Theater Conversations

Howard Shalwitz, the longtime artistic director of the Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, co-founded the theatre back in 1980--at a time when the repertory of American plays was limited to academic classics and NYC vogue. With a commitment to new approaches to theatre and a devotion to bringing new playwriting voices into the limelight, Woolly has had not just a tremendous national impact, but has been an important local influence as well as a partner in community development and a force for bringing new audiences to the theatre.

David Ives (b. 1950) attended Northwestern University where he began writing plays. He produced his first play, Canvas, in New York City with the Circle Repertory Company. He later took on a job as an editor of Foreign Affairs and eventually studied drama at Yale University's School of Drama, where he received his MFA. He is known for many successful plays including, All in the Timing, Words, Words, Words, Sure Thing, and Philip Glass Buys a Loaf of Bread. His latest play, Don Juan in Chicago, received the Outer Critic's Circle's John Gassner Playwriting Award and a Drama Desk nomination for outstanding play. Ives also received the 1994 George and Elizabeth Martin Playwrighting Award from Young Playwrights Inc. Ives lives in New York and teaches at Columbia University.

Carlos Murillo is a Chicago-based playwright, director and teacher. He is a Visiting Professor at the Theatre School of DePaul University. His play Mimesophobia (or before and after) was produced at Arielle Tepper’s 2005 NYC Summer Play Festival after previous workshops at J.A.W. West Festival at Portland Center Stage (2004), South Coast Rep’s Hispanic Playwrights Project (2003), the Chautauqua Institution Theatre Conservatory (2002) and A.S.K. Theatre Project in Los Angeles (2002). In NY Carlos’ plays have been seen at the Public Theater, New York Theatre Workshop, En Garde Arts, Lincoln Center, Soho Rep, the Hangar Theatre, the Chautauqua Institute Conservatory, the Flea,INTAR and Nada, Inc. Regionally his work has been seen at South Coast Rep, Theatre at Boston Court, Circle X Theatre, Son of Semele Ensemble and A.S.K.Theatre Projects all in southern California, Red Eye Collaboration and the Playwrights’ Center in Minneapolis, The Group Theatre and Annex Theater in Seattle, Portland Center Stage, Madison Repertory Theatre, the Sundance Institute, the Bay Area Playwrights Festival, Boston Theatre Works, Salvage Vanguard and the dirigo group in Austin, and others. In Chicago his plays have been produced at Walkabout Theatre and Barat College of DePaul University. Recently, dark play was presented in the 2006 Latino Theatre Festival at the Goodman Theatre.

Dael Orlandersmith is an actress, poet and playwright that is best known for her Obie Award winning Beauty's Daughter and the 2002 Pulitzer Prize Finalist in Drama,Yellowman. Part of her work from the award winning "Beauty's Daughter's" program can be heard as a segment of a September 1996 taping of radio show "This American Life" where Orlandersmith performs "When You Talk About Music" in which she portrays a 31 year old Italian male who meets a black woman at a mutual friends wedding and finds how much he misses musical expression.

Marsha Norman was awarded the 1983 Pulitzer Prize, Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, Hull-Warriner, and Drama Desk Awards for 'Night Mother, which received its world premiere at the A.R.T. in 1982. Her play Traveller in the Dark also premiered at the A.R.T. in 1984. Ms. Norman won the 1992 Tony Award and Drama Desk awards for The Secret Garden; and the John Gassner Medallion, Newsday Oppenheimer award, and the American Theatre Critics Association Citation for Getting Out. Other plays include Third and Oak, The Laundromat, The Poolhall, The Holdup, Traveler in the Dark, Sarah and Abraham, Loving Daniel Boone, and Trudy Blue. Published work includes Four Plays and a novel, The Fortune Teller. Television and film credits include Face of a Stranger, starring Gena Rowlands and Tyne Daley. Grants and awards include National Endowment for the Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters; Ms. Norman also serves on the council of the Dramatists Guild. Ms. Norman was born in Louisville, Kentucky; received her B.A. from Agnes Scott College; and her M.A. from the University of Louisville. Since 1994 she has served on the faculty of The Juilliard School.

Lee Blessing (born October 4, 1949) is an American playwright. His best-known play is A Walk in the Woods, which depicts the developing relationship between two arms limitation negotiators, one Russian and one American, over years of negotiation. The play was nominated for both a Tony award and a Pulitzer Prize. His recent plays include A Body of Water, Whores, The Scottish Play, Black Sheep, Fortinbras and many others. He has also written one act plays including, The Roads That Lead Here and Eleemosynary. He currently heads the graduate playwriting program at Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University. He is married to fellow playwright Melanie Marnich.