Ken Weitzman
Beth Blickers
Abrams Artists Agency
275 Seventh Avenue, 26th Floor
New York, NY 10001
PH: 646-486-4601 x222
beth.blickers@abramsartny.com
Bio:
Ken Weitzman’s plays include The Catch (premiers at the Denver Center Theatre Company in Jan. '11), Fire in the Garden (premiers at IRT in Feb. '11), The As If Body Loop (Humana Festival), Arrangements (Atlantic Theatre Company, Pavement Group), Spin Moves (Arielle Tepper's Summer Play Festival), Hominid (Theatre Emory and Out of Hand Theater), Stadium 360 (Out of Hand Theater), Memorabilia (Alliance Theatre). Ken’s plays have also been developed and presented at, among others, New York Stage and Film, Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Playwrights Horizons, Arena Stage, the Geva Theatre, the Mark Taper Forum, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Dad’s Garage, Florida Stage, Page 73 Productions, the New Harmony Project, Hartford Stage, Atlantic Theater Company, and the Colorado New Play Summit.
Commissions include: Arena Stage, South Coast Repertory, the Alliance Theatre, Theatre Emory, and Actors Theatre of Louisville. Currently, Ken is the Playwright-in-Residence for Out of Hand Theater Company. www.outofhandtheater.com
Awards: 2003 L. Arnold Weissberger award for Arrangements, the McDonald Playwriting Award for The As If Body Loop (best new play in San Diego), Mario Fratti/Fred Newman Political Playwriting Contest for Fire in the Garden, and the Elizabeth George Commission for an Outstanding Emerging Playwright (chosen and awarded by South Coast Repertory Theatre.)
Ken received his MFA from the University of California, San Diego, and has taught playwriting at, among others, Emory University, University of California San Diego, and currently at Indiana University http://www.indiana.edu/~thtr/
Brief synopses of plays:
THE CATCH
In 2001, when Barry Bonds broke the single-season home run record in San Francisco, two fans both claimed to have retrieved the record-breaking ball, estimated to be worth up to three million dollars at auction. The Catch, inspired by this true event, tells the hilarious and heartbreaking stories of these two fans, their legal battle, and the country at a precarious moment in history.
(Will permiere in January, 2011 at the Denver Center Theatre)
HOMINID
On a small island in Holland, a modern day Macbeth unfolds — a beloved leader overthrown, a utopian community rocked by bloodshed and greed. The world looks on in shock. But who's watching whom? Hominid is based on a true story captured in the book, “Chimpanzee Politics” by renowned primatologist, Frans de Waal.
(Created with Out of Hand Theater Company. First produced by Theatre Emory. Commissioned by Theatre Emory. Upcoming productions on tour with Out of Hand and The Lunatics (Netherlands) at the Oerol Festival among others.)
FIRE IN THE GARDEN
In 1965 Norman Morrison, a Quaker from Baltimore, drove to the Pentagon and, in protest over the U.S. policy in Vietnam, doused himself in kerosene and lit himself on fire. Looking on as he did this, was his one-year-old daughter. Fire in the Garden is a monologue play, told by a new father who, as he struggles mightily (and comically) with the challenges of modern fatherhood, finds himself haunted, unsettled, and obsessed with Morrison’s act.
(Co-winner of the Mario Fratti/Fred Newman Political Playwriting Contest. Read at Castillo Theatre, Geva Theatre, Atlantic Theater Company, and the Alliance Theatre. Will premiere at Indianapolis Repertory Theatre in February 2011.)
STADIUM 360
A collaborative and highly physical creation by Ken Weitzman and Out Of Hand Theater. An alternately sharp and light-hearted deconstruction of American football, that brings to light the beauty and the ugliness of this great American game
(Created with Out of Hand Theater Company. First produced by Out of Hand Theater.)
THE AS-IF BODY LOOP
According to Hebrew legend, at any given time in history, there are thirty-six people, appointed by God, who must carry the pain of the world. When Aaron discovers that his sister, who has suddenly fallen ill, might be one of them, he sets off on a comic misadventure to help heal her.
(Premier: The 2007 Humana Festival of New American Plays, Actors Theatre of Louisville. Originally commissioned by Arena Stage. Winner of the McDonald Playwriting Award for the best new play in San Diego.)
MEMORABILIA
Memorabilia: objects collected as souvenirs of important personal events or experiences. Loosely inspired by Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie, this play is the memory of a family’s life in their tiny Atlanta apartment. A family that learns that, regardless of whether you try desperately to outrun it or whether you collect every piece of it, your past will always be with you.
(First produced by the Alliance Theatre. Commissioned as part of Alliance’s Collision Project.)
SPIN MOVES
In 1996, the inaugural year of the WNBA, Maja dreams of playing basketball. But having escaped to the U.S. from Bosnia, panic attacks prevent her from playing the game she loves. That is, until a new coach mysteriously appears at her high school. He helps Maja to face her fears but his highly unorthodox tactics alarm Maja’s fiercely protective mother.
(First produced as part of Arielle Tepper’s Summer Play Festival)
ARRANGEMENTS
In the dank basement of a flower shop, a strange yet beautiful friendship blossoms between amateur slam poet Robby and obese and outspoken Donna. By charting a series of intertwined relationships, this darkly comic play explores the relationship between chaos and order, consumption and abstinence, and the modern day notion that “we are what we eat.”
(First produced by Atlantic Theater Company. Subsequent production with Pavement Group (Chicago.)
Winner of the ’03 L. Arnold Weissberger Award.)
RICHARD AIKEN
A reconceiving of Moliere’s Tartuffe.
The central spin on the premise is that this contemporary Tartuffe (Richard Aiken, aka Dick Aiken) is pathological more than hypocritical. He is really trying to do good and important work with the money (‘donations’) he obtains from the wealthy, but his sexual compulsiveness sabotages his good work. So, instead of Dorine and Elmire trying to expose him, they try to prevent him from exposing himself (figuratively and literally) so that he can continue to do good work.
It comes down to the question as to whether the needs of the many should outweigh the needs of the few. Should a great man have his sexual deeds (or misdeeds) overlooked if bringing him down hurts many more people.
(Workshop production as part of Rattlestick Playwrights’ Theatre’s playwrights/directors lab.)
Coney Island Wedding (musical in-progress.)
Ne’er-do-well Lloyd will do anything to please his father, even find a bride in a week and re-create his parents’ WWII-era Coney Island Wedding. With the Coney Island Aquarium the only venue available, all becomes rather ‘fishy’ as utter chaos ensues.
(Originally commissioned by South Coast Repertory: the Elizabeth George Commission for an Outstanding Emerging Playwright.)
