Editing Spalding Gray (section)

==Career==
Gray began his theater career in New York in the late 1960s. In 1970, he joined [[Richard Schechner]]'s experimental troupe [[The Performance Group]]. With actors from The Performance Group, including [[Willem Dafoe]] and [[Elizabeth LeCompte]], Gray co-founded the theater company [[The Wooster Group]]. He worked with it from 1975 to 1980, before leaving the company to focus on his monologue work. During this time, he also appeared in [[adult film]]s, having a featured role in ''[[Farmer's Daughters]]'' (1976) and appearing in [[Radley Metzger]]'s ''Maraschino Cherry'' (1978).<ref name=SFWeekly>{{cite web|url=http://blogs.sfweekly.com/exhibitionist/2011/08/spalding_gray_monologist_racon.php |title=Here's to the Late Spalding Gray: Monologist. Raconteur. Porn Star.|first=Sherilyn|last=Connelly|work=[[SF Weekly]] |access-date=June 26, 2016}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/18/books/journals-of-spalding-gray-edited-by-nell-casey-review.html |title=Peering Beyond a Monologist's Stage Presence Into His Uncensored Mind|date=October 18, 2011|work=[[The New York Times]]|access-date=June 26, 2016}}</ref> He first attained prominence in the United States with the film version of his monologue ''[[Swimming to Cambodia]]''. He had performed this monologue in New York City and published it as a book in 1985. He adapted it as a film in 1987, directed by [[Jonathan Demme]]. It was based on Gray's experience in Thailand filming ''[[The Killing Fields (movie)|The Killing Fields]]'' (1984), in which he portrayed a U.S. consular official.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2020-08-21 |title=Review: Swimming to Cambodia – Spalding Gray's mesmerising monologue about a messed-up world - Reader's Digest |url=https://www.readersdigest.co.uk/culture/film-tv/review-swimming-to-cambodia-spalding-grays-mesmerising-monologue-about-a-messed-up-world |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200821030848/https://www.readersdigest.co.uk/culture/film-tv/review-swimming-to-cambodia-spalding-grays-mesmerising-monologue-about-a-messed-up-world |archive-date=2020-08-21  |access-date=2022-07-24 }}</ref>

In 1987, he traveled to Nicaragua with [[Office of the Americas]]. He wrote an unproduced screenplay based on the experience. Some of his experiences there were documented in ''[[Monster in a Box]]''. He received a [[Guggenheim Fellowship]] and the [[National Book Award]] in 1985 for this work. He continued to write and perform monologues until his death. Through 1993, these works often incorporated his relationship to his girlfriend [[Renée Shafransky]]. They married and she became his collaborator.<ref>{{cite book|last=Gray|first=Spalding|title=Monster in a Box|year=1992|publisher=[[Vintage Books]]|location=New York City|isbn=0679737391|edition=A Vintage original, 1st|url=https://archive.org/details/monsterinbox00gray}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Gray|first=Spalding|title=Gray's Anatomy|year=1994|publisher=[[Vintage Books]]|location=New York City|isbn=0679751785|edition=1st|url=https://archive.org/details/graysanatomy00gray}}</ref> He later married Kathleen Russo.

Gray's success with his monologues brought him various supporting movie roles. He also played the lead role of the Stage Manager in a high-profile 1988 revival of [[Thornton Wilder]]'s play ''[[Our Town]]'' at the [[Lincoln Center Theater]]. In 1992, Gray published his only novel, ''Impossible Vacation.'' The novel reflects elements of his life, including his mother's [[Christian Scientist]] beliefs,<ref>{{cite book|last=Gray|first=Spalding|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7Mj9x23iWJQC&q=Gray's+life,+including+his+upbringing+as+a+Christian+Scientist,&pg=PA3|title=The Journals of Spalding Gray|date=October 2, 2012|publisher=Vintage Books|isbn=978-0-307-47491-9|language=en}}</ref> his [[White Anglo-Saxon Protestants|WASP]] background, and his mother's suicide. Gray wrote a subsequent monologue about his experiences writing ''Impossible Vacation'', which later became the film ''[[Monster in a Box]]''.<ref name=NY>{{cite news|url=https://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9E0CE0DD143CF936A35755C0A964958260|title=A 'Monster' Dense With Meaning|author=Canby, Vincent|authorlink=Vincent Canby|newspaper=The New York Times|date=5 June 1992|archivedate=May 26, 2015|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20150526052613/https://www.nytimes.com/1992/06/05/movies/review-film-a-monster-dense-with-meaning.html}}</ref>

During an interview in 1997 with film critic [[Edward Vilga]], Gray was asked whether the movie industry was "confused" by his writings and roles. He responded:
::I would say that my major problem with Hollywood is this—I sometimes paraphrase [[Bob Dylan]]—Bob Dylan says "I may look like [[Robert Ford (outlaw)|Robert Ford]], but I feel just like [[Jesse James]]." I say, "I may look like a gynecologist, an American ambassador's aide, or a lawyer, but I feel like [[Woody Allen]]." ... My insides are not what my outsides are. I'm not who I appear to be. I appear to be a [[Boston Brahmin|Wasp Brahmin]], but I'm really a sort of neurotic, perverse New York Jew. When I was performing one year ago at this time in Israel, a review came out in Hebrew about ''Monster in a Box,'' and it read, "Spalding Gray is funny, sometimes hilarious, wonderfully neurotic for a non-Jew." Only the Jews can say something like "wonderfully neurotic."<ref>Vilga, Edward (1997). ''Acting Now: Conversations on Craft and Career''. [[Rutgers University Press]].</ref>{{rp|111}}

Gray's performance style relied upon an impressionistic use of memories rather than a recounting of chronological facts. Gray said his style of monologue resulted from a sort of "poetic journalism."<ref>{{cite book|last1=Gentile|first1=John S.|title=Cast of One: One-Person Shows from the Chautauqua Platform to the Broadway Stage|url=https://archive.org/details/castofoneonepers00gent|url-access=registration|date=1989|publisher=University of Illinois Press|location=Champaign-Urbana|page=[https://archive.org/details/castofoneonepers00gent/page/150 150]|isbn=9780252015847}}</ref>