Born in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1939 to attorney James B. Diggs and Virginia Francis Diggs,[3] Diggs attended Brown University, where she first became involved with theatre. In 1960 she co-wrote Happily Never After, the annual Brownbrokers musical, with future partner Emily Arnold McCully.[4] She graduated in 1961.[5] After Brown, she earned a PhD from Columbia University and entered a period of political activism in the anti-war and feminism movements,[6] including the distinction of heading one of the first Women's Studies programs at Jersey City College, where she co-developed curriculum and oversaw the launch and expansion of the program.[7] She is a professor of dramatic writing at the Goldberg Department of Dramatic Writing at Tisch.[8]
Career
Diggs' first major success was the play Close Ties, which premiered at Lexington Conservatory Theatre in August 1980.[9] The play starred notable stage actress Margaret Barker, Sofia Landon Geier and John Griesemer. It was directed by Barbara Rosoff. "A remarkable production of a lovely and loving play," said critic Jeffery Borak. The Knickerbocker News described it as "...beautiful, touching, gentle and heartwarming."[10][11] A year later it was produced at Long Wharf Theatre, directed by Arvin Brown and once again starring Barker;[12] the actress had been friends with Diggs for several years, and the author crafted the role with Barker in mind.[13] In 1983, it was made into a television film.[14]
Her next play, Goodbye Freddy, was workshopped at Lexington Conservatory Theatre,[15] followed by its world premiere production at South Coast Repertory in 1983. Diggs won the CBS Dramatists Guild Prize for the play that May.[16] The play was produced at Portland Stage Company in December 1984, starring fellow Lexington Conservatory alumni Court Miller and Kit Flanagan, and directed by another alumni, Barbara Rosoff.[17] The production of Goodbye Freddy was later remounted in New York on September 20, 1985, starring Barbara Eda-Young and Michael Murphy in place of Court Miller, along with Walter Bobbie, Carole Monferdini, Nicholas Cortland and Kit Flanagan.[18]"As she demonstrated in Close Ties and the one-act Dumping Grounds, the playwright has a keen ear for dialogue and a watchful eye for those offhanded moments when characters accidentally reveal themselves," said New York Times critic Mel Gussow.[19]
American Beef, her third play, explores the dying myths of the American west, and was inspired by childhood visits to the Chapman-Barnard Ranch in Osage County, Oklahoma.[20] It was commissioned in 1985 for South Coast Repertory. Productions include 1987 world premiere at Gloucester Stage Company in Massachusetts followed by International City Theater in Long Beach, California.[21]
In October 1988, she premiered Saint Florence at Capital Repertory Theatre in Albany, NY, after a staged reading of it there in May.[22][23] "Both an instructive lesson from history and a compelling act of the imagination," said the review of the premiere in the New York Times.[24] Based on the life of Florence Nightingale, the production starred Claire Beckman. In 1990, it was produced at the Vineyard Theatre in New York. Re-titled Nightingale it was directed by John Rubinstein with Kathryn Pogson in the starring role.[25]
Diggs also contributed to the first season of television series St. Elsewhere. Although writing for television was lucrative, she found the experience less fulfilling than theatre.[28]
