Seattle Public Stages First Reading of Emerald Prize Winner BLUE BOY

Seattle Public Theater will present a staged reading of Aurin Squire's Blue Boy on August 13, 2017, at 4:00pm. Squire is the first recipient of Seattle Public Theater's Emerald Prize: a biennial $10,000 award created to amplify the Pacific Northwest's voice in national conversations and concerns.

In 2016, a 10 person Invitation Committee of nationally recognized new play professionals submitted 5 names of established or up-and-coming playwrights with the condition that five of those three must identify as either a female, a person of color, a member of the LGBTQ community, a resident of the Pacific Northwest, or any intersection thereof. 50 playwrights were invited to submit a one page proposal for an unwritten play; following a blind, highly competitive reviewal process, Seattle Public Theater narrowed the proposals down to five finalists before announcing Squire as the winner.

Seattle Public Theater awarded Squire $10,000 to write his play, Blue Boy, which is under option for a full production as part of its 2018-19 Season. August's staged reading is the first step in Blue Boy's development, will be open to the public at no cost, and concludes with a brief audience talk-back.

ABOUT BLUE BOY
Blue Boy examines the roles of several characters involved in the case of a 12-year-old boy who overdoses on Oxycotin in rural Washington. "I always wanted to write something that showed the vibrancy, humor, pathos, and complexity of the 'other America'," says Squire. "I grew up in a working class family in a working class area. In this 'other America', local towns have imploded, crime is rampant and biggest industry is drugs."

Seattle Public Theater will work with Squire to develop this complex story into a dynamic piece of theater that asks what happens to this other America when systems -be it healthcare or education or law enforcement-harm the people they are supposed to help.

ABOUT AURIN SQUIRE
Aurin Squire is an award-winning playwright, screenwriter, and reporter. He is a recipient of the 2014 Lecomte du Nouy Prize from Lincoln Center and the Lila Acheson Wallace Playwright Fellowship at The Juilliard School. Squire graduated with honors from Northwestern University and worked as a radio reporter for the college's national newsfeed. He was also a reporter for publications like ESPN, The Miami Herald, and Chicago Tribune. After graduating from Actors Studio and New School University with an MFA in playwriting he was commissioned as a screenwriter for moxie pictures, adapting the novel Velocity into a movie. Most recently, Squire worked on the critically-acclaimed NBC television series This Is Us as a writer and story editor, helping to garner the series multiple nominations at the Golden Globes and Primetime Emmy Awards.

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