Lark Play Development Center

MEET THE PLAYWRIGHTS...

	Layla Dowlatshahi (Playwright, JOYS OF LIPSTICK) graduated from UC Berkeley and received her MFA from Goddard College. Joys of Lipstick was staged at The Producer’s Club and was written up in The New York Times. Waiting Room had a staged reading at the Annenberg Studio Theatre at the University of Pennsylvania. She has completed three additional plays, (Waiting Room and Joys of Lipstick are slated to be published by Temple University Press) a teleplay and a novel, Stones in the Garden. Ogham Stones, her latest play, will have a staged reading this summer. She currently teaches writing at City University of New York.
	Robert Fieldsteel (Playwright, SMART) Robert’s works include Crazy Drunk (L.A. Drama Critics Circle Award for Best World Premiere Play, Backstage West Garland Award in Playwrighting), his adaptation (with Jennifer Maisel and April Vanoff) of Ansky’s The Dybbuk (5 L.A. Weekly Award Nominatons.), Essential Magick (Finalist, Actors Theatre of Louisville Heideman Award), Cotton (L.A. & Chicago, L.A. Weekly Pick of Week), several youth theatre pieces for The Virginia Ave. Project, and Bad Language, currently running in Chicago at The Side Project. He is also an LADCC award-winning actor, has guest-starred frequently on television and been featured in films for such directors as John Cassavetes, Sidney Lumet and Joe Dante. He’s a founding member of Dog Ear, a collective of 10 Los Angeles-based playwrights. Visit www.dogearplays.org.
	Ken Hanes (Playwright, BILLY DILLAN PRAYS) has been writing stage plays for decades (the first one, about Santa Claus, Martians and an invasion thwarted, being written when he was 9). Most of the plays have been produced somewhere or another. He wrote the screenplay for the recently released film Fixing Frank (adapted from his stage play). His screenplay, Ditto, is in development with Village Arts Pictures. He’s also done a few books: the bestseller The Gay Guy’s Guide to Life (Fireside/Simon & Schuster); The Gay Guy’s Guide to Love (Crown); and Speaking Out (Three Rivers Press). Though he now lives in New York, he used to live in North Carolina, without which he never would have been able to write Billy Dillon.
	Taniya Hossain (Playwright, MOTHER IN ANOTHER LANGUAGE) Taniya's plays have been seen in New York at Salaam Theatre, Brooklyn Lyceum, New Perspectives and Westbeth Theatre; City Theater in Pittsburgh; Chance Theatre in Anaheim; Chicago Dramatist Workshop, Bailiwick Arts Center and Famous Door Theatre in Chicago; and the Last Frontier Theatre Conference in Valdez, AK. Her screenplays, The Speed of Light and Chemistry Set; were awarded the Sloan Foundation Grant and her teleplay, “Sip Off the Old Block,” won the Prism GenerationNext Fellowship. She received her MFA from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and is an instructor for NYU’s Expository Writing Program. She is a member of the Dramatist Guild.
	Anosh Irani (Playwright, MATKA KING) was born and raised in Bombay, India. He moved to Canada in 1998. His first play, The Matka King, was produced at the Arts Club Theatre, Vancouver, in 2003. His first novel, The Cripple and His Talismans was published in the US, Canada, and Germany. He is currently playwright in residence at the Arts Club Theatre, and is working on a second novel and play.
	Karla Jennings (Playwright, THE RUBY VECTOR) is a former newspaper staff reporter. The Ruby Vector received this year's National Arts Club's Playwrights First Award, while Dish Babies is slated for off-Broadway and 7 Nights at Jay's is undergoing artistic associate development at the Lark. Her freelance publications include The New York Times, Newsday, Cosmopolitan, and The Japan Times. She's author of The Devouring Fungus: Tales of the Computer Age (W.W. Norton & Co., 1990). She is the mother of twins Sophia and Alexis and her husband Kurt Wiesenfeld is a physicist at Georgia Tech.
