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Craig Pospisil

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Craig Pospisil is an American playwright,[1][2][3] musical bookwriter and filmmaker. He has written nine full-length plays and musicals, mostly comedies, and more than 40 short plays and musicals.

Biography

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Pospisil was born and raised in New York City, where he attended Trinity School. He graduated from Wesleyan University, and later studied playwriting in the Dramatic Writing Program in the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. His plays are published by Dramatists Play Service, TRW Plays, and Playscripts, Inc., and have appeared in the publications such as Plays and Playwrights 2001, Take Ten II, Under Thirty, Best Ten Minute Plays 2005, Best Ten Minute Plays 2006, Best American Short Plays 2010-2011, Best Ten Minute Plays 2012, and Best Ten Minute Plays 2015, from publishers Smith & Kraus,[4] Applause TheatreBooks, Heinemann and Vintage Books. He is a member of the Dramatists Guild.

He is best known for the plays Months on End, which had its world premiere at the Purple Rose Theatre Company in Chelsea, Michigan, Journey to the Poles of Inaccessibility, which had its world premiere at the Unicorn Theatre (Kansas City), and Somewhere in Between, which had its professional premiere at Detroit Repertory Company, but he has also had success with his short plays, such as It's Not You, On the Edge and Infant Morality. His plays have been seen at Ensemble Studio Theatre, New World Stages, Barrington Stage Company, Bay Street Theater, City Theatre (Miami), New York Musical Theatre Festival, Road Theatre, Vital Theater, West Coast Ensemble, and the Caldwell Theater, and have been performed in Austria, Australia,[5] Canada, China, Denmark, England, France,[6] Germany, Greece, Japan, Mexico, Peru, Samoa, Spain, Vietnam and Zimbabwe. His plays have been translated into Cantonese, Danish, French, Greek, Japanese, Mandarin and Spanish. He has worked on the musicals Drift and Dot Comet, commissioned by the New Musical Development Fund.[7] Also, Pospisil was Head Writer for theAtrainplays',[8][9][10][11] and he wrote his short plays It's Not You, Free and Tourist Attraction for some of their 24-hour theater productions.

In 2015, Pospisil adapted a scene from his play Months on End into a short film, January,[12] which he also directed. January was an official selection at the Bahamas International Film Festival, Big Apple Film Festival, Berkshire International Film Festival, Cayman Islands International Film Festival, Laughlin International Film Festival, Black Bear Film Festival, Sacramento Film Festival, and more. In 2016, Pospisil, Arlene Hutton and other playwrights co-wrote the play The Gorges Motel,[13] which ran in the 20th annual New York International Fringe Festival. They went on to write One Christmas Eve at Evergreen Mall,[14] which premiered in the 21st annual New York International Fringe Festival, and By The Numbers.

Pospisil worked for many years as the Director of Nonprofessional Licensing for Dramatists Play Service.,[15] where he created and edited Outstanding Men’s Monologues, Volumes 1 & 2, Outstanding Women’s Monologues, Volumes 1 & 2, and the anthologies Outstanding Short Plays, Volumes 1, 2, 3 & 4. He has also edited two volumes of short plays by the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright William Inge, entitled The Apartment Complex and Somewhere in America. In October 2021, Pospisil joined Theatrical Rights Worldwide, as a Vice President for TRW Plays,[16] where he will work on licensing and acquisitions of new works. He has edited two anthologies TRW Presents: Short Plays, Vol. 1, 2 and 3 at TRW. Pospisil has been a guest lecturer and teacher at the Last Frontier Theatre Conference,[17] Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival, Hollins University[18] and Loyola Marymount University. His works have also been produced on the radio by Stage Shadows Inc.[19]

Awards

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Pospisil was honored by the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival for "Excellence in Playwriting" on January 29, 2011 at the conference for Region 1 of the festival. He is a six time finalist for the Heideman Award at the Actors Theatre of Louisville's Humana Festival of New American Plays, and has twice been a finalist for the National Playwrights Conference at the Eugene O'Neill Center in Connecticut.

The Dunes

  • Winner – Theatre Conspiracy's Ninth Annual New Play Contest[20]

Months on End

  • Winner – Inter-Play Festival, Shipping Dock Theatre, Rochester, NY
  • Winner – New Play Project, Backdoor Theatre, Wichita Falls, TX[21]
  • Winner – Towngate Theatre Playwriting Contest, Oglebay Institute, Wheeling, WV

The American Dream Revisited

  • Alan Minieri Playwrighting Award, Turnip Theatre, New York, NY[22]

Somewhere in Between

  • Winner – FutureFest, Dayton Playhouse, Dayton, OH
  • Winner – Inter-Play Festival, Shipping Dock Theatre, Rochester, NY

Works

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Full length plays and musicals

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[23]

