 |
| Stephen Adly Guirgis |
|
Stephen Adly Guirgis, the playwright of
The Last Days of Judas Iscariot, is a longtime member of NYC's
LAByrinth Theater Company. His plays have been produced on five continents and throughout the United States. They include: the extended, sold out run of "The Last Days of Judas Iscariot", "Our Lady of 121st Street" (10 best plays of 2003; Lucille Lortel, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle Best Play Nominations), "Jesus Hopped the A Train" ( Edinburgh Fringe First Award, Olivier Nomination as London's Best New Play, Barrymore Award, Detroit Free Press Best Play Award), and "In Arabia We'd All Be Kings" (10 Best of '99, TimeOut New York, critics pick, TimeOut London). All four plays were originally produced by LAByrinth and directed by Philip Seymour Hoffman. Stephen was awarded a 2004 TCG fellowship, attended the 2004 Sundance Screenwriter's Lab, was named one of the 25 New Faces of Independent Film by FILMAKER MAGAZINE, and appeared in Entertainment Weekly’s 2005 Summer Must List. He has received new play commissions from Manhattan Theater Club and South Coast Rep, is a member of New Dramatists and the MCC Playwright’s Coalition, and is a regular contributor to ESOPUS Magazine. Television writing credits include “NYPD Blue”, “The Sopranos”, David Milch’s CBS drama “Big Apple”, and Shane Salerno's NBC drama “UC: Undercover”.
Stephen was recognized in May of this year with the receipt of a PEN/Laura Pels Foundation
Award for Drama, given to an American playwright in mid-career. Of his work, the judges wrote: From the judges’ citation: “Stephen is crafting a new kind of American Theater, one which is unique in its multiplicity of voices, rhythms, and beliefs. By giving voice to characters that America—and in turn the American theater—frequently chooses to exclude from the conversation, he is creating a theatre that feels vital, political, intimate, and undeniably of the moment. Following in the traditions of Odets, Bullins, Rabe, Pinero and Mamet, yet clearly fueled by his own sense of truth, Guirgis creates characters who are all trapped within the urban landscape, but what comes flying out of their mouths is anything but abject surrender. From a jail cell on Rikers, to a pre-Disneyfied Times Square bar, to a courtroom in purgatory, they all speak/shout/sing a language of defiance, its music in turns ribald, poetic, elegant, and outrageous.”
Currently, Stephen is developing a project with Mos Def and HBO, and is writing his first feature film for Scott Rudin Productions, to be directed by George C. Wolfe. He lives in New York City.