	Dan O'Brien (Playwright, SOUTHERN CROSS) Dan's play The Dear Boy will premier this August at Second Stage Theatre, directed by Michael Garces. His other plays have been produced at numerous theatres, including Key West at Geva Theatre Center, Moving Picture at the Williamstown Theatre Festival, Am Lit at Ensemble Studio Theatre, the short play Her Last Screen Test at Actors Theatre of Louisville, Lamarck at California Repertory Company, Perishable Theatre and Pittsburgh Repertory Theatre; and The Voyage of the Carcass at HERE Arts Center and the Greenwich Street Playhouse. His plays have been developed at the Roundabout Theatre Company, Atlantic Theater Company, New York Theatre Workshop, O'Neill Playwrights Conference, Primary Stages, Magic Theatre, The New Harmony Project, Rattlestick, and Manhattan Theatre Club, where he was recently a playwright-in-residence. He holds a B.A. in English & Theatre from Middlebury College and a Master of Fine Arts in Playwriting & Fiction from Brown University. Website: www.danobrien.org.
	August Schulenberg (Playwright, GOOD HOPE) August's play Carrin Beginning was nominated for a Newsday Oppenheimer; the NY Times Online called it "A pleasing palliative"; Backstage said it was "Absolutely delicious...there's passion, conflict, and moments of poetic insight". "The power of Schulenburg's vision makes for an unique, unforgettable experience", said CL Online. His play Kidding Jane was workshopped at the Portland Stage Company, published by Stage and Screen, recieved a Backer's Audition featuring Ellen Mclauglin and is part of the upcoming FutureFest at the Dayton Playhouse. Riding the Bull just closed at Theater for the New City where it was called a "charming and unconventional look at the nature and definition of belief" by NYTheatre.com. It was also read at the Bay Area Playwrights Festival, the Azuka Theatre Collective and the New Play House. August is playwright in residence for Equalogy, a theatre for social change.
	Said Sayrafiezadeh (Playwright, ALL FALL AWAY) New York is Bleeding about the New York City draft riots in 1863 will be developed this July at the Sundance Theatre Lab. Other plays include Long Dream in Summer (2005 Humana Festival). He is the recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts playwriting fellowship, as well as a Van Lier and an Artist's Fellowship, both from New York Theatre Workshop. His essays and fiction have appeared in "Granta," (due out this fall); "Open City"; "Before and After: Stories from New York"; and online at mrbellersneighborhood.com. Mr. Sayrafiezadeh is currently at work on a play, Autobiography of a Terrorist, about his experiences with xenophobia during the Iran hostage crisis and 9/11, and a memoir chronicling his childhood in the Socialist Workers Party.
	C. Denby Swanson (Playwright, THE DEATH OF A CAT) is a graduate of Smith College, the National Theatre Institute, and the University of Texas Michener Center for Writers. She has been a William Inge Playwright in Residence, a Jerome Fellow and a McKnight Advancement Grant recipient. Her work has been commissioned by the Guthrie Theater; featured in the Southern Playwrights Festival, the Women Playwrights Project, the Estro-Genius Festival, and PlayLabs 2002; and world-premiered at Salvage Vanguard Theater and 15 Head a Theater Lab. She is published by Smith & Kraus, Heinemann, Accompany Publishing, and Playscripts, Inc. Currently, she is the Artistic Director of Austin Script Works, a playwright services organization with 120 outstanding member writers in Central Texas.
	Rahul Varma (Playwright, COUNTER OFFENCE) is a playwright, essayist and community activist. Born in 1952 in India, he moved to Canada in 1976. In 1981, he co-founded Teesri Duniya Theatre (Teesri Duniya means “third world” in Hindi), which is a professional, multicultural company that produces socially relevant theatre examining issues of cultural representation and diversity in Canada. Rahul became the company’s artistic director in 1986. He writes both in Hindi and English which is the language of his adulthood. His full-length works include No Man’s Land, the radio drama Trading Injuries, Counter Offence and his most recent work, Bhopal. Counter Offence has been translated into French as L’Affaire Farhadi and Italian as Il Caso Farhadi. Bhopal has been translated into French under the same title and has also been translated into Hindi by India’s preeminent director Habib Tanvir under the name Zahreeli Hawa. Rahul lives in Montreal with his wife Dipti and daughter Aliya.