Paul Francis Schmidt (January 29, 1934 – February 19, 1999) was an American translator, poet, playwright, and essayist.
Biography He graduated from Nashua High School in 1951, Colgate University in 1955, and studied at Harvard University."Colgate AB", Nashua Telegraph, Nashua, New Hampshire, volume 87, issue 89, June 14, 1955, page 4.
He studied mime with Marcel Marceau and acting with Jacques Charon.
He served in the U.S. Army Intelligence, from 1958 to 1960.
Schmidt was professor at the University of Texas at Austin, from 1967 to 1976. He also taught at the Yale School of Drama.
He translated Euripides, Chekhov, Velimir Khlebnikov, Brecht, Genet, Gogol, Marivaux, Mayakovsky, and Rimbaud.
He wrote three plays, one of which, Black Sea Follies won the Helen Hayes Award, and the Joseph Kesselring Prize for best play. Schmidt was a frequently-commissioned theater collaborator. He translated plays by Chekhov and Racine for productions developed by the Wooster Grouphttps://thewoostergroup.org/credit/paul-schmidt/[ in NYC, and Genet’s “The Screens” for JoAnne Akalaitis at the Guthrie Theatre. He also wrote an original libretto for the Robert Wilson - Tom Waits opera “Alice"https://robertwilson.com/alice[ (developed and premiered in Hamburg, later seen at BAM).
Schmidt's work was profiled in The New York Review of Books.
He was married to Stockard Channing.
He is buried at Green-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn, New York.
Bibliography
Night Life, Painted Leaf Press, 1996, Winter Solstice, Painted Leaf Press, 1996,
Translations Arthur Rimbaud: Complete Works, 1975; HarperPerennial, 2000, Meyerhold at work, University of Texas Press, 1980,
Critical studies and reviews of Schmidt's work
The Plays of Anton Chekhov
References
External links PAUL SCHMIDT WORKS WELL WITH GENIUSES The Stray Dog Cabaret translated by Paul Schmidt http://broadwayworld.com/people/Paul_Schmidt/