Douglas Post Receives American Blues Theater's Blue Ink Playwriting Award

Producing Artistic Director Gwendolyn Whiteside of American Blues Theater announces the recipient of the Blue Ink Playwriting Award is Douglas Post and his play Comden Mall Community Activists.

The Blue Ink Playwriting Award was created in 2010 to support new work. The winning play is selected by American Blues Theater's Producing Artistic Director Gwendolyn Whiteside and the award-winning Ensemble. The winner of this annual competition is awarded the Blue Ink Playwriting Award of $1,000, receives a staged-reading at American Blues Theater in Chicago and the opportunity to develop the script with the Ensemble. For information on submission policy and more details, go to americanbluestheater.com.

"We were fortunate to receive nearly 400 submissions this year from all over the nation, Canada and the United Kingdom. Doug's script really jumped out at us and we are looking forward to building a relationship with him and this new work," said Whiteside when announcing the 2014 award.

"I am delighted to have received this award from American Blues Theater. To me, this company exemplifies everything that is best about Chicago theatre. They are seriously committed to their craft, they are seriously committed to each other, and they bring great art into the world," responded Post.

Previous winners include Christina Gorman's American Myth, the 2012 recipient. Gorman's play receives its world premiere from American Blues Theater, March 9 - April 6 at Greenhouse Theater Center. Additional winners include Elaine Romero's Graveyard of Empires (2013) and Stephanie Walker's American Home (2011).

ABOUT DOUGLAS POST: Post's one-man thriller Bloodshot recently completed a critically acclaimed run at the St. James Theatre in London. Prior to this, the play had been on a U.K. tour and had also been produced in Vienna. His other plays, which include Cynical Weathers, Blissfield, Drowning Sorrows, Earth and Sky and Murder in Green Meadows, and musicals, which include God and Country, The Real Life Story of Johnny de Facto and The Wind in the Willows, have been produced in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Canada, England, Wales, Germany, Austria, Russia and China. He has also been commissioned to write screenplays for Warner Bros. and NBC, teleplays for WMAQ-TV, and several radio adaptations of his scripts. On three occasions, he has been selected to develop his work at the O'Neill National Playwrights Conference and once at the O'Neill National Music Theater Conference. He has received the L. Arnold Weissberger Playwriting Award, the Midwestern Playwrights Festival Award, the Cunningham Commission Award and three Playwriting Fellowship Awards from the Illinois Arts Council, and has been nominated for a Joseph Jefferson Award and an Emmy Award. Post is a Founding Member of the Victory Gardens Playwrights Ensemble, teaches at Chicago Dramatists and is the Chicago regional representative for the Dramatists Guild of America.

ABOUT AMERICAN BLUES THEATER: American Blues Theater is the premier American theater producing visceral theatrical works while engaging its audience in worthwhile missions of local service agencies. American Blues Theater illuminates the American ideas of freedom, equality, and opportunity in the plays we produce and communities we serve.

The multi-generational and interdisciplined artists have established the second-oldest professional Equity Ensemble theater in Chicago. The 39-member Ensemble has nearly 500 combined years of collaboration on stage. As of 2014, they've individually received over 126 Joseph Jefferson Awards and nominations that celebrate excellence in Chicago theater and over 20 Black Theatre Alliance Awards. Our artists are honored with Pulitzer Prize nominations, Academy Awards, Golden Globe Awards, Emmy Awards, and numerous other accolades.

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