ABOUT
Photograph by Bryan Eaton
Screenwriter - Playwright - Essayist
I was born in the Berkshire Hills of Massachusetts. Mount Greylock and Wahconah Falls were part of the storied landscape of my childhood. Welsh and Irish storytellers and Lithuanian rituals in my family influenced my imagination early on.
After high school, I hitchhiked from Montreal to Vancouver Island, gathering stories from stars, mountains, and drunken cowboys. When I returned to the United States, I married. My son, Jude, born deaf and curious opened a brilliantly silent world to explore. Over-inspired, I began writing plays.
Once divorced, I took classes at Harvard Extension School, working days as an interpreter. The question, "how should we live?" drove my study of ethics and theatre through graduate school. I studied classical Greek drama with Gregory Nagy, Japanese Noh with Richard Gardiner, playwriting with Mark Leib and Derek Walcott. I left Harvard with a master's degree in philosophical and theological ethics and the Harvard Arts Award for my play, Michael, which opened the door to productions. My doctoral dissertation, Divining Emerson's Natures: unearthing his ethics of edification in grief, always in progress, inspired a new play, Dear Waldo, and new screenplay about his aunt/mentor/muse: Mary Moody Emerson: Angel of Death.
In 2000, I bought a condemnable 1775 mariner's house in the historic seaport of Newburyport, north of Boston. My cries for help turned into restoration stories that were published by the Old House Web which caught the attention of HGTV who filmed my crooked little house which caught the eye of Home Depot who squashed their regional managers into my gathering room to shoot the cover of their national magazine. Sagacity Productions then filmed a few scenes of their movie, Redemption, here. Even the house's pocket gardens have an inexplicable draw, chosen for the historic garden tour, usually preserved for grand gardens of dead sea captains.
Fifteen full length plays and several shorts later, I began to write a play based on my son's coming of age story. When I looked through his eyes, I realized that this story had to be told visually. The Silent Seed, my first screenplay, won best unproduced script at the International Film Festival, Nice, 2017. I'm currently writing my third screenplay and plan to adapt several of my plays for the screen.
I was born in the Berkshire Hills of Massachusetts. Mount Greylock and Wahconah Falls were part of the storied landscape of my childhood. Welsh and Irish storytellers and Lithuanian rituals in my family influenced my imagination early on.
After high school, I hitchhiked from Montreal to Vancouver Island, gathering stories from stars, mountains, and drunken cowboys. When I returned to the United States, I married. My son, Jude, born deaf and curious opened a brilliantly silent world to explore. Over-inspired, I began writing plays.
Once divorced, I took classes at Harvard Extension School, working days as an interpreter. The question, "how should we live?" drove my study of ethics and theatre through graduate school. I studied classical Greek drama with Gregory Nagy, Japanese Noh with Richard Gardiner, playwriting with Mark Leib and Derek Walcott. I left Harvard with a master's degree in philosophical and theological ethics and the Harvard Arts Award for my play, Michael, which opened the door to productions. My doctoral dissertation, Divining Emerson's Natures: unearthing his ethics of edification in grief, always in progress, inspired a new play, Dear Waldo, and new screenplay about his aunt/mentor/muse: Mary Moody Emerson: Angel of Death.
In 2000, I bought a condemnable 1775 mariner's house in the historic seaport of Newburyport, north of Boston. My cries for help turned into restoration stories that were published by the Old House Web which caught the attention of HGTV who filmed my crooked little house which caught the eye of Home Depot who squashed their regional managers into my gathering room to shoot the cover of their national magazine. Sagacity Productions then filmed a few scenes of their movie, Redemption, here. Even the house's pocket gardens have an inexplicable draw, chosen for the historic garden tour, usually preserved for grand gardens of dead sea captains.
Fifteen full length plays and several shorts later, I began to write a play based on my son's coming of age story. When I looked through his eyes, I realized that this story had to be told visually. The Silent Seed, my first screenplay, won best unproduced script at the International Film Festival, Nice, 2017. I'm currently writing my third screenplay and plan to adapt several of my plays for the screen.
Memberships
The Dramatists Guild
Writers Guild of America
IMDb
Writers Guild of America
IMDb
Awards & Honors
Nominated, Best Unpublished Script, Nice International Film Festival
Recipient, Harvard Arts Museum Award
Recipient, James S. Gallo Grant
Recipient, James N. Snitzler Grant
Recipient, Vera Bellus Grant
Recipient, Harvard Arts Museum Award
Recipient, James S. Gallo Grant
Recipient, James N. Snitzler Grant
Recipient, Vera Bellus Grant
Workshops
Reflections on Emerson and Thoreau, MASS Audubon Society
Maple Sugaring and Social Justice in Thoreau, Massachusetts Audubon Society
Deep Ethics: Winter Reflections on Emerson and Thoreau, Massachusetts Audubon Society
Value of the Wild in Thoreau's Walden, Massachusetts Audubon Society
Maple Sugaring and Social Justice in Thoreau, Massachusetts Audubon Society
Deep Ethics: Winter Reflections on Emerson and Thoreau, Massachusetts Audubon Society
Value of the Wild in Thoreau's Walden, Massachusetts Audubon Society