Wed. 4/22 A Complex Evening,world premiere plays by William Inge | Thu. 4/23 New Play Reading:Carlos Murillo's Diagram of a Paper Airplane | Fri. 4/24 Gala Dinner | Sat. 4/25 Inge Festival Tribute |
Carlos Murillo's newest play is Thursday evening focus
Carlos Murillo's new play will have a concert reading Thursday April 23, at 7:30 p.m.
An intriguing drama of how the lives intertwine among the family and friends of a man who tragically died takes stage Thursday, April 23, during a concert reading of the Carlos Murillo's newest play, Diagram of a Paper Airplane.
Murillo is the Otis Guernsey New Voices in American Playwriting Award at the 28th annual William Inge Theatre Festival. The reading features professional actors and directors.
In the play, Javier C., the once promising playwright turned mentally unstable vagabond, dies in a freak flash flood in the wilds of Northern New Mexico. News of Javier's death circulates among a group of his former friends and close collaborators—who have been estranged for nearly two decades. Javier's death threatens to open a Pandora's Box of secrets, old wounds and guilt none of his friends want to confront.
As a final act before his death, Javier sent fragments of his play Diagram of a Paper Airplane to his surviving friends—fragments that can only be made whole if the group comes together to read it.
Javier's ex-wife and daughter arrange for a memorial service. Javier's surviving friends, driven by curiosity and guilt, arrive, hoping that the play will reveal the truth behind a tragic mystery that has haunted them for two decades.
The play was commissioned by the Goodman Theatre of Chicago.
The Otis Guernsey New Voices Playwriting Award recognizes outstanding contemporary playwrights whose voices are helping shape the American theater of today. It is named for the late Otis L. Guernsey, Jr., beloved theater writer and editor who was a frequent guest at the William Inge Theatre Festival and a champion of exciting new plays.
Murillo will receive the award and an honorarium at the reading, which begins at 7:30 p.m. at the William Inge Theatre.
The award recipient is peer-nominated and selected by a panel comprised of past Otis Guernsey New Voices winners and other theatre professionals.
Murillo grew up in New York, Caracas, Venezuela, and Bogota, Colombia. His plays have been produced nationwide, at the Humana Festival of New American Plays at Actors Theatre of Louisville, En Garde Arts and Soho Rep in New York, Theatre at Boston Court in Pasadena, Actors Express in Atlanta, and elsewhere._ Murillo was a Jerome Fellow at the Minneapolis Playwrights' Center and has received grants from the Rockefeller Foundation and the Minnesota State Arts Board.
He is a two-time recipient of the National Latino Playwriting Award, among many additional honors. He teaches playwriting and performance at The Theatre School of DePaul University in Chicago.