Bio
Michael Cristofer is an American playwright, filmmaker and actor who received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Tony Award for Best Play for The Shadow Box, in 1977.
He is best known to television audiences for his recurring role as API head Truxton Spangler in the television drama series Rubicon, in 2010.
He has appeared in over 100 plays, including The Cherry Orchard with Irene Worth; The Seagull with Joanne Woodward; Body of Water with Christine Lahti; and the American premiere of Tony Kushner's Intelligent Homosexual.
He also appeared in the celebrated Broadway production of Arthur Miller's A View from the Bridge, with Liev Schreiber and Scarlett Johansson.
As a playwright, Cristofer was awarded the Pulitzer Prize and a Tony Award for the Broadway production of his play, The Shadow Box. Subsequent to New York, the play was produced in every major American city, as well as worldwide from Europe to the Far East.
Other plays include The Lady and the Clarinet, starring Stockard Channing and Amazing Grace, starring Marsha Mason, which received the American Theater Critics Best Play Award.
Cristofer's film work includes the screenplays for The Shadow Box directed by Paul Newman (Golden Globe Award, Emmy nomination); Falling in Love with Meryl Streep and Robert DeNiro; The Witches of Eastwick with Jack Nicholson; The Bonfire of the Vanities directed by Brian DePalma, Breaking Up starring Russell Crowe and Salma Hayek, and Casanova starring Heath Ledger.
His directing credits include Gia for HBO Pictures, starring Angelina Jolie, Mercedes Ruehl, and Faye Dunaway, which was nominated for five Emmys and for which he won a Director's Guild Award; Body Shots for New Line Cinema; and Original Sin, starring Angelina Jolie and Antonio Banderas.
For eight years, Cristofer worked as artistic advisor and eventually co-artistic director of River Arts Repertory in Woodstock, N.Y., a company that produces new plays including the American premiere of Edward Albee's Three Tall Women, a production that later moved to New York.