Paula Cizmar is an American academic, playwright and librettist.
Cizmar's work has been selected for EnVision, the Sundance Theatre Lab, and the O’Neill National Playwrights Conference; a National Endowment for the Arts grant; a nomination to The Kilroy List, a Susan Smith Blackburn Prize Special Commendation; and a TCG/Mellon Foundation On the Road grant. .She has served residencies at the Rockefeller Study Center in Bellagio, Italy;
Cizmar's works include The Death of a Miner, Candy & Shelley Go To the Desert, Still Life with Parrot & Monkey, Ghost Dance on Mulholland, Bone Dry, The Last Nights of Scheherazade, January, and Street Stories.
Cizmar is an associate professor at the University of Southern California teaching playwriting. [1]
Paula was born in Youngstown, Ohio.[ citation needed ] She grew up in Youngstown, and as a child played piano and wrote poetry. She attended Chaney High School before continuing on to Ohio University where she was in the Honors College. She majored in English and wrote for the Ohio University Post, which led to an internship on the Detroit Free Press , where she covered everything from the courts to crime to feature stories. After holding this position, and a stint writing magazine articles, she changed her focus to solely creative writing endeavors. [2]
Cizmar co-authored the documentary theatre piece Seven, with Carol K. Mack, Catherine Filloux, Gail Kriegel, Ruth Margraff, Susan Yankowitz, and Anna Deavere Smith. Seven has been produced at the 18th Istanbul International Theatre Festival, and has been translated in over 20 languages. It has also been performed in Amman, Jordan, Tokyo, Japan, Riga, Latvia, and Rabat, Morocco. Seven has been recorded by LA Theatre Works and was named Best Audio Book, memoir category, in 2017.
The Death of a Miner was produced at the American Place Theatre by the Women's Project.
Cizmar wrote two seasons for the television series American Family . [3]
Cizmar's plays have been produced at the San Diego Rep, the Jungle Theater, Playwrights Arena, off-Broadway, Theatre LaBeet, Passage Theatre, and Portland Stage. [7] [8]
Cizmar collaborated on The Hotel Play, which was produced on the grounds of the downtown LA Radisson Hotel in 2017.
Scenes from Cizmar's opera, The Night Flight of Minerva's Owl were performed at Pittsburgh Festival Opera in their Music That Matters program in both 2018 and 2019. The opera premieres in 2020. [8]
Cizmer held playwriting residencies at Skidmore College, Ohio University, and Portland Stage. [8]
Collaborations [9]
Screenplays [ citation needed ]
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