Guirgis, Stephen Adly

PERSONAL:

Education: University at Albany, B.A., 1990.

ADDRESSES:

Agent—John Buzzetti, The Gersh Agency, 41 Madison Ave., 33rd Fl., New York, NY 10010-2210.

CAREER:

Playwright, director, and actor. LAByrinth Theatre Company, New York, NY, writer, director, and actor, 1993—.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Fringe Festival Award, Edinburgh Festival, for Jesus Hopped the A Train.

WRITINGS:

PLAYS

Our Lady of 121st Street; Jesus Hopped the A Train; [and] In Arabia, We'd All be Kings, Faber & Faber (New York, NY), 2003.

Our Lady of 121st Street, Dramatists Play Service (New York, NY), 2003.

Den of Thieves, Dramatists Play Service (New York, NY), 2004.

The Last Days of Judas Iscariot, Faber & Faber (New York, NY), 2006.

Contributor to television scripts including "NYPD Blue," American Broadcasting Company (ABC); "Big Apple," Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS); and "UC: Undercover," National Broadcasting Company (NBC).

Our Lady of 121st Street was recorded for compact disc by L.A. Theatre Works (Venice, CA), 2004.

SIDELIGHTS:

Stephen Adly Guirgis began his career as an actor, studying theatre at the University at Albany, and joining an upstart New York theatre group with former classmate John Ortiz after graduation. The LAByrinth Theatre Company was also home to director and actor Philip Seymour Hoffman and playwright John Patrick Shanley. The group of friends, initially meeting once a week as a support system for a group of up-and-coming actors, began producing their own plays. Guirgis wrote one of LAByrinth's first plays, In Arabia, We'd All be Kings, and with it began making a name for himself in theatre circles.

Guirgis drew from his own life experiences in writing 2000's Jesus Hopped the A Train, a play about two prison inmates, one who has found faith and the other for whom faith has become a subject of anger and confusion. Guirgis himself is a lapsed Catholic who spent time working in a prison as a violence prevention specialist. Les Gutman commented in a review for CurtainUp that Guirgis "ventures into the terra incognita of contemporary American theater—theatrical and intellectual waters for which others lack the temerity or strength to tread." Gutman further described the play as exhibiting "equal parts humor and passion, and without becoming didactic, precious, sentimental or any of those other things we hate but see so often."

Our Lady of 121st Street was produced in 2003 and is set in a New York funeral home, after the body of an endeared nun has been stolen. A group of emotionally embittered individuals wait for the body's return, and while doing so air their grievances to and about one another. In a review for Variety, Charles Isherwood remarked that the play "confirms Guirgis is an excit- ing talent with a gift for raw but rich dialogue and an entertaining ability to find the absurd humor in emotional extremis." CurtainUp contributor Elyse Sommer wrote: "It's the comic incongruity of the various encounters that give the play its spark. While plenty of heartache in the form of guilt, regrets and fear surfaces as Guirgis' losers interact in pairs and trios on the Union Square's spacious stage, it does so hilariously."

Den of Thieves incorporates another seemingly random assortment of characters, in this instance coming together at a Kleptomaniacs Anonymous meeting when several members are tempted out of retirement to perform a heist. When the heist goes bad, the crew uses the KA self-help jargon in an attempt to get them out of potential execution by a mob boss. Boston Phoenix reviewer Liza Weisstuch commented: "Guirgis has a sharp ear for the poetic vulgarities of street talk and a way with incorporating spiritual considerations, especially as they relate to temptation, charity, and forgiveness."

Earning Guirgis some of his most positive reviews, The Last Days of Judas Iscariot takes place in a Purgatory courtroom as a judge considers the case of historical figure Judas Iscariot. A range of characters speak for or against a lift of Judas's sentence, including Jesus, Mary Magdalene, Satan, a number of saints, Sigmund Freud, and an ordinary guy named Butch. Marilyn Stasio wrote in a review for Daily Variety: "Stephen Adly Guirgis has written a real jaw-dropper—a courtroom drama that makes a compelling argument for lifting the ‘eternal damnation’ sentence on Judas Iscariot, the most reviled sinner in biblical history…. His imagination is dazzling and his command of language downright thrilling." Commonweal reviewer Celia Wren noted that "the play's no-holds-barred religious scope, coming from the pen of such a fashionable playwright, makes it a landmark event in the contemporary American theater."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Commonweal, March 25, 2005, Celia Wren, review of The Last Days of Judas Iscariot, p. 21.

Daily Variety, March 3, 2005, Marilyn Stasio, review of The Last Days of Judas Iscariot, p. 6.

Variety, March 10, 2003, Charles Isherwood, review of Our Lady of 121st Street, p. 39.

ONLINE

Boston Phoenix,http://bostonphoenix.com/ (April 8, 2005), Liza Weisstuch, review of Den of Thieves.

British Theatre Guide,http://www.britishtheatreguide.info/ (January 8, 2007), Philip Fisher, "Stephen Adly Guirgis."

CurtainUp,http://www.curtainup.com/ (November 28, 2000), Les Gutman, review of Jesus Hopped the A Train; (March 2, 2003), Elyse Sommer, review of Our Lady of 121st Street.