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After the Diploma

Frankfort Ind. grad is “lion of the theater”

Kentucky School Advocate

January 2018

George C. Wolfe has made his mark as a theater and movie producer, director and writer. The 1972 graduate of Frankfort High School has written and staged groundbreaking plays and musicals, including Tony Kushner’s two-part Angels in America, Jelly’s Last Jam, and Bring in ‘Da Noise, Bring in ‘Da Funk with Savion Glover. In fact, Interview magazine in 2016 called Wolfe “a lion of the theater.”

Wolfe holds an undergraduate degree from Pomona College in California, later writing, directing and acting in plays in Los Angeles; moving to New York City, he earned an MFA from New York University School of the Arts. Though he wrote and produced his first play in 1977, he first garnered national attention with The Colored Museum, staged in New York City, in 1986. He became a resident director at the Public Theater, with Spunk being among the most well-known of his works there. Most recently for the stage, he collaborated again with Glover on Shuffle Along, or, The Making of the Musical Sensation of 1921 and All That Followed, also starring Audra McDonald.

Wolfe has been nominated for multiple Tony Awards for directing and writing, winning for best direction of a musical in 1996 (Bring in ‘Da Noise, Bring in ‘Da Funk) and best direction of a play in 1993 (Angels in America: Millenium Approaches). He also won Obie and Drama Desk awards for his work.

From 1993 to 2004, Wolfe was artistic director and producer for the New York Shakespeare Festival.

He began pursuing film direction after that job, though he still worked in theater on plays such as Kushner’s Caroline, or Change, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Topdog/Underdog and the revival of The Normal Heart. Wolfe directed Lackawanna Blues in 2005 for HBO, after having produced the stage version off Broadway. His big-screen directorial debut was the 2008 Richard Gere–Diane Lane film, Nights in Rodanthe. His most recent work was directing the HBO adaptation of Rebecca Skloot’s book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, starring Oprah Winfrey, which focuses on the family of the woman whose cancer cells revolutionized medical science.