Gretchen Cryer

Gretchen Cryer (b. Dunreith, Indiana, October 17, 1935 -- ) – Writer, singer, actress, and lyricist. Hoosier native Gretchen Cryer (born Gretchen Kiger) majored in English at DePauw, where she met the musically-inclined Nancy Ford. With Ford acting as the composer and Cryer the lyricist, the two collaborated on For Reasons of Loyalty, which was produced at Boston University when the two were graduate students at Yale. In 1967, the pair collaborated on Now is the Time for All Good Men, which made them the first female-female team in New York’s theater district. Although their first professional production was met with harsh criticism, they continued to produce musicals with the most successful being I’m Getting My Act Together and Taking it on the Road (1978), which was in part based on Cryer’s life. After moving from the Public Theater in lower Manhattan to the Circle on the Square Theater, the show ran for three years. Throughout the 1960s, Cryer appeared in numerous other Broadway productions, as did her husband David Cryer, whom she divorced in 1968. One of their three children is Jon Cryer, now famous for his role on the sitcom Two and a Half Men. (He is also remembered for his brilliant portrayal of the “Duckman” in Pretty in Pink, 1986.)