PETER MORRIS
is from Philadelphia, lives in Swarthmore, and works mainly in London.
He graduated from Yale University then studied at Oxford on a British
Academy Fellowship. He has twice been awarded London’s Sunday
Times Playwriting Prize (in 2000 and 2001). His play THE AGE OF CONSENT
premiered at London's Bush Theatre in 2002 to rave reviews; it has subsequently
been translated and staged in Berlin, Rome, Paris, Tokyo, and Reykjavik.
His recent play GUARDIANS won the Edinburgh Fringe First Award in 2005
and transferred to London: it premieres April 2006 in New York at the
Culture Project, directed by Jason Moore. Peter’s plays are published
by Methuen (THE AGE OF CONSENT) and by Oberon Books (GUARDIANS and GAUDEAMUS);
the complete script of his verse play THE DEATH OF TINTAGEL was published
in The Paris Review (168: Winter 2003).
Peter
is a founding associate artist of the Obie-winning NYC company The Civilians,
and served as writer for GONE MISSING and also for the Public Theatre
workshop of (I AM) NOBODY’S LUNCH. He is writer-in-residence at
LAMDA (the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts) from 2005-2007,
a post he previously held 2002-2004. He is currently under commission
as the Alfred P Sloan Playwriting Fellow at Manhattan Theatre Club.
He has twice been selected for the O’Neill Playwrights Conference
(2000 and 2002) and developed or read by the Old Vic, Lincoln Center,
the Dallas Theatre Center, MTC, Soho Rep, and the Ojai Playwrights Conference
among others.
Peter
writes frequently for the BBC. He was a staff writer for Born and Bred
(BBC1). He adapted John Lanchester’s novel The Debt to Pleasure
(BBC2 / Ruby Films). His current project is a miniseries adaptation
of Roald Dahl’s Tales of the Unexpected, to be directed by Robert
Altman for the BBC, co-produced by Altman’s Sandcastle5 and BBC2.
BAD
FOR THE JEWS
Late
at night, in a warehouse on the outskirts of Chicago. Two old Jewish
men, Mort and Barry, have bribed the security guard, a twenty-something
slacker, to look the other way as they break in to the storeroom. But
their purpose only becomes apparent when we learn they have kidnapped
a retired factory worker and Polish immigrant….who (Mort claims)
was once a guard at the death camps. Or was he?
BAD FOR THE JEWS is a black comedy about crime, guilt and justice—Death
and the Maiden meets The Sunshine Boys.
