WMU graduate student wins playwrite award

By Heather Ewer
Western Herald

A Western Michigan University graduate creative writing student won an award for comic playwriting and had the opportunity to attend a national theatre festival in Washington, D.C. last Monday.

G. William Zorn won the Mark Twain Prize for Comic Playwriting from the Kennedy Center’s American College Theatre Festival.

Zorn is an actor, director, and playwright who received his undergraduate degree from Eastern Illinois University, and a Masters of Fine Arts in Playwriting from Ohio University. He is currently attending WMU for his Ph.D. in English and creative writing with a playwriting emphasis.

As part of Zorn’s award, he traveled to the Kennedy Center/ACTF National Festival April 12 through April 18 in Washington, D.C. While there, he had the
opportunity to attend workshops with theatre professionals and meet other award winners from around the country.

Steve Feffer, associate professor of English at WMU and a regional chair for the National Playwriting Program for the KC/ACTF, had the opportunity to travel to D.C. and see Zorn’s award ceremony.

“There’s an old writing adage which says, ‘Dying is easy; comedy is hard,’” Fetter said. “To me, for [Zorn] to win such a prestigious and competitive national award for comic playwriting—named in honor of one of the great comic writers—is a particularly distinguished achievement.”

Zorn’s award also includes a $2,500 cash prize and a playwriting residency at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre in Connecticut over the summer. Zorn described the internship as an “observanceship,” where he will get to watch other new works being staged. He will also be teaching advanced playwriting at WMU over the summer.

One of Feffer’s plays, “The Wizards of Quiz” was produced at the O’Neil theatre in 1990.

“The experience changed my life,” Feffer said.

According to Zorn, his play, “Metropolis Has No Superman,” is about a man named Chance who had a falling out with his father when he was in high school and moved to Chicago after growing up as a comic book lover in Metropolis, Ill., the official hometown of Superman.

Chance’s dad became jealous of Superman for being the “hero” figure in his son life, so he tried to kill the Man of Steel by driving his Chrysler into his statue. The father dies as a result of his efforts and Chance must come back to his hometown for the funeral.

“The play deals with the idea that all Chance ever wanted from his father was an ‘I’m sorry’ and how do you get that when he’s dead?” Zorn said.

“At its heart, it has fantastic characters. The core of it is about real people. He’s not afraid to confront difficult issues. It’s a comedy, but there were people who had tears in their eyes by the end. It is very moving,” Feffer said.

“I don’t know that anybody can write straight comedy anymore. You need that contrast to make it funny,” Zorn said.

Zorn is originally from Peroia, Ill.; famous for opening vaudeville acts.

This year marks the 42nd National Festival at the Kennedy Center. Feffer is a chair of region three, which includes Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin. Plays from within each region are judged by the chairs of the remaining seven regions so that no one is judging their own students’ works.

At this year’s regional festival in Saginaw, Mich., Western Michigan University students won awards in all three categories. Master’s student Jason Lenz was a co-finalist in the 10-minute play category, master’s student Karen Wurl won the full-length script award, and Zorn was a co-finalist in the one-act play category. His one-act award-winning play is “The Speed of Falling Objects.”

Zorn is currently directing “9x9x9,” an apocalyptic family comedy by Randy Wyatt for Fancy Pants Theater in Kalamazoo. The show is playing April 23, 24,
30 and May 1 at 8:00 p.m.

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Posted by bbohlen on Apr 21 2010. Filed under A & E, Weekend Scene. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

Bethany Bohlen
Bethany Bohlen is the Photo and Art Editor for the Western Herald, Western Michigan University's student newspaper, in Kalamazoo, Michigan. She has worked for the Western Herald photography department since 2009, and was promoted to an editorial position. She also worked for the Alpena Community College Crosscut from 2008-2009. http://www.westernherald.com