Sarah Ruhl at Augustana College -- March 29 and 30.

Friday, March 29

Augustana College's Brunner Theatre Center, 3750 Seventh Avenue, Rock Island IL, 5 p.m.

Saturday, March 30

Augustana College's Wilson Center, 639 38th Street, Rock Island IL, 1 p.m.

Augustana College's Brunner Theatre Center, 3750 Seventh Avenue, Rock Island IL, 7:30 p.m.

A Tony Award nominee and Pulitzer Prize finalist will be the special guest in three presentations at Augustana College on March 29 through 30, as the college hosts readings, a playwriting workshop, and an evening celebration with Sarah Ruhl, the author of such critically acclaimed stage productions as Eurydice, Clean House, Dead Man's Cell Phone, and In the Next Room (or The Vibrator Play).

Born in Wilmette, Illinois, Ruhl received her M.F.A. from Brown University, where she studied with Pulitzer Prize-winning How I Learned to Drive playwright Paula Vogel. An alum of 13P and New Dramatists, she won a MacArthur Fellowship in 2006 and most recently, the Steinberg Distinguished Playwright Award, and was also the recipient of the PEN Center Award for a mid-career playwright, the Whiting Writers award, and the Feminist Press’ 40 Under 40 award. She served on the executive council of the Dramatist’s Guild for three years, and she is currently on the faculty at Yale School of Drama, with her book of essays on the theatre and motherhood – 100 Essays I Don't Have Time to Write – named a New York Times Notable Book of the Year.

In addition to her Tony-nominated In the Next Room (or The Vibrator Play) and Ruhl's fellow Pulitzer finalist The Clean House, the author's stage works include Helen Hayes Award winner Dead Man's Cell Phone, NAACP nominee Demeter in the City, Melancholy Play, Stage Kiss, Passion Play, Orlando, For Peter Pan on Her 70th Birthday, and her popular telling of the Orpheus myth Eurydice. Ruhl's plays have been produced on Broadway at the Lyceum by Lincoln Center Theater, off-Broadway at Playwrights’ Horizons, and at Lincoln Center’s Mitzi Newhouse Theater. Her works have also been produced regionally all over the country, with premieres often at Yale Repertory Theater, the Goodman Theater, Berkeley Repertory Theater, and the Piven Theatre Workshop in Chicago.

On March 29, Ruhl will share passages from her new work Letters from Mars: a book of friendship and engage in a Q&A in a 5 p.m. River Readings event held in Augustana's Brunner Theatre Center. On March 30, the author will lead a 1 p.m. playwriting workshop for community and college writers in the college's Wilson Center, with enrollment limited to 20 participants. And at 7:30 p.m. that night in the Brunner Theatre Center, An Evening with Sarah Ruhl will find Augustana students and area actors performing excerpts from the playwright's works, with a Q&A session and dessert reception following.

Admission to all of Sarah Ruhl's Augustana events is free, though reservations are required. For information on the March 30 playwriting workshop, contact Christina Myatt at christinamyatt@augustana.edu or (309)794-7611. For more on the March 29 and 30 evening events, call (309)794-7306 or visit Augustana.edu/tickets.

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