John Lahr
John Lahr is a staff writer and has been contributing to The New Yorker since 1991. A veteran of all aspects of the theatre, Lahr has contributed behind-the-scenes portraits, reviews, and Profiles, and has expanded the magazine’s drama coverage beyond Broadway to include the work of international theatre and regional companies.
A former theatre critic at The Nation, the Village Voice, and British Vogue, among other publications, Lahr has published seventeen books on theatre and two novels, “The Autograph Hound” and “Hot to Trot.” His book “Dame Edna Everage and the Rise of Western Civilization” won the 1992 Roger Machell Prize for best book on the performing arts. His other works include “Light Fantastic: Adventures in Theatre,” (1996) and “Show and Tell: New Yorker Profiles” (2000). In 2001, he edited “The Diaries of Kenneth Tynan.” His expanded New Yorker article on Frank Sinatra was made into a book with photographs, “Frank Sinatra: The Artist and the Man.” Lahr’s book “Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh” was a finalist for the National Book Award and the winner of the 2014 National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography.
Lahr served as literary adviser to the Tyrone Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis in 1968, and as adviser to the Vivian Beaumont Theatre from 1969 to 1971. He was the co-producer of the 1987 film “Prick Up Your Ears,” based on his Joe Orton biography of the same title, and was the editor of “The Orton Diaries.” Lahr has also written numerous movie scripts. His short film “Sticky My Fingers . . . Fleet My Feet,” directed by John Hancock, was nominated for an Academy Award in 1971.
Lahr is a two-time winner of the George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism. In 1968, he became the prize’s youngest recipient; he was honored again in 1993. Lahr has written many stage adaptations, which have been performed in England and the United States, including:“Accidental Death of an Anarchist,” “The Manchurian Candidate,” “The Bluebird of Unhappiness: A Woody Allen Revue,” and “Diary of a Somebody,” which began at the Royal National Theatre, played the West End, and later toured England. He co-created, with Elaine Strich, the Tony Award-winning “Elaine Stritch at Liberty,” which won the 2002 Drama Desk Award for outstanding book of a musical. Lahr was the first drama critic to win a Tony Award.
Lahr is the son of the comedian Bert Lahr, whom he wrote about in his biography “Notes on a Cowardly Lion.”
