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Aurand Harris Memorial Playwrighting Award Jun 02

RECENT WORK: My new play, Teenagers in Love, opens at the Chain Theatre Main Stage in NYC on June 2, directed by Debra Whitfield (link for tickets: https://bwprods.ticketleap.com/teenagersinlove).  And New Truck for Paulie, winner of Southern Appalachian Rep’s Best Playwright award, opens at the California Stage in Sacramento this July, directed by Patrice DeHart. I recently wrote, directed and acted in my film Summer of ‘70 (MDB page: pro.imdb.com/name/nm5599722/filmography). I plan to direct the feature next year.  My award-winning The Knitting Club was also produced this past November at Pelham, NY’s SOOP Theatre, directed by Debra Whitfield (I played the character ”Lou”). In Feb 2020, I directed my play Broken Birds, also at the SOOP Theatre. A new play, Miss Hollywood, which won NETC’S prestigious Aurand Harris Playwriting Award, first opened at the Hawk Theatre in Silverado, CA, in 2019, directed by Keyana Rhoden. It was recently chosen, like many other of my plays, by the Drama Notebook to be distributed for production throughout schools across the country. And Future Stars Theatre in Neenah, WI, will produce my World of Sinatras in July, ‘22. It was first produced a few years back at NYC’s Arclight Theatre with the Project Rushmore Company. It was also nominated for Best New Play of 2013 by the Southern Appalachian Rep, and received a grant from the Pilgrim Project.

Another new play, Wound, recently won Best New Drama in the prestigious Writer’s Digest Competition. It beat out over 6,000 other new American plays. It was also a semi-finalist in the 2017 O’Neill Playwrights Conference. The Unraveling, another recent play, was awarded a grant from the Puffin Foundation, and produced in 2017 at the Actors Studio’s Elia Kazan Festival. I’ve converted it into a film script and am presently raising funds to shoot it in 2023/2024. (For my earlier work, which is a lot, please check my resumes gathered here, and of course, reviews, etc., much of which are here also.)

I recently had the honor of accepting the N.E.T.C.’s 2019 Aurand Harris Memorial Playwrighting Award (you can see my award speech below). The N.E.T.C. is one of the most vital theatre organizations in America, nourishing and giving life to vital new plays. Miss Hollywood takes place in the late sixties. It examines the hypocrisies, the bigotry, and the clashes of class and religion in one small town in New Jersey. At its center is a love triangle consisting of the smart, charming doctor’s son, Luke – the handsome, tough, working class Eddie – and the brilliant, beautiful and wonderfully Jewish Patti, aka Miss Hollywood, a young woman far ahead of her time.

It was such a privilege to be honored at the New England Theatre Conference Awards Ceremony, and to receive the prestigious Aurand Harris Award for my new play, Miss Hollywood.

You can see the awards presentation here (My award presentation is at 40:16):