New Dramatists: Gary Sunshine

	Gary Sunshine c/o Elsa Neuwald William Morris Agency 1325 Avenue of the Americas New York, NY 10019 212-903-1552 E-mail: eneuwald@wma.com

Gary Sunshine was born in Brooklyn, New York and raised on Long Island, where his father was a self-employed plastic slipcover cutter and his mother tried to program computers. Gary started writing plays a year after graduating from Princeton University, where he majored in English with a concentration in Theater. He received an MFA from NYU's Dramatic Writing Program. In 2005, he received the Helen Merrill Award for Emerging Playwrights. His work has been published in The Best American Short Plays of 2001 (Applause) and Monologues for Men by Men (Heinemann). In December 2004, Gary was in residence at the Royal National Theatre Studio in London. He is a NYTW Usual Suspect and a member of the MCC Playwrights Coalition. He wrote, co-created, and co-produced the documentary What I Want My Words To Do To You (Freedom of Expression Award, Sundance Film Festival; Audience Award, Lake Placid Film Festival; Crystal Award, Heartland Film Festival; HBO Audience Award for Top Documentary, Provincetown International Film Festival), which premiered nationwide on PBS’s P.O.V.

THIS JOAN REASONS TO WAKE UP STAR OF MINE A HISTORY OF PLASTIC SLIPCOVERS AL TAKES A BRIDE MERCURY SWEETNESS FIVE WAYS IN
_{gary sunshine} THIS JOAN Full-length Play, Two Hours 2M - Around 70 years old, 2W - All in their 60s. Various Locations, South Florida In THIS JOAN, a widow struggles to reinvent herself as everyone she becomes intimate with seems to slip from her grasp. A comedy that taps into the poignant, sometimes surreal world of South Florida retirement communities, love and sex among seniors, and our deepest desires to be seen, heard, and known, at any age. Workshops: First Look Festival, NYU, December 2005; Page 73 Productions, July 2006
_{gary sunshine} REASONS TO WAKE UP Two-act Drama 2M, 2W Flexible set Three people involved in a brutal assault fifteen years earlier are unexpectedly brought together in upstate New York. A wooden deck must be built as the lines between vengeance and reconciliation, good intentions and bloodlust grow increasingly blurred. Workshop at Royal National Theatre Studio, London (December, 2004).
_{gary sunshine} STAR OF MINE Two-act Comedy 5M, 1W Flexible set Unglamorous New Yorkers are suddenly abandoned by their only glamorous friends. Stalking ensues. A dark comedy about winners and losers, and how far we go to keep ourselves from ever being truly known. Readings at Underwood Theater (2004), MCC Theater (2004), Rattlestick Playwrights Theater (2004).
_{gary sunshine} A HISTORY OF PLASTIC SLIPCOVERS Two Act Drama 3W, 2M Flexible set The past throbs through the present when a failed salesman comes home to his wife with a mysterious fur coat. Punctuated by bursts of violence and tenderness, a tragedy that refuses to give up on love. Reading at MCC Theater (2003). Earlier version: readings and workshops at MCC Theater (2000), The Flea (2000), NYTW (2000).
_{gary sunshine} AL TAKES A BRIDE One-act Drama, 45 Minutes 3W, 2M Unit Set On a moonlit riverbank over a hundred years ago, two young southern women imagine their wedding to each other. Full of lyrical suspense, built on impossible choices, where decisions rest somewhere between dreaming and dying. Actors Studio Theater School (2003).
_{gary sunshine} MERCURY Two-act Drama 7M, 1W Flexible Set A Manhattan lawyer on the verge of losing everything makes an online connection to a mysterious older man who calls himself the GipperKing. An aching tale of Jewish terror, dead fathers, and lost history, featuring a fully functional Cyberchorus. Workshop production-HERE (2001). Readings at NYTW (1998, 1999), The Directors Company (1997).
_{gary sunshine} SWEETNESS Two-act, Serio-Comedy 7M, 1W Flexible Set An explosive tragedy may or may not hit a small town. It all depends on the intertwining of an overweight 16-year-old, his skinny best friend, a puffy respiratory therapist and her abusive boyfriend. A play that asks if tennis-ball bombs can make the bad go away. Readings at New York Stage & Film (2003), Arts Theatre (London, 2003), Underwood Theater (2002), The New Group (2002), MCC Theater (2002).
_{gary sunshine} FIVE WAYS IN Five Comedies, 10-15 Minutes Each Various Characters Flexible A collection of short comedies, featuring prehistoric artists, women who dream of having tails, a man who can’t stop smiling, and Michelle Kwan. Plays include Your Smiling Face, Before the After, Kahn & Kant, The Leaks They Left, and A Tail. Individual plays have been produced at Rising Phoenix Rep 2001, 2002), Directors Company (2001), Manhattan Theater Source (2001), PULSE (1997). The Leaks They Left was a 2002 Heideman Award finalist.



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