External links
- Stephen Adly Guirgis at IMDb
- Stephen Adly Guirgis at the Internet Off-Broadway Database
- Profile and photo at LAByrinth Theater Company
- Profile and Production History at The Whiting Foundation
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Stephen Adly Guirgis | |
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| Born | 1965 (age 58–59) Kearny, New Jersey, U.S. |
| Education | University at Albany, SUNY (BA) |
| Occupation(s) | Playwright, screenwriter, director, actor |
| Notable work | Between Riverside and Crazy |
| Awards | Pulitzer Prize for Drama (2015) |
Stephen Adly Guirgis (born 1965) is an American playwright, screenwriter, director, and actor. He is a member and a former co-artistic director of New York City's LAByrinth Theater Company. [1] His plays have been produced both Off-Broadway and on Broadway, as well as in the UK. His play Between Riverside and Crazy won the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
Born in 1965 in Kearny, New Jersey, [2] Guirgis is the son of an Egyptian father and an Irish American mother. [3] He was raised on New York City's Upper West Side. He attended school in nearby Harlem and graduated from the University at Albany, SUNY in 1992. [1] [3] He studied theatre at HB Studio. [4]
Guirgis' play Between Riverside and Crazy premiered Off-Broadway at the Atlantic Theater Company in July 2014 and closed on August 23, 2014. [5] It then was produced by Second Stage Theatre, opening in previews on January 16, 2015, officially on February 11, 2015. Directed by Austin Pendleton, the play featured Stephen McKinley Henderson. [6] The play received a nomination for the 2015 Drama League Award, Outstanding Production of a Broadway or Off-Broadway Play. [7] The play won the 2015 Outer Critics Circle Award, Outstanding New Off-Broadway Play. [8] The play won the 2015 New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play. [9] The play won the 2015 Lucille Lortel Award, Outstanding Play. [10] Artists Repertory Theatre, located in Portland, Oregon, staged Between Riverside and Crazy from March 4 to April 1, 2018. [11] The show had its Broadway debut with previews beginning December 1, 2022, and opening on December 19, 2022.
His play The Motherfucker With the Hat was nominated for seven Tony Awards and premiered on Broadway in 2011 and featured Bobby Cannavale, Chris Rock, Elizabeth Rodriguez, Annabella Sciorra and Yul Vazquez. [12] It was also performed in San Francisco at San Francisco Playhouse in January 2013 where it received positive reviews. [13]
His award-winning recent play Halfway Bitches Go Straight To Heaven , directed by John Ortiz in 2019 in a LAByrinth Theater/Atlantic Theater co-production, features a cast of 18 plus a goat, and garnered Obie Awards for its two stars, LLiza Colón-Zayas and Elizabeth Rodriguez.
The Little Flower of East Orange, starring Ellen Burstyn and directed by Philip Seymour Hoffman, was produced Off-Broadway by the LAByrinth Theater Company at The Public Theater, opening on April 6, 2008, and closing on May 4, 2008. [14] [15] The play was developed at the Manhattan Theatre Club's "6 @ 7" series. [16]
His play Our Lady of 121st Street ran originally in an Off-Broadway production by the LAByrinth Theater at Center Stage/NY and then transferred to the Union Square Theatre from March 6, 2003, to July 27, 2003. The play was directed by Philip Seymour Hoffman. [17] The play received: 10 best plays of 2003; Lucille Lortel, Drama Desk, and Outer Critics Circle Best Play nominations. [18]
Jesus Hopped the 'A' Train , premiered Off-Broadway in a production by LAByrinth Theater Company in 2000. [19] [20] It was produced in London at the Donmar Warehouse in 2002, [21] and was nominated for the Olivier Award, Best New Play for 2003, [22] as well as the Edinburgh Festival Fringe First Award.[ citation needed ]
His play In Arabia We'd All Be Kings ran Off-Broadway in 1999. [23] A production at the Elephant Theatre Company in Hollywood, California in 2007 received four LA Drama Critic's Circle Awards: Production, Writing, Scenic Design and Lighting Design. [24]
His play The Last Days of Judas Iscariot was produced Off-Broadway by LAByrinth at The Public Theatre in 2005 and was directed by Philip Seymour Hoffman, [25] [26] and was named one of the year's "10 best" plays by Time magazine and Entertainment Weekly.[ citation needed ] The play completed a critically acclaimed run in London at the Almeida Theater on May 10, 2008. [27]
His one-act play, Dominica The Fat Ugly Ho, was directed by Adam Rapp as part of the 2006 E.S.T. Marathon. [28]
In film, Guirgis has contributed to the work of Halle Berry.
