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Gajdusek's Play Greedy Wins Clubbed Thumb's Playwriting Competition

By: Oct. 28, 2005
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Karl Gajdusek's Greedy has been chosen as the winning entry in Clubbed Thumb's playwriting competition.

The Obie-Award winning theatre companyannounced back in April that they would be awarding one playwright a commission of $15,000 for a new play that fit the guidelines of the competition. They received 161 entries before the July 15th deadline, and in a blind adjudication process, a panel of readers chose Greedy as the winning proposal. "We received applications from all over the country and were moved and excited by the remarkable quality of the work submitted." said Meg MacCary, Co-Director of Clubbed Thumb. The $15,000 prize makes this one of the largest playwrighting commissions available.

Greedy is about "an e-mailed plea for money with the promise of big returns and how, in the wake of this offer, 5 people struggle with their greed, hope, desire, and integrity. It promises to be no-gauze, laugh-a-minute, hard-hitting, and utterly relevant to the times," according to press notes.

Gajdusek is a San Francisco native, now living in San Diego., With a B.A. from Yale University, he is a member of Annex Theatre in Seattle and has an M.F.A. from the University of California at San Diego where he also founded the theatre company Theater E. Karl's plays include Fair Game, Silverlake, North, Minneapolis, Dr.s F.s in the Terminal Ward, Big Sun Setting Fast, The Gilded Garden of Patcheww, Malibu, and Waco, Texas, Mon Amour. Screenplays include Widow's Walk, Reunion, Wonderman, The Next Best Thing (not the one with Madonna), Higher, The Condemned, and the newest film for WWE Wrestling star John Cena. He was the story editor on the Showtime show "Dead Like Me," creating 4 of the 2004 Season episodes. He founded the script publication service, Big Sun Publication. He is the recipient of the 1991 Jacob K. Javits fellowship, the 1996-97 & 1998-99 Jerome Fellowships, the 1997 McKnight Screenwriting Fellowship and the 2000 McKnight Advancement Grant. He is a member of New Dramatists in New York City.

"The Clubbed Thumb Biennial Commission was created to encourage the writing of plays that consider the relationships between truth, power, history, and personal responsibility. For each commission, Clubbed Thumb asks a question and poses a theme to serve as a jumping-off point for this examination. The result need not be immediately recognizable as a product of the initial examination. The inaugural theme for year 2005-2006 is 'Yamashita's Gold.'"

Clubbed Thumb reserves the exclusive right to produce Greedy for two years commencing the day the final draft is submitted, but is under no obligation to produce the work.

The guidelines for this year were the following: a running time of between 1 hour and 1:30 hours, no intermission, a reasonable representation of women, both in quantity and quality of roles, andAt least 3 characters, with medium sized ensemble casts preferred.

The Obie Award-winning Clubbed Thumb was founded in 1996 by artistic directors Maria Striar and Meg MacCary They are known primarily for their annual festival of new plays, Summerworks. Productions have included Gina Gionfriddo's U.S. Drag (2002 Susan Smith Blackburn prize winner, 2005 OBIE winner), Lisa D'Amour's 16 Spells to Charm the Beast, Erin Courtney's Summer Play and Downwinders, Carson Kreitzer's Freakshow, Deborah Eisenberg's Pastorale, Rinne Groff's Inky and Jimmy Carter Was a Democrat, and Erin Courtney's Demon Baby. In January 2006, Clubbed Thumb will produce the world premiere of Rinne Groff's What Then.

For more information please visit www.clubbedthumb.org/bc.

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