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Jack Neary is a playwright, theatre producer, director and actor. He's based in the Boston area and is former artistic director of the Summer Theatre at Mount Holyoke College. He was previously artistic director of Smith College's New Century Theatre, which he co-founded in 1991.
Neary's plays have been presented throughout the United States and Canada. His romantic comedy First Night (Baker Plays/Samuel French) has been produced around the country and was staged at the Westside Theatre in New York and ran for five months at the Theatre Lobby in Boston. To Forgive, Divine (Dramatists Play Service), which debuted professionally at the Merrimack Repertory Theatre and has been produced elsewhere around the country, has been purchased for film by Walt Disney Pictures. Jerry Finnegan's Sister (Dramatic Publishing) has played in various United States theatres and in Paris, and has successfully launched two theatre companies. Neary's one-act play, The God Thing, received a John Gassner Memorial Playwriting Award, and his full-length plays, Precious Days, Night of the Bully and The Big Apple were premiered at New Century Theatre. His latest plays are Nutshells, presented at NCT; an adaptation of Frankenstein, produced by the Summer Theatre at Mount Holyoke College and at the Pridemore Theatre, Radford University; Senior Circuit (formerly Five Nickels) and The Fall of the House of Usher, an adaptation of the Poe classic, produced at Mount Holyoke in 2000. He has had two adaptations of classic children's stories published by Baker's Plays: Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp and The Little Match Girl. His 10-minute comedies Oral Report, Alternative Lifestyle and Three-Peat were presented at the 1999, 2000 and 2001 Boston Theatre Marathons. His screenplay Stunner was optioned by Hobel Productions (Tender Mercies), and another screenplay, The Penance, was optioned by Nelle Nugent's Foxboro Entertainment.
Neary has directed over 50 productions in theatres around New England, including the Merrimack Repertory Theatre, the Chiswick Park Theatre, the Worcester Foothills Theatre, the Theatre of Newburyport, Bradford College, the University of Massachusetts, New Century Theatre and at the Summer Theatre at Mount Holyoke College. Among the plays he's directed are Deathtrap, The Heiress, Agnes of God, You Can't Take It with You, The Man Who Came to Dinner, The Pajama Game, Oh, Coward!, Biloxi Blues, Don't Dress for Dinner, Anything Goes, Bye Bye Birdie, Guys and Dolls, An Inspector Calls, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Sleuth, The Cemetery Club, See How They Run, the original musical Doll and many of his own plays and adaptations including Frankenstein and The Fall of the House of Usher. As an actor, he's appeared as both Oscar and Felix in The Odd Couple, as Bernie Dodd in The Country Girl, as Pseudolus in Forum, as Danny Fleming in First Night, as Clarence in A Wonderful Life, as various characters in his own Nutshells and in at least 50 other shows. Neary also plays Professor Plum in VCR Clue and Clue II, Murder in Disguise. He is a member of The Dramatists Guild, Actors Equity and the Screen Actors Guild.
Visit Jack Neary's website.
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