Following a career as an actor in Cape Cod, Spalding Gray moved to New York in 1967 where he became involved with the experimental theater company the Performance Group. From about the time when he co-founded the Wooster Group theater company, Gray turned his attention to writing as well as performing. He became known for his dramatic monologues, which draw extensively on his own life. His early works like "Sex and Death to the Age 14" and "Booze, Cars, and College Girls" were written during the late 1970s and were performed at the Performing Garage in Soho. The style of the works juxtaposes the complicated and often disjunct narratives of his own life against one another. In 1983 he accepted a part in "The Killing Fields," a movie about an American ambassador and an Asian assistant during the 1970s in Cambodia. The experiences he had in Thailand while making this movie led to his writing "Swimming to Cambodia" (1985), a dramatic monologue/ performance piece for which he received the greatest critical attention. Working with his girlfriend, and with director Jonathan Demme, the powerful stagework was turned into a movie, which itself has received critical attention.
http://www.thewoostergroup.org/index.html
http://www.audiobookcafe.com/FtrLst.cfm?FtrCatCod=3&Code=730
http://film.guardian.co.uk/features/featurepages/0,4120,1379764,00.html
http://www.vineyardplayhouse.org/articles/2004/article0401.html
Washington Square Arts and Films agency (Kathie Russo)
