Don Cummings

Quick Facts

Intro

American playwright

Places

United States of America

Writer Playwright

Work field

Film, TV, Stage & Radio Literature

Gender

Male

The details (from wikipedia)

Biography

Don Cummings (born August 3, 196-) is an American playwright of more than fifteen plays, a screenwriter, fiction writer, essayist and composer. He has also acted in over forty plays and independent features and was a recurring guest star on the sitcom, Dharma & Greg. His critically acclaimed plays have been produced on both coasts: A Good Smoke, The Fat of the Land, American Air, What Do Men Live By?, Stark Raving Mad, The Winner, Feed the Children and Piss Play is About Minorities So It's Really Important.

Background and education

Don Cummings was born in Bronxville, New York, and attended Suffern High School. He received his BS in biology from Tufts University and attended the two year program of The Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre.

Career

Known for his unique voice and truthful, brave characters, actors and audiences are consistently drawn to Cummings' work because of his ability to write forgivingly, comically and deeply about being a human being.

A Good Smoke (full length) originally produced by The Production Company in Los Angeles, was a semifinalist for the Eugene O'Neill theater conference. A Good Smoke had a reading at The Public Theater in New York starring Meryl Streep, Henry Wolfe Gummer, Grace Gummer, Joe Paulik, John Rothman and Debra Monk, directed by Pam MacKinnon and was optioned for Broadway.

The Fat of the Land had a workshop production in Los Angeles at West Coast Ensemble and was presented in New York City in Ensemble Studio Theatre’s Octoberfest directed by Billy Hopkins, featuring Henry Wolfe Gummer. It was produced by The New Theatre at The Theatre District in Los Angeles. The Fat of the Land was one of fifteen finalists for the Kaufman & Hart Prize for New American Comedy awarded by Arkansas Repertory Theatre. Dan Alemshah received The L.A. Ovation Award for best featured actor in a play for his portrayal of the humorous, heartfelt transsexual role of Claudia Vestibule.

Piss Play is About Minorities so It’s Really Important (one act) was presented as part of the New York Cringe Festival where it received the Golden Pineapple for best play and an acting award for the lead actor.

The Winner (one act) is about the destruction of the earth by rapacious big-oil, was produced at West Coast Ensemble, a finalist for the Heideman Award at Actors Theatre of Louisville and was published in Post_Road_(magazine), Issue #25.

Live Work Space (full length) has had readings at The Road Theater Company, West Coast Ensemble and The Production Company.

American Air, Cummings’ critically acclaimed one-man-show, was presented at Theater/Theatre, The HBO Workspace and The Powerhouse Theatre in Los Angeles, and in part at Soho Repertory Theatre and Ensemble Studio Theatre in New York under the title What Do Men Live By?

Box, a short film starring Marsha Dietlein Bennett, Lou Liberatore, Dylan Chalfy, Andreas Damm and Mink Stole, shot on the Sony F65 camera, was an official selection at The Dam Short Film Festival, New Film Makers New York Festival, Twin Rivers Media Festival and The Toronto Independent film festival. It was picked up for distribution by TVShortsInternational.

Mr. Cummings has appeared in readings at Comedy Central’s Sit N’ Spin, The Old Stone House in Park Slope, A Different Light Bookstore in Los Angeles and Art by the Ferry in New York. He has been a judge for Literary Death Match.

As an actor, Mr. Cummings was a recurring guest star on the television series Dharma & Greg as the annoyed waiter and has appeared on many other television series including: Mad About You, Lucky, Still Standing, and Half & Half. Film appearances include the lead role in the Houston Film Festival winner, The Appointment, directed by Todd Wade, Noho, directed by David Schrader and in over forty plays and musicals on both coasts and in regional theaters including Macbeth in Macbeth, Mr. Bungee in A New Brain, Berenger in Exit the King, Ray in Lone Star, and The Man in Alan Ball’s Power Lunch.

As a composer and musician, Mr. Cummings received the LA WEEKLY Award for Best Revival Production for his arrangement and musical direction of Frank Galati’s The Grapes of Wrath. He composed and performed the music for I’m Really Different (Now)! at Largo in Los Angeles, alongside comedians Karen Kilgariff, formerly the head writer for The Ellen DeGeneres Show and Sarah Silverman.

Mr. Cummings is a graduate of Tufts University with a BS in Biology, a graduate of the two year program of The Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre, a member of The Dramatists Guild of America, The Ensemble Studio Theatre Playwrights Unit, SAG-AFTRA and Actors Equity Association. He is on the advisory board of VS. Theatre Company in Los Angeles and the iStar Theatre Lab in New York. Originally from the Hudson Valley, Mr. Cummings lives in New York City and Los Angeles with his husband, Adam Waring.