Date of Birth : Apr 21st 1932
Two-time Academy Award nominated American film director, screenwriter and actress. She achieved her greatest fame, in the 1950s, from her improvisational comedy routines in partnership with Mike Nichols. May formed and directed an improvisational company called The Third Ear in New York that included Reni Santoni, Peter Boyle, Renee Taylor, and Louise Lasser. On Tuesday nights the cast would improvise with invited guests, like Mark Gordon who had also been in The Compass.
May also wrote several plays during this period. Her greatest success was the one-act Adaptation. Other stage plays she has written include Not Enough Rope, Mr Gogol And Mr Preen, Hot Line, After the Night and the Music, Power Plays, Taller Than A Dwarf, and Adult Entertainment. She also directed the off-Broadway production of Adaptation/Next.
Nichols and May starred together in a stage version of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? at the Long Wharf Theatre in 1980. Nichols had directed the film version in 1966.
CAREER
Small Time Crooks ( 2000 )
A New Leaf ( 1971 )