Award-winning playwright to speak at York College of Pennsylvania
Posted August 29, 2008FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
YORK, Pa. -- Playwright, screenwriter and producer William Mastrosimone will speak at York College of Pennsylvania at 7 p.m., Sept. 18, in the Collegiate Performing Arts Center. His talk, the first event in the Department of English and Humanities 2008-09 Lecture Series, is open to the public free of charge.
A Pennsylvania resident, Mastrosimone has had a remarkable career since the debut of his award-winning play, “The Woolgatherer,” in 1981. He has produced provocative and stirring works that engage contemporary social issues, historical events and biographical study. His 1981 play, “Extremities,” an examination of gender and power relations, won the New York Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Play of 1982-83, the John Gassner Award for Playwriting, and later became a feature film starring Farrah Fawcett. In 1998, he wrote “Bang Bang You’re Dead,” inspired by the national outrage of school shootings, and made it available for free on the Internet for high school students to perform.
Mastrosimone has written screenplays for films and television miniseries, including “Chico,” about the life of Brazilian union hero Chico Mendes, “Benedict Arnold: A Question of Honor” and “Sinatra.” In 2005 he wrote and coproduced “Into the West,” which was nominated for nine Emmys. His other plays include “Shivaree,” “A Stone Carver,” “Nanawatai” and “Cat’s Paw.” In its 2007-08 season, the New City Stage of Philadelphia presented three plays by Mastrosimone, including the premiere of “Sunshine.”
M.E. Comtis, founding head of the Playwriting Program at Rutgers University, described his work by writing: “William Mastrosimone’s plays are audacious. This is not all they are of course, but they challenge us, sometimes to recoil in shock or at least become unsettled . . . his grasp of the potential of the stage is clear and masterful . . . he has an open-eyed and open-hearted vision of humanity.”
Mastrosimone earned a master of fine arts in playwriting from Rutgers University. He is a recipient of the New Jersey Governor’s Walt Whitman Award for Writing and an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Rider University.
Located in southcentral Pennsylvania, York College is among Pennsylvania’s largest comprehensive colleges, offering more than 70 majors to its 4,600 undergraduate students. With a 15:1 student-to-faculty ratio and distinctive mentoring programs, York provides an environment that emphasizes close personal attention to students from 30 states and 38 countries.
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