Metamorphoses (play) - About The Author

About The Author

Mary Zimmerman was born in Lincoln, Nebraska in 1960. As a child she was introduced to the stories of the ancient Mediterranean world by Edith Hamilton's Mythology, and while away in England she was read The Odyssey by a teacher. Zimmerman was educated at Northwestern University, where she received a BS in theater, as well as a PhD and MA in performance studies. She is currently a full professor of performance studies at Northwestern.

Beyond her childhood exposure to Greek myths, Zimmerman credits the Jungian scholar James Hillman as the source of many of her ideas involving love, which appear in the story of Eros and Psyche. She also acknowledges the contribution of Joseph Campbell, a scholar of mythology, to her work. Zimmerman won the MacArthur "Genius" Fellowship in 1998 in recognition of her creative work and encouraged her productions and methodology to continue.

Other plays by Mary Zimmerman include Journey to the West, The Odyssey, The Arabian Nights, The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, and Eleven Rooms of Proust. She also directed and co-wrote Galileo Galilei. She has twice directed for the New York Shakespeare Festival in the Park and won the Tony Award for Best Director in 2002 for the Broadway production of Metamorphoses.Metamorphoses was Zimmerman's first Broadway production.