Vanderbilt University’s Theatre Department will host “An Evening with Doug Wright,” an award-winning playwright whose honors include a Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award, Wednesday, Jan. 22. Among Wright’s best-known plays are I Am My Own Wife, Quills, The Little Mermaid and Grey Gardens.
Wright is in Nashville as Tennessee Repertory Theatre’s 2013-14 Ingram New Works Fellow. Rene Copeland, director of the Tennessee Rep, will interview Wright at Rand Hall, Room 308, starting at 7 p.m. The event is free and open to the public with an opportunity for the audience to ask questions.
I Am My Own Wife, which premiered at Playwrights Horizons in 2003, received the Pulitzer Prize, Tony Award, Drama Desk Award and GLAAD Media Award, among others. For Grey Gardens, Wright was nominated for Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle awards for Best Book of a Musical. Wright won an Obie Award for his play Quills. His screen adaptation was named Best Picture by the National Board of Review and nominated for three Academy Awards. Wright has been cited by the American Academy of Arts and Letters for career achievement. He also received the Tolerance Prize from the Kulturforum Europa.
The Martha R. Ingram New Works Project was created by Tennessee Rep with the support of co-founder Martha R. Ingram to provide an opportunity for theatre artists to develop new theatre works while in residency there. Ingram is an emerita member of the Vanderbilt University Board of Trust.
Currently in its seventh year, the project has evolved to include a New Works Lab for four regional playwrights who are being mentored by Wright. The New Works Lab offers these playwrights the opportunity to not only receive feedback but also hear their works read by professional actors during the writing process.
For more information on Wright’s Vanderbilt presentation, contact Leah Lowe or call 615-322-2404.