Television writing credits include NYPD Blue , [27] David Milch's short-lived CBS drama Big Apple , [1] and Shane Salerno's short-lived NBC series UC: Undercover . Guirgis collaborated with Academy Award nominated director Baz Luhrmann on The Get Down, a Netflix Series about the birth of hip-hop in the 1970s. [29]
He developed and directed Liza Colón-Zayas' play Sistah Supreme for Danny Hoch's Hip Hop Theater Festival in 2000 [30] Marco Greco's award-winning Behind the Counter with Mussolini at the York Theatre (1998 in New York) [31] and Los Angeles (1999 and 2002), [32] and directed Melanie Maras' Kiss Me on the Mouth for InViolet Rep in 2009. [33]
As an actor, Guirgis is currently a series regular portraying Frank Mariani on HBO's "Winning Time". He appeared in Brett C. Leonard's stage play Guinea Pig Solo, produced by LAByrinth at The Public Theater in 2004. [34] He has had supporting roles in films such as Todd Solondz's Palindromes (2004), [35] Brett C. Leonard's Jailbait (2004), and Kenneth Lonergan's Margaret (2011). [36] Other credits include the 1997 Law & Order episode "Terminal" and films such as Meet Joe Black (1998), [37] Blackbird (2007), [38] Trainwreck: My Life as an Idiot (2007), [39] Noise (2007), [40] Synecdoche, New York (2008), [41] and Philip Seymour Hoffman's directorial debut Jack Goes Boating (2010).
In 2017 Guirgis was embroiled in a publicized debate with a small theater in San Francisco which had produced an edited version of The Last Days of Judas Iscariot. While Guirgis was displeased to learn that his play had been edited without his permission, in violation of the production's licensing contract, he was also sympathetic to the production's cast and crew and did not want to shut down the production as Dramatists Play Service recommended. He requested that the theater place inserts in the show programs explaining that the show was edited without his permission and against his wishes. When Guirgis saw a copy of the program insert he requested, he deemed the insert unsuitable and had the production shut down. [42] [43]
Guirgis has used improvisational theater to "teach HIV/AIDS prevention, conflict resolution, and leadership" in prisons, schools, shelters, and hospitals. [44] Guirgis was close professional and personal friends with late actor Philip Seymour Hoffman [42] with whom he was a frequent collaborator.
Guirgis was awarded a 2006 PEN/Laura Pels Theater Award for a playwright in mid-career, [45] a 2006 Whiting Award, [46] and a 2004 TCG fellowship. He attended the 2006 Sundance Screenwriter's Lab, [47] and was named one of 2004's 25 New Faces of Independent Film by Filmmaker Magazine .
In 2014, Guirgis was awarded the Steinberg Distinguished Playwright Award.
Guirgis is the recipient of new play commissions from Manhattan Theatre Club, Center Theater Group, and South Coast Repertory. He is a member of New Dramatists, MCC's Playwright's Coalition, New River Dramatists, Primary Stages, and the Actors Studio Playwright/Directors Unit.
He received the 2013 Windham–Campbell Literature Prize. [48]
He received the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Between Riverside and Crazy [49]
Our Lady of 121st Street received the Lucille Lortel Award nomination, Outstanding Play, Outstanding Director (Hoffman); 2003 Outer Critics Circle Award nomination, John Glassner Award; Drama Desk Award nomination, Director (Hoffman) and Outstanding Play [50]
He received a Literature Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in May 2016.
