Born
in1951 in Washington DC, Paula Vogel’s plays have been performed
at theatres such as the Lortel Theatre and Circle Repertory in
New York, the American Repertory Theatre, the Goodman, the Magic
Theatre, Center Stage and Alley Theatre as well as throughout
Canada, England, Brazil, Spain, and Chile.
How I Learned To Drive, received the 1998
Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the Lortel, Drama Desk, Outer Critics
Circle and New York Drama Critics Awards for Best Play, as well
as winning her second Obie. It has been produced all over the
world, including South Africa, England, Australia, Greece, Germany,
Slovenia, Canada, Italy, Turkey, Mexico, Croatia and Spain. Her
other plays include The Mineola Twins, The Baltimore Waltz, Hot
'n' Throbbing, Desdemona, And Baby Makes Seven and The Oldest
Profession.
Paula
Vogel won the Obie for Best Play in 1992, the Rhode Island Pell
Award in the Arts, the Hull-Warriner Award, The Laura Pell Award,
the Pew Charitable Trust Senior Award, a Guggenheim, an AT&T
New Plays Award, the Fund for New American Plays, the Rockefeller
Foundation's Bellagio Center Fellowship, several National Endowment
for the Arts Fellowships, the McKnight Fellowship, the Bunting
Fellowship, and the Governor's Award for the Arts.
She
has taught at Brown University since 1984. She recently joined
the faculty as the Adele Kellenberg Seaver Professor of Creative
Writing at Brown University and the Trinity Conservatory in Providence,
Rhode Island to form a consortium between the playwriting program
and the MFA actors and directors with Oskar Eustis. She has conducted
theatrical bootcamps with playwrights in Brazil, Prague, London,
Los Angeles and for women in maximum security at the Adult Corrections
Institute in Rhode Island and for critics, staff members and interns
at Arena Stage in Washington DC.
Paula
Vogel’s success didn’t come easily. She lost a scholarship
to Bryn Mawr College, and despite devoting herself to dramatic
literature, she was turned down by the Yale School of Drama. Her
earliest plays were also turned down by the Eugene O’Neill
National Playwright’s Conference. She has said that these
were good things because they made her learn her craft in a difficult
and original way.
Ms.
Vogel is a member of New Dramatists and has been chosen as Playwright
in Residence for New
York’s Signature Theatre 2004-2005 season (also see Monty
Arnold's article in Playbill).
