James Lapine

March 16, 2005 -- Veteran Broadway writer, librettist and director James Lapine will introduce Washington University's production of Into the Woods, his 1987 collaboration with Stephen Sondheim, with a talk at 7 p.m. Friday, April 1.

Jill Krementz

James Lapine

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Moderated by director William Whitaker, senior artist-in-residence in the Performing Arts Department in Arts & Sciences, An Interview with James Lapine is free and open to the public and takes place in the A.E. Hotchner Studio Theatre, located in the Mallinckrodt Student Center, 6445 Forsyth Blvd. (The premiere performance follows at 8 p.m. in Edison Theatre, also located in Mallinckrodt). For more information, call (314) 935-5858.

In addition to Into the Woods, Lapine served as librettist for Sondheim's Sunday in the Park with George (1985) and Passion (1995). With William Finn, he collaborated on March of the Falsettos (1981), Falsettoland (1990), A New Brain (1998) and, most recently, The 25th Annual Putnum County Spelling Bee, which moves to Broadway this spring.

Other Broadway credits include directing Michel Legrand's Amour (2002); David Henry Hwang's Golden Child (1998); and the 1997 revival of The Diary of Anne Frank. With writer Claudia Shear, Lapine conceived and directed Dirty Blonde (2000). In 1999, he wrote the book and directed Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame, which premiered in Berlin and ran for three years. In 2004, he directed Daniel Goldfarb's off-Broadway hit Modern Orthodox.

Lapine has written five plays: Table Settings (1979); Twelve Dreams (1978); Luck, Pluck & Virtue (1993); The Moment When (2000); and Fran's Bed (2003). He has directed television productions of Into the Woods (1991) and Passion (1996) as well as the films Impromptu (1991), with Hugh Grant and Judy Davis; Life with Mikey (1993), with Michael J. Fox; and Earthly Possessions (1999), with Susan Sarandon.

Lapine has been nominated for 10 Tony Awards, winning on three occasions. Other honors include five Drama Desk Awards; an Obie Award; the British Evening Standard Award; an Olivier Award and the prestigious Pulitzer Prize for Drama.