Paula Vogel Announced As Kansas William Inge Theatre Festival 2010 Honoree

Pulitzer Prize-winning dramatist Paula Vogel is the Honoree Playwright of the 29th Annual William Inge Theatre Festival, in Independence, Kansas, produced by the William Inge Center for the Arts at Independence Community College, Independence, KS.

Vogel will be present all four days of the Inge Festival, April 21-24, of 2010. At the Tribute ceremony April 24, Vogel will accept the annual Inge Festival Distinguished Achievement in the American Theatre Award.

Vogel joins the list of previous celebrated Distinguished Honorees, which includes Arthur Miller, August Wilson, Neil Simon, Arthur Laurents and Stephen Sondheim. She is the fourth woman to be named Honoree, preceded by Betty Comden (1990), Wendy Wasserstein (1993), and Tina Howe (2005).

Since its founding in 1981, the William Inge Theatre Festival has celebrated the accomplishments of nationally renowned playwrights. The playwrights travel to the small southeastern Kansas town of Independence (pop. 10,000), William Inge's hometown. Inge, who passed away in 1973, was the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright of "Picnic" and Academy Award-winning screenwriter of "Splendor in the Grass."

Vogel earned the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for "How I Learned to Drive," which also swept the Lucille Lortel, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle and New York Drama Critics awards for Best Play. Her many other acclaimed plays include "The Long Christmas Ride Home," "The Mineola Twins," "The Baltimore Waltz," (nomination for Pulitzer Prize in Drama), "Hot N Throbbing," "Desdemona," "And Baby Makes Seven" and "The Oldest Profession."

Also, 2010 marks the first full year that The William Inge Theatre Festival is designated as the Official Theater Festival of the State of Kansas. Former governor Kathleen Sebelius signed the bill Feb. 10, 2009. The bill was proposed by Senator Derek Schmidt, Republican Majority Leader, and also supported by state Representative Jeff King.

There is no simple classification for Vogel's plays; her writing style encompasses many forms. Her plays confront challenging themes, which are dramatized in ingenious ways.

Vogel is also a gifted instructor of aspiring playwrights, having mentored several promising young talents of the stage. She is current Eugene O'Neill Chair of the Playwriting Department at Yale School of Drama, as well as Playwright-in-Residence at the Yale Repertory Theatre. Prior to that, she directed the renowned MFA playwriting program at Brown University.

Her many awards include the PEN/Laura Pels Foundation Award, the Pew Charitable Trust Senior Artist Award, John Simon Guggenheim Foundation Fellow, the AT&T New Play Award, the Fund for New American Plays, the Rockefeller Foundation's Bellagio Conference Center Fellowship, the Hull-Warriner Award of the Dramatists Guild, a McKnight Fellow, MacDowell Colony Fellow, the Susan Smith Blackburn Award, Warner Brothers Screenwriting Fellow, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters Prize in Literature.

The Inge Festival is a unique blend of Broadway and Hollywood sheen and hometown can-do spirit. Hundreds of community volunteers help provide hospitality to visiting guest artists, theater students, and theater buffs from across the nation. In addition to evening performances by professionals from Broadway and Hollywood, patrons enjoy workshops, panel discussions, a scholars conference and social events.

Major supporters of the William Inge Center for the Arts include the Kansas Arts Commission; Hallmark Corporation; the William T. Kemper Foundation; and Independence Community College. The Inge Festival's setting is the quaint small town of Independence, located in rural southeast Kansas. It is 90 miles north of Tulsa, Okla., and 140 miles south of Kansas City, Mo.

The Inge Festival is sponsored by the William Inge Center for the Arts, a year-round arts center at Independence Community College.

The college is also home to the William Inge Collection, which includes correspondence, original artwork, and some 400 manuscripts, as well as Inge's personal book and record collections. During 2009, seven of the unpublished plays from the Collection were publicly performed for the first time, including one world premiere in New York. The Inge Collection at Independence Community College is the most extensive collection on William Inge in existence, and remains a valuable resource for both theater researchers and admirers of the playwright.

Tickets for the 29th Annual William Inge Theatre Festival go on sale online March 1, 2010. For further information, visit www.ingecenter.org or call (800) 842-6063 ext. 5492.

 

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