Erica Schmidt
Writing
Biography
Erica Schmidt (born June 8, 1975) is an American theatre director, playwright, and screenwriter best known for writing the BAFTA- and Academy Award-nominated 2021 film Cyrano, based on her 2018 stage musical of the same name. The musical premiered at the Goodspeed. She was nominated for the Las Vegas Film Critics Society Award for Best Adapted Screenplay and the Sunset Film Circle Award for Best Screenplay. In 2005 Schmidt married actor Peter Dinklage. Together, they have two children, a daughter in 2011 and a son in 2017.
Known For
A man ahead of his time, Cyrano de Bergerac dazzles whether with ferocious wordplay at a verbal joust or with brilliant swordplay in a duel. But, convinced that his appearance renders him unworthy of the love of a devoted friend, the luminous Roxanne, Cyrano has yet to declare his feelings for her—and Roxanne has fallen in love, at first sight, with Christian.
Cyrano
On an autumn afternoon, in an empty lot outside the city, seven girls meet up to do a play. School uniform tartan transforms in this American urban wasteland. The girls are witches, ghosts, and kings. They hurl headlong into the unchecked passions of Macbeth—in Shakespeare’s original text—as the line between real life and blood fantasy quickly blurs. Through prophecies and smartphones, unexpected resonances emerge from Shakespeare’s dark nightmare of ambition gone awry. These young women discover what's done cannot be undone.