  • Journey to the Poles of Inaccessibility[24]
  • By the Numbers (co-author)
  • One Christmas Eve at Evergreen Mall (co-author)[25]
  • The Gorges Motel (co-author)
  • The Dunes
  • Dot Comet (musical – music & lyrics by Michael Ogborn)[26]
  • Drift (musical – music & lyrics by Jeremy Schonfeld)[27][28]
  • Months on End
  • Somewhere in Between)

Collections

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[23]

  • Choosing Sides (2009)
  • Life is Short (2005)

One-acts and short plays

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[23]

  • The American Dream Revisited
  • The Best Way to Go
  • Class Conflict
  • Dissonance[29]
  • Double Wedding
  • Free'[30]
  • Guerilla Gorilla
  • Guns Don't Kill
  • Happenstance[31]
  • Her Head on the Pillow
  • In a Word
  • Infant Morality
  • It's Not You
  • Kissing Cousins - as part of the play The Gorges Motel[32]
  • The Last December
  • Manhattan Drum-Taps
  • A Mother's Love
  • 'No Child Left
  • On the Edge
  • On the Wings of a Butterfly
  • Perchance
  • Quandary in Quando
  • A Quiet Empty Life
  • There's No Here Here[33]
  • Tourist Attraction
  • Train of Thought
  • What Price?
  • Whatever

References

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  1. ^ "Dramatists Play Service". Dramatists.com. Archived from the original on July 17, 2011. Retrieved January 18, 2012.
  2. ^ "Playscripts". Playscripts.com. Retrieved January 18, 2012.
  3. ^ NYTheatre.com[dead link]
  4. ^ "Writer's Table". Smithandkraus.com. Retrieved January 18, 2012.
  5. ^ "Theatre Australia". Theatre.asn.au. Archived from the original on May 1, 2006. Retrieved January 18, 2012.
  6. ^ "Sarah Biasini comedienne". Sarahbiasini2107.canalblog.com. Retrieved January 18, 2012.
  7. ^ "New Musical Foundation". Newmusicalfoundation.org. Archived from the original on July 8, 2015. Retrieved June 18, 2015.
  8. ^ "TheatreMania". Theatermania.com. September 16, 2003. Archived from the original on August 14, 2007. Retrieved January 18, 2012.
  9. ^ "BackStage". Allbusiness.com. May 24, 2002. Retrieved January 18, 2012.
  10. ^ "Broadway World.com". Broadwayworld.com. June 25, 2008. Retrieved January 18, 2012.
  11. ^ "Npr". Npr.org. August 12, 2006. Retrieved January 18, 2012.
  12. ^ "IMDB.com". IMDB.com. Retrieved February 26, 2016.
  13. ^ "Show-Score". Show-Score.com. August 31, 2016. Retrieved August 31, 2016.
  14. ^ "Theatre is Easy". theeasy.com. October 27, 2018. Retrieved October 21, 2021.
  15. ^ "Dramatists Play Service". Dramatists.com. Archived from the original on January 5, 2012. Retrieved January 18, 2012.
  16. ^ "Broadway World". BroadwayWorld.com. Retrieved October 15, 2021.
  17. ^ Last Frontier Theatre Conference Archived July 9, 2010, at the Wayback Machine
  18. ^ "Hollins University". Hollins.edu. Archived from the original on March 5, 2012. Retrieved January 18, 2012.
  19. ^ "Stage Shadows". Stageshadows.com. Retrieved January 18, 2012.
  20. ^ "Theatre Conspiracy". Theatreconspiracy.org. Archived from the original on June 3, 2008. Retrieved January 18, 2012.
  21. ^ "Backdoor Theatre". Backdoortheatre.org. Archived from the original on February 6, 2012. Retrieved January 18, 2012.
  22. ^ "National 15-Minute Play Festival". 15minuteplayfestival.org. Archived from the original on March 11, 2012. Retrieved January 18, 2012.
  23. ^ a b c "Playwrights Database". Doollee.com. Retrieved January 18, 2012.
  24. ^ "Road Theatre Company, Summer Playwrights Festival 5". Roadtheatre.org. Archived from the original on July 6, 2015. Retrieved June 18, 2015.
  25. ^ "Holiday Magic at NFCT with "Christmas Eve at Evergreen Mall"". December 3, 2022.
  26. ^ "New Musical Foundation". Newmusicalfoundation.org. Archived from the original on December 20, 2011. Retrieved January 18, 2012.
  27. ^ "Backstage". Backstage.com. September 19, 2006. Retrieved January 18, 2012.
  28. ^ "Playbill". Playbill. August 22, 2006. Retrieved January 18, 2012.
  29. ^ "Broadway World.com". Offoffbroadway.broadwayworld.com. May 12, 2011. Retrieved January 18, 2012.
  30. ^ "Broadway World.com". Losangeles.broadwayworld.com. Retrieved January 18, 2012.
  31. ^ "MLive.com". April 12, 2014.
  32. ^ Collins-Hughes, Laura (August 16, 2016). "NYTimes.com". The New York Times.
  33. ^ "Bershire Eagle". January 17, 2013.
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