Craig Pospisil
Craig Pospisil
Biography
Pospisil was born and raised in New York City, where he attended Trinity School. He graduated from Wesleyan University, and later studied playwriting in the Dramatic Writing Program in the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. His plays are published by Dramatists Play Service and Playscripts, Inc., and have appeared in the publications such as Plays and Playwrights 2001, Take Ten II, Under Thirty, Best Ten Minute Plays 2005, Best Ten Minute Plays 2006, Best American Short Plays 2010-2011, Best Ten Minute Plays 2012, and Best Ten Minute Plays 2015, from publishers Smith & Kraus,[4] Applause TheatreBooks, Heinemann and Vintage Books. He is a member of the Dramatists Guild.
He is best known for the plays Months on End, which had its world premiere at the Purple Rose Theatre Company in Chelsea, Michigan, and Somewhere in Between, which had its professional premiere at Detroit Repertory Company, but he has also had success with his short plays, such as It's Not You, On the Edge and Infant Morality. His plays have been seen at Ensemble Studio Theatre, New World Stages, Barrington Stage Company, Bay Street Theater, City Theatre (Miami), New York Musical Theatre Festival, Road Theatre, Vital Theater, West Coast Ensemble, and the Caldwell Theater, and have been performed in Austria, Australia,[5] Canada, China, Denmark, England, France,[6] Germany, Greece, Japan, Mexico, Peru, Samoa, Spain, Vietnam and Zimbabwe. His plays have been translated into Cantonese, Danish, French, Greek, Japanese, Mandarin and Spanish. He has worked on the musicals Drift and Dot Comet, commissioned by the New Musical Development Fund.[7]
In 2015, Pospisil adapted a scene from his play Months on End into a short film, January,[8] which he also directed. January was an official selection at the Bahamas International Film Festival, Big Apple Film Festival, Berkshire International Film Festival, Cayman Islands International Film Festival, Laughlin International Film Festival, Black Bear Film Festival, Sacramento Film Festival, and more. In 2016, he was one of several playwrights who co-created the play The Gorges Motel,[9] which ran in the 20th annual New York International Fringe Festival.
Pospisil was Head Writer for theAtrainplays',[10][11][12][13] and he wrote his short plays It's Not You, Free and Tourist Attraction for some of their 24-hour theater productions. He works as the Director of Nonprofessional Licensing for Dramatists Play Service.[14] and is the editor of Outstanding Men’s Monologues, Volumes 1 & 2, Outstanding Women’s Monologues, Volumes 1 & 2, Outstanding Short Plays, Volumes 1, 2 & 3. He has also edited two volumes of short plays by the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright William Inge, entitled The Apartment Complex and Somewhere in America. Pospisil has been a guest lecturer and teacher at the Last Frontier Theatre Conference,[15] Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival, Hollins University[16] and Loyola Marymount University. His works has also been produced on the radio by Stage Shadows Inc..[17]
Awards
Pospisil was honored by the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival for "Excellence in Playwriting" on January 29, 2011 at the conference for Region 1 of the festival. He is a six time finalist for the Heideman Award at the Actors Theatre of Louisville's Humana Festival of New American Plays, and has twice been a finalist for the National Playwrights Conference at the Eugene O'Neill Center in Connecticut.
The Dunes
Winner – Theatre Conspiracy's Ninth Annual New Play Contest[18]
Months on End
Winner – Inter-Play Festival, Shipping Dock Theatre, Rochester, NY
Winner – New Play Project, Backdoor Theatre, Wichita Falls, TX[19]
Winner – Towngate Theatre Playwriting Contest, Oglebay Institute, Wheeling, WV
The American Dream Revisited
Alan Minieri Playwrighting Award, Turnip Theatre, New York, NY[20]
Somewhere in Between
Winner – FutureFest, Dayton Playhouse, Dayton, OH
Winner – Inter-Play Festival, Shipping Dock Theatre, Rochester, NY
Works
Full length plays and musicals
One-acts and short plays
The American Dream Revisited
The Best Way to Go
Class Conflict
Dissonance[26]
Double Wedding
Free'[27]
Guerilla Gorilla
Guns Don't Kill
Happenstance[28]
Her Head on the Pillow
In a Word
Infant Morality
It's Not You
Kissing Cousins - as part of the play The Gorges Motel[29]
The Last December
Manhattan Drum-Taps
A Mother's Love
'No Child Left
On the Edge
On the Wings of a Butterfly
Perchance
Quandary in Quando
A Quiet Empty Life
There's No Here Here[30]
Tourist Attraction
Train of Thought
What Price?
Whatever