TIM ATACK
Bristol, UK
Timothy X Atack is co-founder of Sleepdogs and has written for Bristol Old Vic, Paines Plough and the good old BBC, amongst others. He grudgingly accepts that the universe is full of luminous, near-infinite wonder. He completely acknowledges that from a mathematical and cosmological point of view he ought to be permanently agog at the simple fact that he even exists. But what is Tim doing? Tim is worrying about his latest piddling little play. I think we’re all agreed that Tim needs a good slap. Get in line at www.timatack.co.uk
MICHAEL ROSS ALBERT
Astoria, NY
Michael Ross Albert is the author of several sad plays, including Starfishes, Chagrin, Pillars of Salt, For the Winter, and Tough Jews. He grew up in a land of melancholy and infinite sadness (Canada). Now he lives in a sad part of New York City, where he received an MFA in sadness. Sometimes, his sad plays get produced, or read out loud, or even published. And that makes him happy for a while.
ANDREW KRAMER
New York, NY
ANDREA LEPCIO
Harlem, NY
I live in Harlem. I write plays and musicals all alone in my little room. Okay, sometimes alone with my collaborators in a different little room. Sometimes I don’t eat for hours. Other times I eat constantly. I do have a bicycle. I’ve been produced and published, but no where near enough. I am, therefore, a sad playwright. www.andrealepcio.com
ADAM HARRELL
Queens, NY
MFA in Playwriting, University of Idaho
What is sadder than a very tiny rattle? An even sadder playwright holding one.
I have had plays produced, but in venues so small it’s too depressing to even think about. I have won contests and awards, but rarely with any significant cash value. I have four plays published… in Canada. I’ve never written a true word and I’m afraid to look in the mirror. Any material success I have achieved in my life has been due to sheer luck. And I’m sure the cat hates me.
A. ZELL WILLIAMS
New York, NY
Website: www.azellwill.com
ALEX BEECH
New York, NY
This picture was taken after an actual sad event: I volunteered with undocumented workers after Katrina decimated the Mississippi coastline. This photo was taken weeks later by Kenny Rae, a humanitarian relief officer at Oxfam who helped me during worst of the crisis.
Bio:
In 2009, Maria Alexandria Beech was the recipient of The Aspen Theatre Master’s Visionary Award. Alex has a BA and MFA from Columbia University, and will earn an MFA in the Graduate Musical Theatre Program at NYU in 2012. Alex has been a member of The Dorothy Strelsin New American Writers Group at Primary Stages for the past four seasons, where she wrote Saving The Lives of Strangers, Charity, Bonds, and Little Monsters. She wrote Gloria as a member of the Hispanic Playwrights Lab at Intar in New York. Her translations include Eduardo Machado’s The Cook (The Stages Theatre) and Luis Ayllon’s The Camels and Hitler In My Heart by Noe Munoz Morales (Lark Play Development Center). Her one act plays, The Soft Room, Bat in Iraq, Your Face, Designer X, The Times, Cast Aside, What are You Doing Here, and her musicals, You Can’t Sing, The Call and La Sayona were produced in New York by Blue Box Productions, and Barrington Stage Company produced La Sayona last August. In 2006 and 2007, her plays, Lima Beans, Breaking Walls, and Black Roses were semi-finalists in the Cherry Lane Mentor Project. In February of 2011, her play Little Monsters was co-produced by Primary Stages and Brandeis at Brandeis Theatre Company. Her play, What Are You Doing Here, won Outstanding New Script Award at the Planet Connections Theater Festivity last summer. Her play, Gloria, has an upcoming reading at EST, and on May 1st, her full-length musical, Laredo Stories, a Loose Adaptation of the Canterbury Tales, will be presented in a staged reading at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. Alex is a Prime Candidate for Membership at the Ensemble Studio Theatre, and a member of the Leadership Council at the Women’s Project. Very sad little website: mariabeech.com
DENNIS ALLEN
New York, NY (cost of living makes me sad)
The Mud is Thicker in Mississippi won 2010 Samuel French Off Off Broadway Festival (not so sad moment). A Shadow with no Form was a finalist in the 2011 Harvest One Act Festival (it didn’t win anything, that was sad). Currently enrolled in Brooklyn College MFA Playwrighting program (more loans to pay, Uber Sad)
ALEXANDRA COLLIER
Brooklyn, NY
Alexandra Collier takes a long sad look at herself.
