Alice Austen | |
---|---|
Born | Alice Lawton |
Occupation(s) | playwright, screenwriter, producer |
Alice Austen is an American playwright, screenwriter, and producer known for writing and producing the critically acclaimed 2019 film Give Me Liberty . [1]
Austen grew up in the Pacific Northwest. She attended the University of Oregon in Eugene, where she ran on the women’s track team. [2]
While at Harvard Law School, Austen co-founded the Harvard Human Rights Journal. She represented the Ministry of Industry in Václav Havel’s nascent Czech government. Austen studied creative writing under Seamus Heaney. [3]
Austen is a past resident at the Royal Court Theatre. Her playwrighting credits include Water, La Musica , and Ninth Man Out at Goodman Theater. [4] [5] [6] Water was a 2006-07 season the Jeff Award Nominee. [7] Her credits with Steppenwolf Theatre include Next Stop [8] and George Orwell’s Animal Farm , [9] which was noted for “its removal of Orwell's dystopian story from its overtly British agrarian setting: The famous anthem "Beasts of England" is now rendered as "Beasts of Earth"”, – wrote Chris Jones of The Chicago Tribune. [10] “A remarkable script, solidifies why this novel and its impact reverberates throughout the world today“ (Newcity Stage). [11]
Girls in the Boat, premiered in 2018 at The First Stage Children's Theater, is a “fast-paced script, which mimics the intensity of an actual sporting event. Audiences dare not blink or they might lose track of a gesture or a thread of a conversation” (Shepherd Express). [12]
Austen won the John Cassavetes Award for Give Me Liberty at the 35th Independent Spirit Awards. [13]
She is a co-founder with Kirill Mikhanovsky of Give Me Liberty, Mfg., a Milwaukee-based film and TV production company.
Year | Title | Credit | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
2019 | Give Me Liberty | Screenplay, Producer | |
2021 | Brighton 4th | Producer | |
2022 | Happy Birthday Charlie | Producer |
Year | Association | Category | Nominated work | Result |
---|---|---|---|---|
2007 | Jeff Awards | New Work – Play | Water, Chicago Dramatists | Nominated |
2020 | Independent Spirit Awards | John Cassavetes Award | Give Me Liberty | Won |
Steppenwolf Theatre Company is a Chicago theater company founded in 1974 by Terry Kinney, Jeff Perry, and Gary Sinise in the Immaculate Conception grade school in Highland Park, Illinois and is now located in Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood on Halsted Street. The theatre's name comes from Hermann Hesse's novel Steppenwolf, which original member Rick Argosh was reading during the company's inaugural production of Paul Zindel's play, And Miss Reardon Drinks a Little, in 1974. After occupying several theatres in Chicago, in 1991, it moved into its own purpose-built complex with three performing spaces, the largest seating 550.
Theater in Chicago describes not only theater performed in Chicago, Illinois, but also to the movement in Chicago that saw a number of small, meagerly funded companies grow to institutions of national and international significance. Chicago had long been a popular destination for touring productions, as well as original productions that transfer to Broadway and other cities. According to Variety editor Gordon Cox, beside New York City, Chicago has one of the most lively theater scenes in the United States. As many as 100 shows could be seen any given night from 200 companies as of 2018, some with national reputations and many in creative "storefront" theaters, demonstrating a vibrant theater scene "from the ground up". According to American Theatre magazine, Chicago's theater is "justly legendary".
Sheldon Arthur Patinkin was a chair of the Theater Department of Columbia College Chicago, artistic director of the Getz Theater of Columbia College, Artistic Consultant of The Second City and of Steppenwolf Theatre and co-director of the Steppenwolf Theatre Summer Ensemble Workshops.
James Marshall Napier was a New Zealand-born character actor, playwright and graphic artist. He is known for a succession of strong supporting roles in Australasian films and television shows. He also had a notable stage career.
Howard Witt was an American character actor and Chicago native who began his acting career in the Goodman Theatre.
Brian Sidney Bembridge is an American scenic, lighting, and costume designer for theater and film. His work has been seen on stages and screens throughout the country and Internationally in Australia, Germany, Prague, Ireland, and Great Britain. Mr. Bembridge has also taught and lectured at many universities across the country. He holds a BFA from University of North Carolina School of the Arts.
Bruce Norris is an American character actor and playwright associated with the Steppenwolf Theatre Company of Chicago. His play Clybourne Park won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
LiveWire Chicago Theatre is an Illinois not-for-profit theater arts organization based in Chicago.
Mariann Mayberry was an American television and stage actress.
The House Theatre of Chicago was a non-profit, ensemble theatre company in Chicago, IL. The House was founded in 2001 by a group of friends from the British American Drama Academy and Southern Methodist University with the mission of exploring the ideas of Community and Storytelling in order to create a unique theatrical experience for audience members. In its lifetime, The House received a total of 70 Joseph Jefferson Awards and nominations. In 2007, The House became the first recipient of Broadway in Chicago's Emerging Theater Award. While they emerged from the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic with new leadership and a new direction, the theatre company exited the Chicago theatre scene in 2022.
Ian Barford is an American stage and television actor. He has appeared on Broadway in August: Osage County and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. He was nominated for best actor in a play at the 74th Tony Awards for his performance in Linda Vista.
The Hypocrites is a Chicago storefront theater company founded in 1997 by Sean Graney, Brandon Kruse and Christopher Cintron. The company is currently run by Sean Graney and Kelli Strickland. One of Chicago’s premier off-Loop theater companies, The Hypocrites specializes in mounting bold productions that challenge preconceptions and redefining the role of the audience through unusual staging and direct engagement. The company has a reputation in Chicago for creating exciting, surprising, and deeply engaging theater as it re-interprets well-known works for contemporary audiences, reveling in the absurd while revealing the core of what makes classics classic.
“The Hypocrites, who with each new production, continue to rise not just to the rank of one of our city’s best storefronts but one of Chicago’s best theaters period.” – Newcity Stage
Rohina Malik is a British-born American playwright, actress, speaker, story teller and educator of South Asian descent. She is also the artistic director for Medina Theater Collective.
Rachel Rockwell was an American theater director, choreographer and performer.
Lisa Portes is a director, educator, and advocate. She heads of the MFA Directing program at The Theatre School at DePaul University. She serves on the board of the Theatre Communications Group, the Executive Board of the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers, and is a founding member of the Latinx Theater Commons.
Tanya Selene Saracho is a Mexican-American actress, playwright, dramaturge and screenwriter. With a background in theater before writing for television, she co-founded Teatro Luna in 2000 and was its co-artistic director for ten years. She also co-founded the Alliance of Latinx Theater Artists (ALTA) of Chicago. She is particularly known for centering the "Latina gaze". She developed and was showrunner of the Starz series Vida, which ran for three seasons (2018-2020). Saracho signed a three-year development deal with Starz in February 2018.
Ike Holter is an American playwright. He won a Windham–Campbell Literature Prize for drama in 2017. Holter is a resident playwright at Victory Gardens Theater, and has been commissioned by The Kennedy Center, The Eugene O'Neill Theater Center, South Coast Repertory and The Playwrights' Center.
Antoinette Nwandu is an American playwright based in New York.
Sandra Delgado is a Colombian-American actor, writer, and producer who grew up and works in Chicago, Illinois. She is best known for her work La Havana Madrid, an acclaimed play based in the 1960s about a Chicago nightclub of the same name and the Latino community in Chicago's Lakeview neighborhood.
Kirill Mikhanovsky is a Russian–American director, screenwriter, editor, and producer, best known for directing the critically acclaimed 2019 American comedy drama Give Me Liberty.