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Omar Metwally, Rajiv Joseph and Arian Moayed in the Vivian Beaumont Theater Lobby for the 2013 Steinberg Playwright Award Reception on November 18, 2013. Photo by Lia Chang
While doing research for his new play, The Guards at the Taj with cast members Arian Moayed and Omar Metwally in India, Bengal Tiger in the Baghdad Zoo playwright Rajiv Joseph learned the news that The Guards at the Taj, is the recipient of the 2015 Laurents/Hatcher Foundation Award, which provides $50,000 to the winning playwright and an additional $100,000 to defray production costs for the play’s premiere, as reported by Patrick Healy in The New York Times.
The Laurents/Hatcher award, given annually for an unproduced, full-length play of social relevance by an emerging American playwright, was first presented in 2011 and was last given to Daniel Pearle for “A Kid Like Jake” two years ago.
Click below to read more about the Laurents/Hatcher Award.
nytimes.com: Rajiv Joseph Wins $150,000 Laurents/Hatcher Foundation Award
The Guards at the Taj will have its world premiere at Atlantic Theater Company, directed by Amy Morton, from May 20, 2015 to June 28, 2015. Set in 1648 at the completion of the Taj Mahal, two Imperial Guards watch from their post and are forced to question the concept of friendship, beauty and duty that changes them forever.
Joseph’s play Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo was a 2010 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and he received the 2013 Steinberg Playwright Award from the Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust at The 2013 Steinberg Playwright “Mimi” Awards, held in Lincoln Center’s Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater in New York on November 18, 2013. Moayed and Metwally presented a scene from The Guards at The Taj during the awards ceremony.
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Arian Moayed and Omar Metwally in a scene from Rajiv Joseph’s Guards at The Taj at The 2013 Steinberg Playwright “Mimi” Awards, held in Lincoln Center’s Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater in New York on November 18, 2013. Photo by Lia Chang
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Playwright Rajiv Joseph on the set of his new play, “Describe the Night” at the Shubert Theatre in New York on November 21, 2014. Photo by Lia Chang
In addition to the world premiere of The Guards at The Taj and South Coast Repertory’s world premiere of Mr. Wolf, directed by David Emmes as part of the 18th Annual Pacific Playwrights Festival in April, The Hollywood Reporter announced Nicolas Cage will star in Army of One, an Osama Bin Laden satire From ‘Borat’ director, with a script written by Joseph and his Draft Day co-writer Scott Rothman.
Rajiv Joseph’s plays include Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo, a 2010 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize; Gruesome Playground Injuries (2009); Animals Out of Paper (2008); The North Pool (2011); The Monster at the Door (2011); Huck and Holden (2005); and The Lake Effect (2013). He is the book writer and co-lyricist for the new Peter Pan musical, Fly, and the co-screenwriter of the Lionsgate release Draft Day, a 2014 feature dramedy about pro football, directed by Ivan Reitman and starring Kevin Costner and Jennifer Garner. He also wrote during the third and fourth seasons of the Showtime series “Nurse Jackie.” Joseph earned his BA in creative writing from Miami University and his MFA in playwriting from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. He served for three years in the Peace Corps in Senegal, West Africa. Joseph was named a 2010 Rockefeller Fellow by United States Artists. He is the recipient of the Lucille Lortel Award, the Whiting Award, the Glickman Award, the 2013 Equity Jeff Award for The Lake Effect, produced by Silk Road Rising in Chicago, and the prestigious 2013 Steinberg Playwright Award from the Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust.
Upcoming projects:
South Coast Repertory is presenting the world premiere of Mr. Wolf, directed by David Emmes as part of the 18th Annual Pacific Playwrights Festival, on the Julianne Argyros Stage, from April 12, 2015 – May 3, 2015. In Mr. Wolf, Theresa is 17 years old, and she can map out the solar system. She understands the universe—how and why it came to be. She has a man named Mr. Wolf to thank for that. Now the only life she has ever known is coming to an end. She’s being taken away—turned over to people who are strangers to her. They can’t possibly understand her needs, when they seem to be lost, too. And they’re all asking the same questions: What is home? Where do I belong?
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Lia Chang is an actor, a performance and fine art botanical photographer, and an award-winning multi-platform journalist. Lia starred as Carole Barbara in Lorey Hayes’ Power Play at the 2013 National Black Theatre Festival in Winston-Salem, N.C., with Pauletta Pearson Washington, Roscoe Orman, and made her jazz vocalist debut in Rome Neal’s Banana Puddin’ Jazz “LADY” at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe in New York. She is profiled in Jade Magazine.
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