musicalBirds of Paradise (with composer David Evans), which was producedOff-Broadway in 1987 and directed by Laurents.[6] It got scathing reviews.[1]
Holzman has written several plays with her husband, actorPaul Dooley. In the short playPost-its®: Notes on a Marriage, an actor and actress read the posted notes between a couple that span the duration of their lives together.[7] Their first full-length collaboration,Assisted Living, premiered April 5 thorough May 12, 2013, at Los Angeles's Odyssey Theatre, starring the couple.[8] The play was retitledOne of her Biggest Fans when it ran atGeorge Street Playhouse (New Jersey) from January 28 to February 23, 2014. Holzman said the play was "something we came up with when we were first married," based on a "stack of fan mail that had sat unopened on Paul's desk for months."[9] In the play, "The lives of a cantankerous soap opera star and his makeup artist collide with those of his biggest fan and her father with the discovery of a piece of fan mail that changes everything -- though perhaps not in the ways they once expected."[10] Holzman has described the play as being about " how other people make you change, and how the things that happen in everyday life – the interventions and interactions – change you."[9]
Holzman made herBroadway debut in 2003 when she wrote thebook for theStephen Schwartz musicalWicked, based on thenovel of the same name byGregory Maguire. She won theDrama Desk Award for Outstanding Book of a Musical and was nominated for theTony Award for Best Book of a Musical.[11][12]
Holzman's play,Choice, premiered atHuntington Theater Company (Boston) in 2015.[13] It is a complex, sometimes surreal, comedic drama touching on topics that include parenting, friendship, and abortion. An updated version of the play was produced atMcCarter Theater (New Jersey) from May 8 to June 2, 2024, with a cast that includedIlana Levine,Dakin Matthews,Caitlin Kinnunen, andJake Cannavale. The 2024 production incorporated references to the COVID-19 pandemic and set the play in 2020/21.[14][15]
In 1988, Holzman's husband, actor-writerPaul Dooley, got a job in Los Angeles on the TV seriesComing of Age. While visiting her brother, cinematographer Ernest Holzman, on the set ofthirtysomething, writerRichard Kramer suggested she should write for the show.Ed Zwick andMarshall Herskovitz bought aspec script from Holzman, and she went on to become a staff writer on thirtysomething in 1989.[1] She wrote nine episodes during its last two seasons.[3] Zwick and Herskovitz later executive producedMy So-Called Life, a show about a teenage girl. Holzman went from story editor to executive story editor to a creator and writer of the show.[1]
Holzman has collaborated on various short films with her daughter, Savannah. They penned a TVpilot based on the Sasha Paley novelHuge, whichABC Familygreenlit in January 2010 with a direct-to-series order.[16][17]Huge premiered in late June 2010. The show team included Holzman, Dooley, her daughter, and her brother, who was the cinematographer.[1] The series was cancelled on October 4, 2010, due to low ratings compared with the network's other summer hits.[18]
From 2014 to 2016, Holzman was one of the producers and writers of theShowtime seriesRoadies, a behind-the-scenes comedy about people working with a touring rock band, created byCameron Crowe,J. J. Abrams (executive producing), and Holzman, that ran for a season.[19] The series starredLuke Wilson,Imogen Poots,Keisha Castle-Hughes,Peter Cambor,Rafe Spall[20] andCarla Gugino.[21]
Holzman wrote the screenplay for theUniversal Pictures film adaptation ofWicked. It will be released in two parts. The first,Wicked: Part One, was released on November 22, 2024. The sequel film,Wicked: For Good, is scheduled to be released November 21, 2025.[22]
Holzman has had a number of acting spots, primarily roles in her own plays with her husband, and cameo roles on her own TV shows. Holzman played the chocolate-obsessed divorced woman in the movieJerry Maguire and Larry David's wife's therapist onCurb Your Enthusiasm.[8] She wrote and performed several personal essays at theUn-Cabaret spoken word shows in Los Angeles and is featured on their CDPlay the Word (Vol. 1).[23]
Holzman has been married tocharacter actorPaul Dooley, whom she met at an improv acting class in New York,[24] since 1984.[25] Holzman notes that their 26-year age difference is "... a big part of our lives, but in a way it's meaningless."[1] They have a daughter,Savannah Dooley,[1] and live inToluca Lake inLos Angeles, California.[24]
{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: location (link)| International | |
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