Barbara Field’s works have been produced across the United States, Canada and Europe. Her original plays includes Neutral Countries, first produced at the Focus Theatre in Dublin, and then at The Actor’s Theatre of Louisville’s Humana Festival in 1983, where it was named Best American Play; Coming of Age for the Indiana Rep; Quality Time for The Pennsylvania Stage Company; Boundary Waters for the South Coast Rep (it subsequently won a 1992 DramaLogue Award); and Off the Ice and The Skinflint, a musical for the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis.
She served as playwright-in-residence at the distinguished Guthrie Theater from1974 to 1981, creating a number of pieces: her translations include Marriage (Gogol), Monsieur de Molière (Bulgakov), and Pantalgleize (Ghelderode). Adaptations for...
Barbara Field’s works have been produced across the United States, Canada and Europe. Her original plays includes Neutral Countries, first produced at the Focus Theatre in Dublin, and then at The Actor’s Theatre of Louisville’s Humana Festival in 1983, where it was named Best American Play; Coming of Age for the Indiana Rep; Quality Time for The Pennsylvania Stage Company; Boundary Waters for the South Coast Rep (it subsequently won a 1992 DramaLogue Award); and Off the Ice and The Skinflint, a musical for the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis.
She served as playwright-in-residence at the distinguished Guthrie Theater from1974 to 1981, creating a number of pieces: her translations include Marriage (Gogol), Monsieur de Molière (Bulgakov), and Pantalgleize (Ghelderode). Adaptations for the Guthrie from novels include Camille (Dumas) and Playing With Fire, a response to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. An adaptation commissioned by the Seattle Children’s Theater of Great Expectations later played at the Guthrie and traveled the country on an 8-month tour. A revival of Great Expectations recently won a Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award. Field’s adaptation of A Christmas Carol was a part of the Guthrie’s and the Kansas City Rep’s seasons for 35 years. For the Seattle Children’s Theater she adapted The Boxcar Children in 1999 and Philip Pullman’s I Was a Rat in 2008 Her adaptation of Dreams in the Golden Country was seen at the Kennedy Center and on a national tour. Her adaptation of Scaramouche was recently performed at the Washington Shakespeare Theatre.
She has written one original opera libretto, Rosina (composer Hiram Titus), which was commissioned and produced by the Minnesota Opera: also with Titus she has completed a children’s musical, Jack, and a musical, The Skinflint (Repertory Theatre of St Louis).
Field is a founding member of The Playwrights’ Center, Minneapolis, where she remains a Core Member; and has been a site reporter for the National Endowment for the Arts. A book of seven of her plays for the Guthrie Theater, New Classics from the Guthrie Theater was published in 2003 by Smith & Kraus. Barbara Field, Collected Plays, volume I was published by Samuel French in 2008. Volume II (Amazon) appeared in 2014.