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Eric Bogosian is an American actor, playwright, monologuist, novelist, and historian. Descended from Armenian-American immigrants, he grew up in Watertown and Woburn, Massachusetts, and attended the University of Chicago and Oberlin College. His numerous plays include Talk Radio (1987) and subUrbia (1994), which were adapted to film by Oliver Stone and Richard Linklater, respectively, with Bogosian starring in the former.
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Liza Colón-Zayas is an American actress and playwright. She is best known for playing Tina Marrero on the comedy-drama series The Bear.
The Last Days of Judas Iscariot is a play by American playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis first staged Off-Broadway at The Public Theater on March 2, 2005, directed by Philip Seymour Hoffman.
Jesus Hopped The 'A' Train is a play written by Stephen Adly Guirgis.
In Arabia We'd All Be Kings is a dramatic play set in New York City, written by Stephen Adly Guirgis. It chronicles the demise of a group of individuals living in New York's Hell's Kitchen around the time before Rudy Giuliani's efforts to clean up the city. Out of work and strapped for money, the lives of these individuals revolve around a local bar and their misguided hopes and dreams. The play deals primarily with issues of commercialism, hope, and friendship.
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Brett C. Leonard is an American dramatist, screenwriter and producer. A member of the LAByrinth Theater Company of New York City, he is best known for his tragic drama The Long Red Road which was performed at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago under Philip Seymour Hoffman as director, starring Tom Hardy, and for his play "Guinea Pig Solo", originally produced as the first co-production between LAByrinth and NY's Public Theater, starring John Ortiz. Leonard also wrote and produced for the HBO TV series Hung (2011)., wrote and served as a Supervising Producer for the AMC series Low Winter Sun, was a writer and Co-Executive Producer on Amazon's Mad Dogs, a Co-Executive Producer on Apple TV’s “Shantaram,” a Consulting Producer on AMC's Fear the Walking Dead and creative consultant on BBC/FX drama Taboo. Also of note are his plays "Ninth and Joanie" directed by Mark Wing-Davey, produced in New York City by LAByrinth Theater Company, Roger and Vanessa, produced at Theatre 503 in London, The Actors' Gang in Los Angeles and Tap Gallery in Sydney, "Snapshot" at Chicago's Collaboraction Theater, and Unconditional, produced by LAByrinth at NYC's Public Theater, directed by Mark Wing-Davey and published in New Playwrights: The Best Plays of 2008. His plays have been produced in New York, London, Chicago, Los Angeles, Toronto, Berlin, Sydney, Melbourne, etc. Leonard has been nominated for a WGA award, won the Daryl Roth Creative Spirit Award, and has written several one-acts, including his award-winning "What I'm Looking For," which premiered in Chicago's Sketchbook Festival. His low-budget film "Jailbait", based on his play, starred Michael Pitt and Stephen Adly Guirgis, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival, won Best Narrative Feature at Lake Placid Film Festival and was released theatrically in 2005. He divides his time between Los Angeles and New York City with longtime girlfriend Elizabeth Rodriguez. He is set to write and executive produce a tv series for Miramax based on Gangs of New York, to be directed and executive produced by Martin Scorsese.
LAByrinth Theater Company is a non-profit, Off-Broadway theater company based in New York City. Led by Philip Seymour Hoffman and John Ortiz for many years. Its artistic director is Aaron Weiner. The New York Times described it in 2014 as "an ethnically diverse downtown troupe that has mounted several critically acclaimed new works".
Between Riverside and Crazy is a 2014 play by playwright, screenwriter, director, and actor Stephen Adly Guirgis. The play won the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the 2015 New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play, the 2015 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Play, the 2015 Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding New Off-Broadway Play and the 2015 Off Broadway Alliance Award for Best New Play.
Michael Louis Chernus is an American actor. He has acted on film, television, and the stage. He is perhaps best known for his role as Cal Chapman on the Netflix original comedy-drama series Orange Is the New Black (2013–2019). Chernus played Phineas Mason / Tinkerer in the Marvel Cinematic Universe film Spider-Man: Homecoming, which was released on July 7, 2017.
