David Mamet Turns 60

Happy Birthday to playwright/screenwriter David Mamet, who turned 60 today. Mamet is probably best known for his 1984 play, Glengary Glen Ross, a scathing tale about salesmen that was turned into a movie starring Jack Lemon and Alec Baldwin in 1992 (Mamet also adapted the screenplay). Mamet is still productive, however, and his latest play, November, is set to open at the Ethel Barrymore Theater in New York City on Jan. 17th, 2008. The play stars Nathan Lane as President Charles H.P. Smith and Laurie Metcalf as his speech writer Clarice Bernstein. The play is a contemporary comedy that follows Smith, an incumbent president, closing in on Election Day. Mamet, certainly no stranger to political satire (he co-wrote the screenplay for Wag the Dog), says that the November is inspired by the tradition of the US president pardoning a turkey on Thanksgiving. For more about November, check out articles here and here. For more about David Mamet, go to a library or book store and read something.

Today’s also author Samuel Langhorne Clemens’s birthday, better known as his pen name Mark Twain. You should probably read him too.