JON MARANS  

Playwright, Bookwriter

JMarans1@gmail.com

Jon Marans has written a brand new book for the Lerner & Loewe musical Paint Your Wagon which premiered at the Fifth Avenue Theatre in Seattle in June 2016 and then transferred to the Ordway Theater in August 2016.   The next production was in July/August 2019 at the MUNY Theatre in St. Louis. Other works include The Temperamentals, produced by Daryl Roth and Stacy Shane, which ran for over eight months Off-Broadway at the Barrow Group Theater and at New World Stages. The Temperamentals  was nominated for the Lucille Lortel and the Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding New Off-Broadway play and Mr. Marans was nominated for the John Gassner Award.  It was a 2012 American Library Association Stonewall Honor Book in Literature.  The entire cast won the Drama Desk Award for Best Ensemble and Michael Urie won the Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Lead Actor.  Mr. Marans’ play Old Wicked Songs was a Pulitzer Prize Finalist for Drama, won the New York Drama League Award (including play and both actors). It was first presented by the Walnut Street Theatre, then in NYC by the Barrow Group, and then moving (produced by Daryl Roth and Jeffrey Ash) to the Promenade Theater where it ran for a season. In England, Old Wicked Songs started at the Bristol Old Vic, transferring to London's West End at the Gielgud Theater starring Bob Hoskins and James Callis. The play has been produced throughout the U.S. and has been translated and produced in over a dozen countries. Other produced shows include A Strange and Separate People  at the Penguin Rep in Stony Point, NY and Studio Theater/Theater Row, NYC (2014 American Library Association Stonewall Honor Book in Literature),  Jumping for Joy at the Laguna Playhouse and the International Adelaide Theater Festival,  the musical Legacy at the San Jose Rep (book by Jon Marans, lyrics by Ronnie Gilbert, music Jeff Langley & Henry Mollicone based on Studs Terkel’s book “Coming of Age”), The Irrationals at the Village Theater and ATA, NYC (book & lyrics Jon Marans, music by Edward Thomas),   A Raw Space at the Bristol Riverside Theatre and  A Girl Scout World at the Bloomington Playwrights Project.   In January 2020, wrote the script for the 92nd Street Y’s Lyrics and Lyricists program honoring Yip Harburg. In film, Jon Marans was a story editor for Stonebridge Productions (Michael Douglas’ production company) for three years and Jon Marans and Yuri Sivo were hired by Universal Pictures/Tribeca Productions to write a political/war screenplay based on Roy Rowan's acclaimed book Chasing the Dragon which takes place in 1947 China, in the middle of their civil war.   In television, Mr. Marans was a writer for Cookin' in Brooklyn and a writer/lyricist for the 1991 New Carol Burnett Show. Mr. Marans is a graduate of Duke University in mathematics with a minor in music.   His play The Temperamentals is currently in film development with Daryl Roth Productions.  Mr. Marans is a recipient of a 2013 Guggenheim Fellowship.