Henry Murray was a much beloved member of the Los Angeles and national theatre community. As playwright-in-residence and literary manager of the prestigious Rogue Machine Theatre Company, Henry touched the lives of many Angelenos, as well as up and coming and established playwrights. His passing in late December 2014 was a surprise to many, but as evidenced by the outpouring of love and condolences on social media, his loss was deeply felt.
"I met Henry in 2012 when we both had plays at the Great Plains Theatre Conference. The play he was there for, THREE VIEWS OF THE SAME OBJECT, floored me." said OWP president Jason Aaron Goldberg. "The skill and power in that play is a truly rare thing. His work is the embodiment of everything Original Works looks for in material; bold, original and innovative. I told him we'd publish the play on the spot, but I always thought it would go to a larger company. It is a great honor and privilege to publish Henry's work and carry a little bit of the flame."
THREE VIEWS OF THE SAME OBJECT and MONKEY ADORED are now available from Original Works as well as via Amazon in print and digital form.
THREE VIEWS OF THE SAME OBJECT
Synopsis: Jesse and Poppy have a suicide pact against the time that illness and infirmity make life impossible to continue unassisted. But what becomes of the pact if one falls ill and the other is still healthy? And how do you know when it's just before being too late? THREE VIEWS OF THE SAME OBJECT offers three different dramatic outcomes to the problems facing the elderly in America.
MONKEY ADORED
Synopsis: What if animals evolved to the point where they could talk, sit in cafes and carry on interspecies love affairs? What if they decided to seek revenge on the humans who have subjugated them throughout history? A hybrid of ribald sex comedy and action/thriller MONKEY ADORED was lauded as a "Critic's Pick" by Backstage.
About Henry Murray - Murray was a member of the Actors Studio West Playwrights Unit, The DramatistGuild of America, The Alliance of Los Angeles Playwrights and was a Playwright-in-Residence at Rogue Machine Theatre. He is the author of five full-length plays and a number of short plays including DOWN FOR THE COUNT and DOG IS DEAD, both finalists for The Heideman Award at Actors Theatre of Louisville. DOG IS DEAD was published in the Fall of 2012 by The Louisville Review. Henry's play TREEFALL, published by Dramatists Play Service, was named one of the ten best plays of 2009 by the LA Weekly and has logged five productions nationally. Henry's play MONKEY ADORED, honored by a reading at the Kennedy Center's Page to Stage Festival and work-shopped at DC's The Inkwell, premiered at Rogue Machine Theatre in 2011. THREE VIEWS OF THE SAME OBJECT, won the Woodward/Newman Drama Award for 2011/12 as well as the Holland New Voices Award and had rolling world premieres at Rogue Machine and Bloomington's Playwright's Projects. THREE VIEWS OF THE SAME OBJECT was a Los Angeles Times Critic's Choice and was subsequently produced at Next Act in Milwaukee. Henry was literary manager of Rogue Machine and also created and ran the Dramaturge's Table, a development program for emerging playwrights at Rogue Machine.
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