Steven Dietz

Steven Dietz (born 23 June 1958, Denver, Colorado) is an American playwright whose work is largely performed regionally, i.e. outside of New York City. Born and raised in Denver, Colorado, Dietz graduated in 1980 with a B.A. in Theatre Arts from the University of Northern Colorado, after which he moved to Minneapolis and began his career as a director of new plays at the Playwrights' Center and other local theaters. During these years he also formed a small theatre company (Quicksilver Stage) and began to write plays of his own. A commission from ACT Theatre to write "God's Country" brought him to Seattle, Washington in 1988, and he lived and worked in Seattle from 1991 to 2006. He now divides his time between Seattle and Austin, Texas where he teaches playwriting and screenwriting at the University of Texas at Austin [http://www.finearts.utexas.edu/tad/about_us/profiles/faculty/dietz.cfm] .

He is the recipient of the PEN U.S.A. Award in Drama (for Lonely Planet), perhaps his most widely-performed work; the Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays Award ("Fiction" and "Still Life With Iris"); the Lila Wallace/Reader's Digest Award ("The Rememberer"); the Yomuiri Shinbun Award for his adaptation of Shusaku Endo's Silence; and the 2007 Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Mystery for his adaptation of William Gillette's and Arthur Conan Doyle's 1899 play "Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure".

Dietz's plays range from the political ("Last of the Boys" [http://www.interacttheatre.org/talkingwithstevendietz.htm] , "God's Country", "Halcyon Days", "Lonely Planet") to the comedic ("More Fun than Bowling", "Over the Moon"). Many of them, (e.g. "Trust", "Private Eyes", "Fiction", "Force of Nature") have as a central theme the effects of personal betrayal and deception.

Dietz's articles on new play development -- most first seen in American Theatre Magazine -- have been widely discussed and re-printed.

Original plays (by year of first production)

*Brothers and Sisters (1981)
*Railroad Tales (1983)
*Random Acts (1983)
*Wanderlust (1984)
*More Fun Than Bowling (1986)
*Painting It Red (1986) (music by Gary Rue and Leslie Ball)
*Burning Desire (1987) (short play)
*Foolin' Around with Infinity (1987)
*Ten November (1987) (music by Eric Bain Peltoniemi [http://www.ericpeltoniemi.com/] )
*God's Country (1988)
*Happenstance (1989) (music by Eric Bain Peltoniemi)
*After You (1990) (short play)
*Halcyon Days (1991)
*To The Nines (1991) (short play)
*Trust (1992)
*Lonely Planet (1993)
*Handing Down the Names (1994)
*The Nina Variations (1996) (variations on the last scene of Chekhov's The Seagull)
*Private Eyes (1996)
*Still Life with Iris (1997)
*Rocket Man (1998)
*Fiction [http://www.roundabouttheatre.org/fc/summer04/fiction.htm] (2002)
*Left to Right (2002) (short)
*Inventing van Gogh (2004)
*Last of the Boys [http://www.steppenwolf.org/backstage/article.aspx?id=95] (2004)
*The Spot (2004) (short)
*September Call-Up (2006) (short)
*Yankee Tavern (2007)
*Shooting Star(2008)
*Becky's New Car (2008)

Plays adapted from books

*The Rememberer (1994) (from the unpublished memoirs of Joyce Simmons Cheeka)
*Silence (1995) (from Shusaku Endo's novel)
*Dracula (1996) (from Bram Stoker)
*Force of Nature (1999) (after Elective Affinities by Goethe)
*Go, Dog. Go! (2003) (from P.D. Eastman) - a musical adaptation co-written with his wife, Allison Gregory.
*Over The Moon (2003) (after "The Small Bachelor" by P.G. Wodehouse)
*Paragon Springs [http://www.timelinetheatre.com/paragon_springs/review_chicagocritic.htm] (2004) (from "An Enemy of the People" by Ibsen)
*Honus and Me [http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/theater/264940_fanf31.html] (2005) (from Dan Gutman)
*Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure [http://www.twincities.com/ci_9530737?source=most_emailed] (2006) (from William Gillette and Arthur Conan Doyle)

Sources

* [http://www.finearts.utexas.edu/tad/people/faculty_and_staff/faculty/dietz.cfm Faculty page at University of Texas]
* [http://www.theatrescene.net/ts%5Carticles.nsf/0/3947A7359611F17185256CF30016C049?OpenDocument March 2003 Interview with Steven Dietz from Theatrescene.net]
*Playbill's Brief Encounter with Steven Dietz [http://www.playbill.com/celebritybuzz/article/87507.html]
* [http://www.doollee.com/PlaywrightsD/DietzSteven.htm Information on Steven Dietz by doollee.com]
* [http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/41006 Bibliography]
*Michael D. Mitchell [http://www.thefulton.org/_files/Understudy_Holmes.pdf Bio and discussion of Sherlock Holmes adaptation] in "Understudy" , a guide to plays at Fulton, 2007.