Source link : https://las-vegas-news.com/9-plays-that-were-turned-into-films-by-their-original-playwrights/
Adapting a stage play for the screen usually means handing it to someone else. The playwright’s words get trimmed, opened up and reshaped by a screenwriter who may never have sat in the rehearsal room. Sometimes, though, the person who wrote the play also writes the screenplay, and occasionally directs the film too.
The nine titles below all fit that description. Each one shows a writer deciding what to keep, what to cut and what to rebuild when a stage story moves to the cinema.
Doubt by John Patrick Shanley
Shanley’s play about a Catholic school principal who suspects a priest of misconduct opened off Broadway in 2004. It went on to win both the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Tony Award for Best Play in 2005. The story has no neat answers, and that ambiguity is the point.
Shanley wrote and directed the 2008 film himself. Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams and Viola Davis headed the cast. He already had an Oscar for writing Moonstruck, so the screen was familiar ground for him.
- Play: 2004 off-Broadway premiere | Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award for Best Play (2005)
- Film: 2008 | written and directed by Shanley
- Oscar nominations: 5, including all four lead and supporting performances and Best Adapted Screenplay
The Humans by Stephen Karam
Karam’s play follows a family gathering for Thanksgiving in a dilapidated two level apartment…
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Author : Matthias Binder
Publish date : 2026-10-29 13:25:00
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