UWO PLAYWRIGHT, PROFESSOR WINS TWO AWARDS
By Sarah Owen of The Northwestern, [email protected].
Oshkosh Northwestern, WI
Posted September 13, 2007
Internationally known playwright Richard Kalinoski’s work has the
University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh professor in the national spotlight.
Kalinoski’s play "A Crooked Man," which first opened at Frederic March
Theatre in February, earned him a $1,000 Playwrights First Award from
the National Arts Club of New York, and the 2007 Armenian Dramatic
Arts Alliance’s Frances Paul Lyons/Almas Paul award, for $10,000.
For the latter, Kalinoski was flown to Los Angeles for a gala on
Aug. 19, where the top three finalists were invited to find out whose
work would take first place.
"I was especially pleased, because the panel of judges was quite
distinguished; it included an Academy Award-winning screenwriter,
Steve Zaillian, who wrote the screenplay for ‘Schindler’s List,’"
Kalinoski said.
"Just to have my play considered sort of at that level was both an
honor and also useful in terms of my work."
No stranger to accolades, Kalinoski’s work has earned a shower of
awards – from Angouni and Garland awards for "Beast on the Moon"
to a Reva Shriner Award for "Between Men and Cattle."
On top of his two national prizes, Kalinoski was also recently
commissioned by the Provision Theatre in Chicago to write his next
play, after his "Beast on the Moon" did a successful run there in 2006.
"They pay me to write any play I want to, which is fairly rare in
theatre, actually, because theatre companies often can’t afford to
do that," Kalinoski said.
With his deadline for a first draft looming in January, the playwright
has spent much of summer at work interviewing sources and materializing
a direction for a play he says will work around a female soldier
returning from Iraq.
"The good thing about a commission is, not only do they pay you to
write the play, they’ve basically committed to producing it," he said.