EM Lewis
	Home Coming Soon! Works-In-Progress Biography Plays Cool Stuff Links Contact		Biography EM Lewis’ work has been read and produced around the country. She was selected as one of twelve Los Angeles theater artists to watch in 2007 by LA Stage Magazine. HEADS –- a hostage drama set against the war in Iraq –- received its world premiere at the Blank Theater in Los Angeles, CA in August/September 2007, directed by Darin Anthony, and featuring Beth Broderick, James Eckhouse, J. Richey Nash and Jeremy Gabriel. It was Critics' Pick in the LA Times, and they selected it as one of the top ten productions of the year in their "Best of 2007." HEADS was part of NYU’s hotINK International Festival of New Plays, won Coe College's New Works for the Stage Competition, and was a semi-finalist for the 2007 O'Neill Playwrights Conference and the Julie Harris Award. When it was featured in the Long Play Lab at the Great Plains Theater Conference in Omaha, Edward Albee called the play "provocative and wonderfully threatening." INFINITE BLACK SUITCASE -– a large ensemble drama set in rural Oregon –- was developed and received a workshop production at Moving Arts in 2005. The play was named a semi-finalist for the O’Neill Playwrights Conference and a finalist in the Hinton Battle Theatre Lab’s “Diverse Voices” Playwriting Contest in New York in 2006. It received its world premiere in April 2007 at the Lillian Theater in Hollywood, CA, produced by TheSpyAnts. Lewis' newest play, SONG OF EXTINCTION -- about the science of loss -- has received readings at Moving Arts and the Blank Theater in Los Angeles, and in the hotINK International Festival of New Plays at NYU. Lewis is a writer-in-residence at Moving Arts Theatre Company in Los Angeles, CA, and a member of the Dramatists Guild, the International Center for Women Playwrights and the Alliance of Los Angeles Playwrights. She lives in Santa Monica, California now – but she is originally from Oregon. PLAYS (see "Plays" for a full list of theater credits) OTHER WRITING Blood Memory (screenplay) Quarterfinalist, 2004 Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting Competition -- Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences – Hollywood, CA 1st Place, ALAP Monologue Slam – Dramapalooza 2004 – West Hollywood, CA Finalist, ALAP Monologue Slam - Dramapalooza 2006 - West Hollywood, CA Sunspinner Literary Magazine – Co-editor and co-founder – www.sunspinner.org PRODUCING Founder and Producer The War Plays Project - 2008 and ongoing Los Angeles, CA Associate Producer USC Master of Professional Writing Program's 2007 and 2008 One-Act Play Festivals Los Angeles, CA Workshop Readings - 2005-2008 Lee Wochner's "Words That Speak" Playwriting Workshop Moving Arts Theater Company Los Angeles, CA MEMBERSHIPS AND ASSOCIATIONS Moving Arts Theater Company Dramatists Guild International Centre for Women Playwrights (ICWP) Alliance of Los Angeles Playwrights (ALAP) EDUCATION Masters Degree in Professional Writing – University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA Bachelor of Arts Degree in English – Willamette University, Salem, OR Some Things I'm Fond Of... Short stories by Raymond Carver Poems by Mary Oliver and TS Eliot Paintings by Vincent Van Gogh Plays by Edward Albee, Lanford Wilson, Sam Shepard Gardening (especially geraniums) Gin martinis My family Pink Floyd - The Doors - Leonard Cohen Gillian Welch - Rufus Wainwright - Bob Dylan Oregon If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn't brood. I'd type a little faster. ~Isaac Asimov