ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Asia, Central and South America, Australia and New Zealand. He has been a finalist for the Actors Theatre of Louisville Heideman Award, the Hyperion One Act Award, the Weinberger Playwright Residency and the Interact and Charlotte Rep New Play festivals, and he has worked with such companies as the Walnut Street Theatre, Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey, Ensemble Studio Theatre - LA, Moving Arts and the Pittsburgh New Works Festival. He co-founded YouthPLAYS, a growing publisher of plays and musicals for young actors and audiences at which over two dozen of his plays reside, with more than 25 other works published by such companies as Playscripts, Brooklyn Publishers, Heuer and Original Works, and monologues published in collections published by Meriwether, Playscripts and Smith & Kraus. He has been instrumental in the development of ProduceaPlay.com, the internet's top "how to produce a play" resource site for prospective producers of theatre at all levels - schools, colleges, community and professional theatres.
He chairs the Alliance of Los Angeles Playwrights, is the former managing director of the Philadelphia Dramatists Center and was a longtime playwriting advisor to Final Draft (for whom he created the playwriting "Ask the Expert") and The Writers Store (creator of Playwriting101.com, for many years Google's top-ranked playwriting website, and playwriting instructor at Script University). He is a member of the Dramatists Guild of America's Education Committee, as well as a longtime Guild member. For screen, he has written a trio of produced shorts, two of which he also directed. He is the author of Young Playwrights 101, a book for young playwrights and those who teach them, and conducts workshops at schools and festivals across the US and as far away as Japan, Malaysia and Singapore. He served as Visiting Associate Professor in the M.F.A. playwriting and children's literature programs at Hollins University, and as United States Cultural Envoy to Barbados. He holds a B.A. in Dramatic Writing and Literature from Harvard University and an M.F.A. in Playwriting from UCLA.
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Literature, she worked in professional theatre for several years as a director, teacher, actor, and stage manager. From there, Alison shifted her focus to music, writing and recording two albums and playing live shows with her band. Recently she's been adding film to the mix as she's taken a break from performing to focus on her writing and other creative efforts.
In 2006, Alison released her first full-length album, At Arm's Length: a pop-rock disc with a folky soul. Her sophomore effort, Fairytale Endings Aside (November 2007), represented a return to the piano playing of her childhood and a step forward into a more soulful expression of the melodic pop sound established on her debut. Her focus on pairing intelligent, empathetic lyrics with catchy pop melodies has earned her notice around the greater Boston area and NY/NJ, where she enjoyed her music-filled childhood. She's brought her warm, energetic stage presence to such venues as Club Passim, the Paradise Lounge, the Knitting Factory and the Lion's Den, and her songs can also be heard on iTunes and Internet radio station Pandora.
Through all her work in various media, Alison is ever conscious of the teachers who helped and inspired her along the way, including Marcus Stern at the A.R.T., Jim Glossman and John Pietrowski (both primarily known in the NY/NJ area, though their work extends far beyond that), Brian Crowe, Allen Artz, Will Akers, and numerous others. So much of the value and joy of performing arts is in their collaborative nature, and Alison is grateful to have worked with so many kind and talented people. She considers each new project another opportunity to share and communicate with a new group of people; her hope is to help bring collaborative arts to as many people as she can. |
Photo credits (clockwise from banner): Casa Productora Fenix (Guadalajara, Mexico; photo by Karla Lira); Casa Productora Fenix; Cambridge-Isanti High School (Cambridge, MN); Casa Productora Fenix; Casa Productora Fenix.