Dael Orlandersmith Named Inge Festival New Voices Winner 4/13-16

Actor, poet, and playwright Dael Orlandersmith is winner of the 2011 William Inge Theatre Festival's Otis Guernsey New Voices in the American Theatre Award. Orlandersmith will be presented with the award at the 30th Annual Inge Festival April 13-16 at Independence Community College.

The Otis Guernsey New Voices in the American Theatre Award recognizes contemporary playwrights whose voices are helping shape the American theater of today.

The award, bestowed for the 19th time, is named for the late Otis L. Guernsey, Jr., acclaimed theater writer and scholar. Guernsey was a longtime advocate and attendee of the William Inge Theatre Festival. The Festival is named for the late William Inge, an Independence native who won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama ("Picnic") and Oscar for Best Screenplay ("Splendor in the Grass.")

"Dael is one of America's most vibrant stage voices," said Inge Center Artistic Director Peter Ellenstein. "Her work packs power, lyricism and unflinching honesty; looking life square in the face. Aside from being a fine playwright, Dael is also an acclaimed poet and performer."

Orlandersmith will receive the New Voices Award, an honorarium, and a concert reading of one of her new plays at the Inge Festival on Thursday, April 14, at 7:30 p.m. The concert reading is of a new contemporary drama, "Horsedreams." It will be directed by Broadway veteran, Gordon Edelstein, Artistic Director of Connecticut's Long Wharf Theater, and features a cast of special guest artists.

The Otis Guernsey New Voices in the American Theatre Award recipient is selected by a panel comprised of past New Voices winners and other theatre professionals.

Orlandersmith is perhaps best known for "Yellowman," a finalist for the 2002 Pulitzer Prize in Drama. She is also winner of the 2003 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. In 2002, she wrote and appeared in "Yellowman," a love story of a lighter and darker-skinned African-American couple. It was commissioned by and premiered at the McCarter Theatre, and later, the Manhattan Theatre Club.

Her "Stoop Stories" is another play in which she wrote and starred. This solo piece portrays life in Harlem, with its varied communities, characters, and aspirations. Orlandersmith has performed the play at the Mark Taper Forum and Kirk Douglas Theater in California, the Studio Theatre in Washington DC, and the Goodman Theatre in Chicago.

Her play "Bones" was performed in 2010, starring Khandi Alexander from CSI Miami.

Earlier in her writing career, Orlandersmith presented her first play, "Liar, Liar" at the New York Theatre Workshop in 1994 prior to her Obie-winning "Beauty's Daughter." Her additional works include "The Gimmick" and "Monster." In addition to the Pulitzer Prize Award finalist, she is winner of the Susan Smith Blackburn Award (for "The Gimmick") and recipient of the Whiting Award.
Throughout the '90s she performed with the Nuyorcian Poets (renamed Real Live Poetry), performing extensively throughout the United States, Europe, and Australia.

Her current works-in-progress, in addition to "Horsedreams," include "Suicide Girlz" (commission from the Atlantic Theater) and a new one-person play in a co-production between Berkeley Rep and the Goodman Theater titled "Black 'n Blue Boys/Broken Men."

She currently teaches at Sarah Lawrence College, as an artist-in-residence, and has taught at Princeton, Yale, and the University of Maryland.

The Inge Festival culminates on Saturday, April 16th with a multi-media Tribute to Pulitzer Prize winning dramatist Marsha Norman.

Tickets will be available on line starting March 1st at www.ingecenter.org or by calling (800) 842-6063 ext. 5835.

The William Inge Center for the Arts is a participant in the New Generations Program, funded by Doris Duke Charitable Foundation/The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and administered by Theatre Communications Group, the national organization for the American theatre.

Also, this program is presented in part by the Kansas Arts Commission, a state agency, and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency, which believes that a great nation deserves great art."

Additional supporter include the Hallmark Corporation, the William Inge Festival Foundation, and Independence Community College.

Previous Otis Guernsey New Voices in American Theatre Award Winners at the William Inge Theatre Festival
1993 Jason Milligan 2002 Dana Yeaton
1994 Catherine Butterfield 2003 Theresa Rebeck
1995 Mary Hanes 2004 Mary Portser
1996 Brian Burgess Clark 2005 Lynne Kaufman
1997 Joe DiPietro 2006 Melanie Marnich
1998 David Ives 2007 J.T. Rogers
1999 David Hirson 2008 Adam Bock
2000 James Still 2009 Carlos Murillo
2001 Mark St. Germain 2010 Katori Hall