Arizona Theater Company announces 7th Annual National Latino Playwriting Award Winner
Mark S.P. Turvin
(home office) (602) 912-0117
I can be reached for comment via e-mail at: mspt@goldfishpublishers.com
Received 10/4/01

Arizona Theatre Company, in association with Centro Cultural Mexicano de Phoenix, announces the selection of Felix Pire's play The Origins of Happiness in Latin as the winner of the 2001 National Latino Playwriting Award. Pire was awarded $1,000. Finalists for the award are Lessons of a Language Learned by Jose Cruz Gonzalez, Juanita's Statue by Anne Garcia Romero and Iphegenia Crash Land Falls on the Neon Shell that Once Was her Heart by Caridad Svich.

The Origins of Happiness in Latin recounts the funny, heartwarming antics of a young man growing up in an espresso-paced Cuban-American family in Miami. Pire wrote The Origins of Happiness in Latin under a fellowship as an actor-playwright at the Mark Taper Forum's Latino Theatre Initiative in 1998-99. The play went on to garner the California Community Foundation's Brody Arts Grant for its development in 1999. The play received a workshop production in May at the Tamarind Theatre in Hollywood, California and was produced as a staged reading by Urban Stages Productions in New York City in October of 2000.

Pire graduated from the New World School of the Arts in Miami in 1989. In
1996, he became the first recipient of the New World School of the Arts Distinguished Alumnus Award. He completed his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree for acting and directing, with an emphasis in film, at Southern Methodist University. While there, Pire received the Bob Hope Artistic Scholarship and two consecutive grants from the National Hispanic Scholarship Fund.

Pire performed in the world premiere of Men on the Verge of a His-Panic Breakdown at the Celebration Theatre in 1995 for which he received an L.A. Ovation Award nomination for Best Leading Actor in a Play and won an Ovation Award for Best Play in a Smaller Theatre. Pire appeared in Playwrights' Preview Productions' Men on the Verge... at the 47th Street Theatre for which he received the 1997 New York Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Solo Performance. Regional theatre credits include Macbeth at the Hope Summer Repertory Theatre in Holland, Michigan and several roles with the ACME Theatre Company in Miami. Pire has appeared in the films 12 Monkeys, It's My Party, Gattaca and Dear God.

Feature-length screenplays include Uranians, Swimming to Freedom, Tres Bandidos, and The Outrageously Homofunky Adventures of Sergio Menendez. His feature screenplay, Transients in Arcadia was a finalist for the 1999 Sundance Feature Film Program's Screenplay Award and a semi-finalist in the New York Latino International Film Festival Screenplay Contest. In 1996, Pire was chosen as a semi-finalist for the Universal Studios Hispanic Film Project for his adapted short screenplay, Borders.

The National Latino Playwriting Award was established by Arizona Theatre Company and Centro Cultural Mexicano de Phoenix to create a greater awareness of the work being done by Latino playwrights. Recent recipients of the Award are Alfonso Ramirez, Guillermo Reyes, Luis Alfaro and Luis Santeiro.

Latino playwrights residing in the United States, its territories, or Mexico are encouraged to submit scripts for the 2002 Award. The deadline for new submissions is December 28, 2001. Each script will be read and evaluated by a culturally diverse panel of theatre artists. Finalists will be judged by ATC artistic staff and a representative of Centro Cultural Mexicano de Phoenix. The winner will be awarded $1,000 and will be considered for ATC's GENESIS: New Play Reading Series. Full guidelines for the 2001 Award submissions are attached to this release. For more information about the National Latino Playwriting Award, call Elaine Romero, ATC's Playwright-in-Residence at (520) 884-8210.

2001 national latino playwriting award guidelines

Award
. One playwright will be awarded $1,000 and the possible inclusion of the
winning play in ATC's
GENESIS: New Play Reading Series.

Eligibility
. The award is open to all Latino playwrights currently residing in the
United States, its territories, or Mexico.
. Scripts may be in English, English and Spanish, or solely in Spanish.
(Spanish language and bilingual scripts must be accompanied by an English
translation.)
. Plays must be unpublished and unproduced by the time of submission.
. Full-length and one-act plays (minimum length, 50 pages) on any subject
will be accepted.

Selection Process
. Scripts will be read by a culturally diverse panel of theatre artists.
The award-winning play will be selected from a group of finalists by ATC's
senior artistic staff and a representative of Centro Cultural Mexicano de
Phoenix.

Application Process
. Submit one securely bound script, including the play's title and the
author's name on the front page.
. Include a one-page cover letter, describing the play's developmental
history and any other relevant information about the play.
. We are not responsible for the safe return of scripts. Please include a
SASE for the script's return.
. Submissions must be postmarked by December 28, 2001.
. Mail manuscripts to:
Arizona Theatre Company
National Latino Playwriting Award
Attn: Elaine Romero, Playwright-in-Residence
40 E 14th St.
Tucson, AZ 85701

Announcement
. The winner will be notified by August 1, 2002

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