The New School Names Jon Robin Baitz Artist-in-Residence

The New School for Drama has announced that the award-winning playwright Jon Robin Baitz will be the distinguished artist-in-residence for the 2009-2010 academic year. Baitz is a Pulitzer finalist, a Guggenheim and NEA fellow, and winner of an American Academy of Arts and Letters Award. A founding member and former artistic director of New York's Naked Angels theater company, Baitz has written a number of acclaimed plays, including The Film Society, The Substance of Fire, Three Hotels, A Fair Country, Ten Unknowns, Mizlansky/Zilinsky, a new version of Ibsen's Hedda Gabler (produced on Broadway in 2001), and The Paris Letter. Playwrights Horizons, the Roundabout Theatre Company, Lincoln Center Theater, and the Second Stage Theatre have produced Baitz's work in New York. His new play, Love and Mercy, will be produced next season on Broadway.

Baitz is the fourth artist-in-residence at The New School for Drama. This program provides students with the opportunity to work with leading luminaries in the fields of playwriting, directing, and acting. Past New School artists-in-residence include John Turturro, Doug Hughes, and John Patrick Shanley. "Teaching, for me, is a way of reexamining old definitions of theatricality, and of narrative, of exploring which conventions to defy, and how and why, and sharing with writers who have as much to give as I do. I am humbled and honored to serve on the New School faculty in the company of playwrights, actors, and directors whose work I have always admired," said Baitz on hearing of his new position.

As artist in residence, Baitz will teach a year long-course on writing for television and will address the school as a whole in a town hall meeting where he will speak of his playwriting experiences and answer student questions. "We're honored and excited that Robbie will be joining the New School for Drama as artist in residence this upcoming academic year. His incredible talent, devotion to the theater, experience in film and television and well-known support of fellow writers and artists make him a fantastic teacher and invaluable addition not only to the Playwriting department but the entire school," said New School Playwriting Chair Pippin Parker.

Baitz's experience in TV, includes creating the hit ABC show Brothers & Sisters and serving as executive producer for the first two seasons. He has also written episodes of The West Wing and Alias. His PBS film version of Three Hotels won a Humanitas Award. His other screenplays include The Substance of Fire, based on his play, and People I Know, which starred Al Pacino. Baitz is currently writing and executive producing a mini-series for HBO entitled Bush's War.

"Jon is such a versatile and accomplished playwright for both film and television. The fact that he has bridged these worlds is wonderful for our students to see. We are very fortunate to have him on hand to mentor our students," said Robert LuPone, director of The New School for Drama.

The New School for Drama's playwriting program prepares students to begin their artistic and professional careers as skilled dramatic writers for theater, film, and television. By the end of three years, playwrights have built a portfolio of produced pieces including a 10-minute play, several one-acts, a 60-75 minute play, and an industry presentation of a full-length. Over the past few years, current and recent graduates of the playwriting program have been recognized and received awards for their work by theaters, festivals, and competitions across the country, including: Sam French Short Play Festival; the Alliance Theater's Kenedra Competition; the O'Neill / Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival; ID America Festival; Old Vic, New Voices; and the Royal Court Young Writers Programme.

At The New School for Drama, through its interrelated three-year MFA programs in acting, directing, and playwriting, the school is fostering the next generation of dramatic artists. A faculty of working professionals brings to the fore each student's unique and original voice and helps them establish a rooted sense of who they are as individuals and as artists. This includes playwrights Christopher Shinn, Frank Pugliese, and Michael Weller; playwriting chair Pippin Parker; acting chair Ron Leibman, Tony Award and Drama Desk Award winner; and directing program chair Elinor Renfield, whose production of Johnny Got His Gun won an Obie Award; and Casey Biggs, director of award-winning productions of Hedda Gabler, The Sea Gull, Richard III, Hamlet, Macbeth, and Three Sisters. These faculty members are complimented by film and television actor Robert Walden, who has been nominated for over five Emmy Awards and stage and screen star Karen Ludwig, whose first film was Woody Allen's Manhattan. New School's history in the dramatic arts began in the 1940s, when the Dramatic Workshop, led by founder Erwin Piscator and a faculty including Stella Adler and Lee Strasberg, fostered artistic voices as distinctive as Tennessee Williams and Marlon Brando.

For more information, visit www.drama.newschool.edu.