Stephen Adly Guirgis, UAlbany alum and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright to discuss his work, March 3, 2016

Guirgis recevied the 2015 Pulitzer Prize in drama for "Between Riverside and Crazy"

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Stephen Adly Guirgis, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Photo credit: Monique Carboni

ALBANY, NY (02/18/2016)(readMedia)-- Stephen Adly Guirgis, a graduate of UAlbany's Theatre Department and 2015 Pulitzer Prize-winner for drama will read from and discuss his work on Thursday, March 3, 2016 at 8:00 p.m. in the Recital Hall, Performing Arts Center, on the University at Albany's uptown campus. Earlier that day at 4:15 p.m., the playwright will present an informal seminar, also in the Recital Hall, Performing Arts Center. Free and open to the public, the events are sponsored by the New York State Writers Institute in conjunction with the department-wide reading project of UAlbany's English Department.

A New York playwright with a taste for marginal characters and raw language, Stephen Adly Guirgis has distinguished himself for years with his often edgy, humorous, and compassionate dramas. A graduate of UAlbany's Theatre Department, Guirgis won the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for drama for his play Between Riverside and Crazy. The play also received the Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding New Off-Broadway Play, and the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best Play. The Pulitzer Committee called it "a nuanced, beautifully written play... that uses dark comedy to confront questions of life and death."

After graduating from UAlbany Guirgis was recruited by Philip Seymour Hoffman and former classmate John Ortiz to join the non-profit LAByrinth theatre company, of which he later became a co-artistic director. His plays, which have been produced both Off-Broadway and on Broadway, and throughout the U.S., and Britain include: In Arabia, We'd All Be Kings, which was one of LAByrinth's first plays; Jesus Hopped the 'A' Train (Edinburgh Festival Fringe Award, and Olivier Nomination for London's Best New Play); The Last Days of Judas Iscariot (named one of the"10 best" plays by Time Magazine & Entertainment Weekly); and Our Lady of 121st Street, which Variety said "confirms Guirgis [as] an exciting talent with a gift for raw but rich dialogue and an entertaining ability to find the absurd humor in emotional extremis." His play The Motherf***er with the Hat, directed on Broadway by Anna D. Shapiro, received six Tony nominations, including Best Play.

Guirgis has received the Steinberg Distinguished Playwright Award, the Yale Wyndham-Campbell Prize, a PEN/Laura Pels Award, and a TCG fellowship. As an actor, he has appeared in theatre, film and television, including roles in Kenneth Lonergan's film Margaret, Todd Solondz's Palindromes, and Brett C. Leonard's Jailbait opposite Michael Pitt. His screenwriting credits have included TV shows such as NYPD Blue and The Sopranos. Guirgis is currently collaborating with Academy Award-nominated director Baz Luhrmann on a television series about the birth of the hip-hop era in New York City.

For additional information, visit New York Writers Institute on Facebook, online at http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst, or email writers@albany.edu, or call 518-442-5620.

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