Alexandra is a playwright from Australia, based in Brooklyn. Selected plays: Willow’s One Night Stand (a mini-musical written with Greta Gertler), The Red Letterbox (Weasel Festival, East 13th St Theater), Underland (dir. by Mia Rovegno, Page to Stage, Dixon Place), Holy Day (Telephone Festival, Overturn Theatre Ensemble), The Will of the Cockroach (dir. by May Adrales, Australia Project, The Production Company), Still Waiting (La Mama, Melbourne & Adelaide Fringe Festival), Deathless, finalist for SheWRITES, Synchronicity, Atlanta and developed at the Lark Playwright’s Development Center.Other awards/fellowships/grants include: RE Ross Trust National Playwrights Award, MacDowell Fellowship, Ian Potter Cultural Trust travel grant (Australia), the Dame Joan Sutherland Award (New York). She is a member of the 2010-2012 Women’s Project Playwrights Lab and an MFA candidate in playwriting at Brooklyn College with Mac Wellman.
AMY HOLSON-SCHWARTZ
New York / London
Amy Holson-Schwartz’s first play Can I Really Date A Guy Who Wears A Yarmulke? premiered as part of the 2010 Midtown International Theatre Festival, where it played to sold-out houses and took home the Producers Award. It then transferred to the Knitting Factory Brooklyn, which is just cool. She’s also the writer of The Legend of King Arthur (Bare Bones Ensemble 2010) and the yet-to-be produced, but heartbreaking and humorous one-act Class of 2002. Amy is New York-based, but currently resides in London, where she’s doing a Masters at the Central School of Speech and Drama. Amy thought she was going to grad school to gain credentials and a career path, but then remembered that she’s getting a degree in Theatre Studies. If you’re interested in learning more about Amy (or want to offer her a job in London, New York, or… pretty much anywhere) please visit her website at:
AMELIA ROPER
Yale, CT/ Australia
Amelia Roper was a happy child. She didn’t have bangs. Suddenly. The adult Amelia realized how large her forehead was. She got bangs. She was happy. The bangs grew out. She was sad. Not sad because she needed a hair cut. Sad because everything went fuzzy. Sad because the eye specialist couldn’t find anything unusual. Sad because she couldn’t see her computer screen and NO-ONE KNEW WHY. Scared and sad. Suddenly. The bangs! Of course! She got a haircut. And lived happily ever after. For at least eight weeks.
www.ameliaroper.com
ALEXIS CLEMENTS
New York, NY
You would be sad too.
http://www.alexisclements.com/
http://twitter.com/alexisclements
http://www.outoftimeandplace.com/
SEAN ABLEY
Los Angeles
Sean co-founded Chicago’s Factory Theater in 1992 (a sad day in theater history.) While there he managed (thru his tears) to write plays with titles like Attack of the Killer B’s, Bitches, Santa Claus Conquers the Martians - The Musical and Nuclear Family . Sadly, he wrote plays for other theaters as well, like Corpse Grinders and Camp Killspree. Eventually he moved to Los Angeles because perfect weather every day depresses him. In a monumentally sad turn of events, he started writing for TV shows like Digimon, So Weird, Sabrina: The Animated Series and Megababies. Eventually had a feature film produced called Socket (Spoiler: It’s really sad.).It pains him to talk about his other commissioned and published works: The End of the World (With Prom to Follow), We Wish You a Merry Spendmas!, Double Trouble on the Prairie, Dracula’s Daughters: A Family Comedy, The Rise of the House of Usher, Dr. Frankincense and the Christmas Monster, Elevator Games, Horror High and The Adventures of Rose Red (Snow White’s Less-Famous Sister). In 2011, devastated, he created Plays To Order, a playwriting service for high schools.
He weeps every minute he spends on his gay horror blog for Fangoria.com, Gay of the Dead. For a good cry, check out his plays on Playscripts, Brooklyn Publishers, Heuer Publishing, Next Stage Press, Eldridge Plays and Musicals, and Plays to Order.
www.seanabley.com
www.playstoorder.com
Gay of the Dead (http://fangoria.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=48&Itemid=162)
