- Catherine Filloux
Catherine Filloux is a French-
Algeria n-American playwright. She has received awards from the Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays, the O'Neill, the Rockefeller MAP Fund, and the Asian Cultural Council. In 2003 she was a Fullbright Senior Specialist in playwriting inCambodia .Filloux's plays have confronted the issue of
genocide in many nations. She was first drawn to the subject on reading of the psychosomatic blindness suffered by a group ofCambodian women after witnessing the massacres of theKhmer Rouge , a story that formed the basis of her 1996 play "Eyes of the Heart". She continued to work with survivors of the Cambodian genocide, developing the oral history project "A Circle of Grace" with the Cambodian Women's Group at St. Rita's Centre for Immigration and Refugee Services in the Bronx, New York.Her 2005 play "Lemkin's House" is based on the life of
Raphael Lemkin , the Polish Jew and American immigrant lawyer who invented the wordgenocide in 1944 and spent his life striving to have it recognized as an international crime.Filloux states "For a while, these crimes were the 'best-kept secrets,' but they're not even secrets. They happen all the time, and nobody cares. And that's the problem on some level with doing this kind of theater. There's just a little wall that's been built up against these things, and to write theater about them is part of the challenge." [http://www.offoffonline.com/feature-020806.htm]
Biography
Of her parents, Filloux says, "My dad was born in the center of France, and he became an adventurer," who boated from France to New York in a
catamaran . "My mom was a very literate person who loved literature" and wrote poetry in both French and English. As a child, Filloux moved with her family toSan Diego , where she grew up. She says, "We grew up ... in this kind of schism of Algeria, France, and San Diego. So it made for a background of not really knowing where one belongs..." [http://www.offoffonline.com/feature-020806.htm]Filloux received her M.F.A. in Dramatic Writing from
Tisch School of the Arts atNew York University (NYU) and her FrenchBaccalaureate with Honors inToulon , France.Works
*"Killing the Boss" 2008, Cherry Lane Studio Theatre, New York
*"Lemkin’s House" 2005, Kamerni Teatar 55, Sarajevo
*"Silence Of God" 2002, Contemporary American Theater Festival, West Virginia
*"", 2001
*"Lessons Of My Father" 2001, HB Playwrights Foundation & Theatre, New York
*"The Beauty Inside" 2001, HB Playwrights Foundation & Theatre, New York
*"Mary And Myra" 2000, Contemporary American Theater Festival, West Virginia
*"Photographs From S-21" 1998, HB Playwrights Foundation & Theatre, New York
*"White Trash" 1997, Women's Project & Productions, New York
*"Eyes Of The Heart" 1996, Eugene O'Neill Theater Center, Connecticut
*"All Dressed Up And Nowhere To Go" 1994, Playwrights Theatre of Baltimore, Maryland
*"The Price Of Madness" 1992, Alleyway Theatre, Buffalo New York
*"Venus In The Birdbath" 1990, Alleyway Theatre, Buffalo New York
*"Arthur’s War"
*"Cut To: The Deal"
*"The Awakening"
*"The G Word"
*"Storks"
*"The Russian Doll"
*"Three Continents"
*"Accepting Applause"
*"Converting"
*"The Sun Always Rose"
*"Altar Ego"
*"Prodigal Son"
*"Priscilla’s Story"Awards
* The Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays' Roger L. Stevens award
* Eric Kocher Playwrights Award (National Playwrights Conference, O'Neill Theater Center)
* Fulbright Senior Specialist (Cambodia & Morocco)
* James Thurber Playwright-In-Residence; Asian Cultural Council Artist's Residency Grant in Asia
* Winner Nausicaa Franco-American Play Contest
* Rockefeller MAP Fund (for Floating Box with Hwang)
* 4-time Heideman Award Finalist, Actors Theatre of LouisvilleExternal links
* [http://www.newdramatists.org/catherine_filloux.htm curriculum vitae at New Dramatists]
* [http://www.ushmm.org/conscience/analysis/details.php?content=2006-09-07 Interview with "Voices on Genocide Prevention"]
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