Playwright
Eight-time Samuel French Off-Off Broadway Festival Participant (and four time finalist), George is the author of six full length plays, over twenty one-acts, and countless monologues. 4 X’MAS, his evening of one-act holiday plays, has just been published by Baker’s Plays. His play Foreclosure was performed before a sold-out audience at the 2009 Samuel French Festival and most recently his drama Epitaph, was accepted for publication at Baker’s Plays. He’s just completed his sixth evening of one acts entitled Trinity, and has begun work on his next play PVT.

Bookwriter/Lyricist/Composer
Just completed a hugely successful series of staged readings of In Search of Alice, the second original musical he has created in collaboration with composer Michael J. Shapiro. They will be presenting another staged reading of the musical on February 15th, 2010 in New York City.

Screenwriter
Two-time participant in the NY Independent Film Market, he has just completed his fourth screenplay Double Exposure.

Songwriter
A composer of dozens of songs, his “Pass on the Love”, performed by the legendary Persuasions, was featured in Spike Lee’s Do It A Capella.

Designer
An Addy Award winner for his work on August Wilson’s Fences, George has also designed posters for scores of motion pictures, including Academy Award winners Monster, Y Tu Mama Tambien, and Amadeus. George is a member of BMI and the Dramatists Guild.

Check out George’s new collection,
available from Baker’s Plays

4 X’MAS
includes:
The Office Party
Santa’s Clara
The First Noel
Balls
Santa Comes To The King David

Q & A with George Cameron Grant

Q: When and/or how did you know that you wanted to create plays?

A: You can put the blame on James—Earl Jones, that is. At the age of nine I discovered we lived three blocks from Poe Cottage on the Grand Concourse in the Bronx, so (naturally) this was a sign from God that I was meant to be a writer, and from that moment on, that’s pretty much what I did. Poems, stories, music, lyrics—you name it, I wrote it—but, interestingly enough, never plays. Even throughout my career as a movie poster and ad designer, copywriting became an integral part of the gig, and (shhhh) always the biggest thrill. Fast forward to 1987, I’m working on the logo/poster design for August Wilson’s Fences, in which James Earl Jones portrayed Troy Maxon. After seeing the play in rehearsal, the image I believed best represented this brilliant work pretty much fell into my head intact. Fortunately, the producer agreed, and it became the haiku image of the show throughout the entire Broadway run. So opening night comes, the show unfolds before an enthralled audience, and there I am, on my feet, taking part of the standing ovation that follows, when someone taps me on the shoulder and says “Mr. Jones would like to see you in his dressing room.” To someone in advertising, this is seldom a good thing, so I shuffle off to his dressing room, expecting the worst from this man I so admired, though never formally met. Meekly entering his dressing room, I observe the celebrity sea parting to reveal the great man himself, dressed in cotton robe and slippers, approaching me with an apparent scowl.

Extending one of those huge ham hands upon my shoulder, he says, in his deepest opening night voice, “When I first saw your artwork, not only did I know it was right for the show, I first understood what this show was about.” Gulping, I thank him, wander off to the darkest corner of the wings within the 46th Street Theatre (now the Richard Rodgers) and weep. Weep, yet emerge somehow knowing that I have been offered a gift- an awareness that the grasp of his hand fused all my creative desires, disciplines and dreams into one. From that moment on, not only would I design posters for theater pieces, but I would write the pieces themselves. The following week I began my first full length play and full length musical, and here we are, twenty-two years and eight trips to the Samuel French Festival later. How blessed am I?

Q: What inspires you to take on a new project?

A: Inspiration comes from any direction and usually when I least expect it, though it’s surprising how many times I research a project, begin to write it, then suddenly get blindsided by something else that strikes me in a profound way. Before I know it, I’m staring down at a first draft of a completely different piece. Ah, the randomness of it all. My latest full-length play, LEBEN, was inspired by a friend who was struggling with the choices and challenges of an unexpected pregnancy; my one-act EPITAPH, probably the most auto-biographical piece I’ve ever written, concerned very personal, unresolved issues with my deceased Father. I walked around with that one in my gut for many, many years, then one day this past summer it decided to make an appearance, and did so - rather quickly at that. Another one-act, FORECLOSURE, began as an homage to Dorothea Lange’s iconic photograph Migrant Mother, then obviously evolved into something far more topical, even while I was writing it, due to the country’s escalating economic meltdown. Presently I’m writing a piece concerning a very well known historical figure from our past, but even as I write, the relevance to present times is manifesting itself more and more, so I’m keeping an open mind, and letting it go where it wants to go. So, clearly, inspiration can present itself in any number of ways, some very linear, others when you least expect it, and sometimes in directions you can never imagine, but always an adventure.

Q: Have you ever come across a production that made you see one of your plays in a new or unexpected way?

A:Unexpected? Oh, yes. Some years ago, we were doing a production of ACTS OF LOVE, my evening of four one acts about—well, you get it. The second piece, and lead-in to intermission, was LOCOMOTIVES, a tale of two men - one straight, one gay—who work out some unpleasantness that occurred between them in childhood to a redemptive conclusion. It was received rather well, so much so, that during intermission I was approached by the loveliest lady who proceeded to, for want of a better expression, gush over me and the piece. Terribly flattered and flummoxed, I thanked her and expressed hope that she would enjoy the second half. Well, the opener of that second half is a play entitled STIFF, which begins with a young hooker attempting to have sex with her drug dealer boyfriend on the couch in his father’s apartment. Only hitch is the father lies dead under a chenille bedspread on the other end of the couch. Cut to end of play, I’m standing at the back of the theatre, when all of a sudden I’m physically attacked by some hysterical woman screaming expletives which will remain uncited. As she’s pried off me by the stage manager, I realize it’s the very same woman who, having just praised me minutes before, now wanted to bury me alive. I’ve yet to have a more exhilarating theatrical experience, and taught me, in a very personal way, the power, visceral impact, and responsibility of language.

Q:Your work runs the spectrum from searing drama to light-hearted comedy, is your approach varied as you sit down to write a first draft?

A: Not really. The goal for me, whether it be drama or comedy, is honesty. Being honest and faithful to the characters I’ve created at all costs, no matter how absurd the premise, and certainly never trying to make them say or do anything that betrays the reality I’ve created for them.

Probably my most earnest attempt at comedy is Balls, a fable about five very eccentric boxed holiday ornaments who awaken, quite out of season, to discover just how fragile their existence really is. On the surface it plays light-hearted comedy, but the undertow is deadly serious, truly being a survival story, and the comedy can only work if we viscerally sense the undertow of seriousness their plight suggests, not as Christmas Balls with chracteristics and personalities as different as different can be, but as living beings who must work together to stay alive.

Q: Who are your icons in theater or film?

A: That’s easy. Theater Bernstein, Hammerstein, Miller, Sondheim; Film: Capra, Chaplin, Welles, Wilder.