About War Paint
“An intelligent, character-driven musical about two innovators motivated as much by their own exacting standards as by the spirit of fierce competition between them.” – Hollywood Reporter
Helena Rubinstein and Elizabeth Arden defined beauty standards for the first half of the twentieth century. Brilliant innovators with humble roots, both were masters of self-invention who sacrificed everything to become the country’s first major female entrepreneurs. They were also fierce competitors whose fifty-year tug-of-war would give birth to an industry. From Fifth Avenue society to the halls of Congress, their rivalry was relentless and legendary – pushing both women to build international empires in a world dominated by men.
War Paint premiered at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago, IL in June 2016 under the direction of Michael Greif. The show transferred to Broadway's Nederlander Theatre in March 2017.
WAR PAINT is presented by arrangement with Concord Theatricals. www.concordtheatricals.com
About the Creative Team
Doug Wright
Doug Wright’s play Quills premiered at Washington, D.C.'s Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company in 1995 and subsequently had its debut Off-Broadway at New York Theatre Workshop. Quills garnered the 1995 Kesselring Prize for Best New American Play from the National Arts Club and, for Wright, a 1996 Village Voice Obie Award for Outstanding Achievement in Playwriting. In 2000, Wright wrote the screenplay for the film version of Quills which starred Geoffrey Rush. Wright’s I Am My Own Wife was produced Off-Broadway by Playwrights Horizons in 2003. It transferred to Broadway where it won the Tony Award for Best Play, as well as the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The subject of this one-person play, which starred Jefferson Mays, is the German transvestite Charlotte von Mahlsdorf. In 2006, Wright wrote the book for Grey Gardens. The musical is based on the Maysles brothers’ 1975 film documentary of the same title about Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale (“Big Edie”) and her daughter Edith Bouvier Beale (“Little Edie”), Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis’s aunt and cousin. He adapted the Disney's film The Little Mermaid for the Broadway musical, which opened in 2007.In 2009, he was commissioned by the La Jolla Playhouse to adapt and direct Creditors by August Strindberg. In another La Jolla commission, he wrote the book for the musical Hands on a Hardbody, with the score by Amanda Green and Trey Anastasio. The musical had a brief run on Broadway in March and April 2013 after premiering at the La Jolla Playhouse in 2012.For television, Wright worked on four pilots for producer Norman Lear and teleplays for Hallmark Entertainment and HBO. In film, Wright’s credits include screenplays for Fine Line Features, Fox Searchlight, and DreamWorks SKG. He is a member of the Dramatists Guild and serves on the board of New York Theatre Workshop. He is a recipient of the William L. Bradley Fellowship at Yale University, the Charles MacArthur Fellowship at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center, an HBO Fellowship in playwriting and the Alfred Hodder Fellowship at Princeton University. In 2010 he was named a United States Artists Fellow. Mr. Wright lives in New York City with his partner, songwriter David Clement.
Scott Frankel
Scott Frankel is a musical theatre composer whose most recent work, War Paint (starring Patti LuPone and Christine Ebersole), enjoyed a run on Broadway following a record-breaking engagement at the Goodman Theatre. Other works include Grey Gardens (Tony nomination), Far From Heaven (Playwrights Horizons, Williamstown Theatre Festival), Happiness (Lincoln Center Theater), Doll (Ravinia Festival) and Meet Mister Future (Winner, Global Search for New Musicals). Frankel is the recipient of the ASCAP Foundation New Horizons Richard Rodgers Award and the Frederick Loewe Award. He is a fellow of the MacDowell Colony and a graduate of Yale University.
