Plays written by Johnna Adams
THE BOYD GIRLS
DON JOHNSON MEETS MR. X
THE SERGEANT WITH THE ROSE TATTOO
Synopses:
The Boyd Girls – Three sisters, all still living in their family home in their late middle age, have their lives upended by the return of an old flame and the appearance of a young stranger. Love, life, illness, and the swift passage of time challenge the women, their adopted brother, and their comfortable, insular world.
Don Johnson Meets Mr.X – Theater people have been telling the Don Juan story for hundreds of years now, and each version meets its moment with a new twist. This sex farce retelling for the “Me Too” era asks the audience to reconsider an oft-told tale and who it is really about.
The Sergeant with the Rose Tattoo – A gay, interracial love story set in movie Paris in the early 1960’s. Sam, an American émigré tattoo artist meets a young American soldier, Buck, and both of their lives are forever changed. A cool jazz score meets hot Paris nights in this delightful and unexpected romance.
Bio:
Curt Columbus is a director, playwright, translator and adaptor whose work has been seen on stages throughout the American Theater for the last forty years. His directing credits include
The Roommate, POTUS, Becky Nurse of Salem, Sweeney Todd, Tiny Beautiful Things, Macbeth, Ragtime, Uncle Vanya, Beowulf: A Thousand Years of Baggage, Middletown, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, The Merchant of Venice, His Girl Friday, Camelot, Cabaret, The Receptionist, Blithe Spirit, A Christmas Carol, Merrily We Roll Along, Cherry Orchard, A
Midsummer Night’s Dream, A Dybbuk, Our Town, The Maids, and The Mystery of Irma Vep. He has directed many world premiere works, including The Death of Zukasky, The House of Lily, Social Creatures, and The Getaway Driver.
As a playwright and translator, Trinity Repertory Company has been home to the world premieres of three of his plays, Paris by Night, The Dreams of Antigone, and Sparrow Grass.
Trinity has also produced his translations of Chekhov’s Ivanov, as well as Feydeau’s A Flea in Her Ear and Lope de Vega’s Like Sheep to Water (Fuente Ovejuna). His translations of
Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya and Cherry Orchard were developed at Steppenwolf Theatre, while Three Sisters was developed at the Arden Theatre. Dramatists Play Service publishes his
translations of Chekhov’s Seagull, Uncle Vanya, Three Sisters, Cherry Orchard, and Ivanov, as well as his translation of de Vega’s Fuente Ovejuna and his original play, Sparrow Grass.
Curt’s adaptation of Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment (with Marilyn Campbell) has won awards and accolades at theaters around the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia.
The New York Times said of the adaptation, “[I]n a feat that rivals the construction of the Hoover Dam, Crime and Punishment has been distilled into a taut 90-minute play, now at the 59E59 Theaters, which will banish any bad memories you might have of trying to struggle through Dostoyevsky’s book… Who would have thought that the novel no high school student has ever finished reading would make such engrossing theater?”
From January 2006 through September 2026, Curt served as artistic director of Trinity Repertory Company, becoming the second longest-serving artistic director in the theater’s history; during that tenure, he also led the Brown University/Trinity Rep MFA programs in Acting and Directing and was a Professor of the Practice at Brown University. Prior to Trinity, Curt spent twenty years in Chicago theater, serving as associate artistic director of Steppenwolf Theatre Company from 2000 to 2005, artistic director of Theater on the Lake from 1994 to 2005, director of the University of Chicago’s University Theater from 1994 to 2000, and artistic associate at Victory Gardens Theater from 1989 to 1994. He was awarded the 2019 Kennedy Center Medallion for his work co-creating the LORT/Kennedy Center ASPIRE Leadership Fellows Program as part of the American College Theater Festival.
Curt lives in Bradford, Vermont with his husband, Nate Watson, a professional traveler.