About Tom Cole

Born in 1933 in Paterson, New Jersey, Tom Cole took his undergraduate degree at Harvard, and, after studying Russian in army language school, returned to Harvard for a graduate degree in Slavic Languages and Literatures. The author of award-winning short stories and a novel, An End to Chivalry, Cole became a playwright with Medal of Honor Rag. His next play, Fighting Bob, was commissioned by Milwaukee Repertory Theater and produced Off Broadway in 1981. Cole’s translations/adaptations of Gogol’s Dead Souls and Ostrovsky’s The Forest were also first staged by Milwaukee Rep. Since 1970 Cole has enjoyed an active association with film directors Irvin Kershner, Martin Rosen and Joyce Chopra, with whom he has worked on a long series of films both dramatic and documentary. Current projects include a screenplay of a Joyce Carol Oates story, “Where Are You Going?,” and both film and stage adaptations of Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior. Cole has been the recipient of the Atlantic “First” Award, the Rosenthal Award of the National Institute of Arts and Letters, the CINE Golden Eagle and a playwriting fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.