April 20, 2015
University of Texas Press has released a new anthology of four plays by Department of Theatre and Dance Professor Steven Dietz. Entitled Steven Dietz: Four Plays for Family Audiences, the collection highlights four diverse works, including The Rememberer, Still Life with Iris, Honus & Me, and Jackie & Me. The plays share hallmarks of Dietz’s writing, including strong protagonists, an emphasis on memory and magic, a blue-collar sensibility, and an intelligent playing with the boundaries of reality.
“The four plays contained in this anthology verify the importance Steven Dietz holds for youth theatre. His Still Life With Iris, in particular, has had a major impact, and in many ways has influenced other playwrights writing for young people… This book will make a substantive addition to our knowledge of Dietz and his plays.”
—Dorothy L. Webb, professor emerita of theatre, Indiana University, and founder and former artistic director of the Bonderman/IUPUI/IRT National Playwriting Workshop and Symposium for scripts for young audiences
Dietz is one of America’s most widely produced and published contemporary playwrights. Since 1983, his forty-plus plays have been seen at over one hundred regional theatres in the United States, as well as Off-Broadway, and in eighteen foreign countries and ten languages. He is a two-time winner of the Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays Award, as well as a two-time finalist for the Steinberg New Play Award. He has received the PEN USA West Award in Drama, the Edgar Award for Drama, and the Yomuiri Shimbun Award (the Japanese “Tony.”)
Dietz joined The University of Texas at Austin faculty in 2006 and currently holds the Theatre for Youth Chair in the Department of Theatre and Dance. The anthology is edited by Dr. Coleman A. Jennings, Department of Theatre and Dance professor emeritus, and includes commentary by Linda Hartzell (Seattle Children’s Theatre), Susan Mickey (The University of Texas at Austin) and Kim Peter Kovac (Kennedy Center Theater for Young Audiences).
Learn more about this publication and University of Texas Press.