Lee Blessing's (head of playwriting, dramatic literature) Thief River opened in 2001 at the Signature Theater in New York. Cobb opened at the Lucille Lortel Theater a year earlier, and Chesapeake
opened at the Second Stage Theater (produced by New York Stage and Film
and Jim Freydberg) in 1999. These plays garnered a Drama Desk
nomination for Best Play (Thief River) and an Outer Critics Circle Award for best solo performance (Mark Linn-Baker in Chesapeake). The Signature Theater devoted its second season to Blessing's work, including the world premiere of Patient A. A Walk in the Woods
ran on Broadway and was produced in London's West End. It later toured
Moscow and was seen on PBS's "American Playhouse." Blessing's plays
have premiered at the Manhattan Theater Club (Eleemosynary), La
Jolla Playhouse, Yale Repertory Theater, and the Actors Theater of
Louisville, among others, and have been nominated for Tony and Olivier
awards, as well as the Pulitzer Prize. His plays have won the American
Critics Award and the George and Elisabeth Marton Award. Eleemosynary won
the 1997 L.A. Drama Critics Circle Award. Blessing has received grants
from the NEA as well as the Guggenheim, Bush, McKnight, and Jerome
foundations. Heinemann has published two collections of his plays.
Blessing's work has been performed for eight summers at the O`Neill
Playwrights Conference.
Bernie De Leo (guest
artist/screenwriting) has written for the stage, television, and film.
Writing credits include the ABC/Disney sitcom Life's Work, and his romantic comedy screenplay Straight to You
filmed in Sydney, Australia, last summer. In addition, he is vice
president of creative affairs for Filbert Steps Productions where he
was a producer on both of their films Forever Fabulous and Two Family House, an
Audience Award winner at the Sundance Film Festival in 2000. He has a
number of screen projects in the works, and lives in the Virginia
suburbs of Washington, D.C.
Christopher Scherer
(guest artist/screenwriting) is a graduate of the Mason Gross theater
program in playwriting, studying under Roger Cornish. As a playwright,
he was a recipient of a Distinguished Artist Grant from the New Jersey
State Council on the Arts, and was awarded a Chesterfield Film
Fellowship to study screenwriting at Amblin Entertainment/Universal
Studios. As a documentary filmmaker he has written, produced, and
executive produced extensively, including Love Letter to New York (national PBS), The View from in Here (a coproduction with La Septe ARTE), and a 13-part documentary series entitled Great Ideas of Philosophy that
is currently in production. His productions for television have won
Cindy National Gold Medals, a Silver Plaque from the Intercom Awards,
and a YALSA Award (ALA). Currently he is manager of video production at
Films for the Humanities and Sciences in Princeton, New Jersey.
