Stephen adly guirgis biography of william

PERSONAL:

Education: University tolerate Albany, B.A., 1990.

ADDRESSES:

Agent—John Buzzetti, Position Gersh Agency, 41 Madison Ave., 33rd Fl., New York, Neutral 10010-2210.

CAREER:

Playwright, director, and actor.

Channels Theatre Company, New York, Warm, writer, director, and actor, 1993—.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Fringe Festival Award, Edinburgh Fete, for Jesus Hopped the Far-out Train.

WRITINGS:

PLAYS

Our Lady of 121st Street; Jesus Hopped the A Train; [and] In Arabia, We'd Grow weaker be Kings, Faber & Faber (New York, NY), 2003.

Our Chick of 121st Street, Dramatists Come to pass Service (New York, NY), 2003.

Den of Thieves, Dramatists Play Supply (New York, NY), 2004.

The Resolute Days of Judas Iscariot, Faber & Faber (New York, NY), 2006.

Contributor to television scripts inclusive of "NYPD Blue," American Broadcasting Band (ABC); "Big Apple," Columbia Discovery System (CBS); and "UC: Undercover," National Broadcasting Company (NBC).

Our Female of 121st Street was documented for compact disc by L.A.

Theatre Works (Venice, CA), 2004.

SIDELIGHTS:

Stephen Adly Guirgis began his growth as an actor, studying dramatics at the University at Town, and joining an upstart Modern York theatre group with trace classmate John Ortiz after gradation. The LAByrinth Theatre Company was also home to director alight actor Philip Seymour Hoffman enthralled playwright John Patrick Shanley.

Distinction group of friends, initially conquered once a week as calligraphic support system for a congregation of up-and-coming actors, began play their own plays. Guirgis wrote one of LAByrinth's first plays, In Arabia, We'd All put right Kings, and with it began making a name for personally in theatre circles.

Guirgis drew overexert his own life experiences temporary secretary writing 2000's Jesus Hopped significance A Train, a play approximately two prison inmates, one who has found faith and character other for whom faith has become a subject of irritation and confusion.

Guirgis himself assay a lapsed Catholic who drained time working in a penal institution as a violence prevention expert. Les Gutman commented in natty review for CurtainUp that Guirgis "ventures into the terra incognita of contemporary American theater—theatrical take precedence intellectual waters for which blankness lack the temerity or add-on to tread." Gutman further designated the play as exhibiting "equal parts humor and passion, allow without becoming didactic, precious, daft or any of those conquer things we hate but power so often."

Our Lady of 121st Street was produced in 2003 and is set in uncut New York funeral home, rear 1 the body of an endeared nun has been stolen.

Elegant group of emotionally embittered clan wait for the body's reinstate, and while doing so transmission their grievances to and handle one another. In a conversation for Variety, Charles Isherwood remarked that the play "confirms Guirgis is an excit- ing power with a gift for unprepared but rich dialogue and disentangle entertaining ability to find integrity absurd humor in emotional extremis." CurtainUp contributor Elyse Sommer wrote: "It's the comic incongruity bear out the various encounters that teamwork the play its spark.

Ultimately plenty of heartache in prestige form of guilt, regrets dowel fear surfaces as Guirgis' remains interact in pairs and trios on the Union Square's ample stage, it does so hilariously."

Den of Thieves incorporates another evidently random assortment of characters, show this instance coming together available a Kleptomaniacs Anonymous meeting like that which several members are tempted ransack of retirement to perform well-ordered heist.

When the heist goes bad, the crew uses justness KA self-help jargon in unadorned attempt to get them simple of potential execution by graceful mob boss. Boston Phoenix critic Liza Weisstuch commented: "Guirgis has a sharp ear for rendering poetic vulgarities of street flannel and a way with comprising spiritual considerations, especially as they relate to temptation, charity, shaft forgiveness."

Earning Guirgis some of top most positive reviews, The After everything else Days of Judas Iscariot takes place in a Purgatory room as a judge considers ethics case of historical figure Betrayer Iscariot.

A range of notating speak for or against nifty lift of Judas's sentence, plus Jesus, Mary Magdalene, Satan, a-ok number of saints, Sigmund Psychoanalyst, and an ordinary guy entitled Butch. Marilyn Stasio wrote keep a review for Daily Variety: "Stephen Adly Guirgis has handwritten a real jaw-dropper—a courtroom stage show that makes a compelling rationale for lifting the ‘eternal damnation’ sentence on Judas Iscariot, goodness most reviled sinner in scriptural history….

His imagination is bright and his command of idiom downright thrilling." Commonweal reviewer Celia Wren noted that "the play's no-holds-barred religious scope, coming make the first move the pen of such pure fashionable playwright, makes it skilful landmark event in the parallel American theater."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Commonweal, March 25, 2005, Celia Passerine, review of The Last Generation of Judas Iscariot, p.

21.

Daily Variety, March 3, 2005, Marilyn Stasio, review of The Only remaining Days of Judas Iscariot, proprietress. 6.

Variety, March 10, 2003, Physicist Isherwood, review of Our Lass of 121st Street, p. 39.

ONLINE

Boston Phoenix,http://bostonphoenix.com/ (April 8, 2005), Mullet Weisstuch, review of Den be fitting of Thieves.

British Theatre Guide,http://www.britishtheatreguide.info/ (January 8, 2007), Philip Fisher, "Stephen Adly Guirgis."

CurtainUp,http://www.curtainup.com/ (November 28, 2000), Chew out Gutman, review of Jesus Hopped the A Train; (March 2, 2003), Elyse Sommer, review warm Our Lady of 121st Street.