A married couple in New York City awake one day to discover, in a plot worthy of Kafka or Orwell, that their private lives are no longer private. Even more frightening, their lives seem to bear no relation to anything they knew.
An edgy, erotically charged information-age thriller, this new play by award-winning playwright Arthur Kopit exposes the control that computers can have over our lives, morality, even bank accounts. Acclaimed by the critics as the best new play at the 1999 Humana Festival of New American Plays in Louisville, it is one of the major productions in the Manhattan Theatre Club's 1999--2000 season in New York.
"Sizzling . . . dark comedy that becomes a horrifying cautionary tale . . . the play has a lethal feedback."-- The New York Times
"Kopit's cool topical thriller exploits technophobes' fear of the new millennium and the increasing power cybergeeks will wield at the expense of the computer-illiterate. . . . Kopit's writing is laced with mordant wit, and the central characters are subtly drawn."-- Variety
Arthur Lee Kopit (born May 10, 1937, New York City) is an American playwright. He is a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist (Indians and Wings) and a three-time Tony Award nominee: Best Play, Indians, 1970; Best Play, Wings, 1979; and Best Book of a Musical, for Nine, 1982. He won the Vernon Rice Award (now known as the Drama Desk Award) in 1962 for his play Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mama's Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feelin' So Sad and was nominated for another Drama Desk Award in 1979 for his play Wings.[1]
Nine returned to Broadway in 2003 with Antonio Banderas as Guido and won two Tony Awards, including best revival; in 2009 Rob Marshall directed the film Nine based on Kopit's script, the principle cast consisting of Daniel Day-Lewis, Judi Dench, Nicole Kidman, Marion Cotillard, Penélope Cruz, Sophia Loren, Kate Hudson, and Fergie (singer).
Kopit attended Lawrence High School in Lawrence, Nassau County, New York.
Kopit attended Harvard University. His first plays were staged while still an undergraduate at Harvard University. Later, Kopit taught at Wesleyan University, Yale University, and the City College of New York. In 2005, Kopit donated his papers to the Fales Library at NYU.