Biography
Burgess Clark. Burgess Clark's work has been produced both nationally and internationally. Productions of Purple Hearts have been produced in San Francisco and toured to the Edinburgh Theatre Festival in Scotland where it placed in the top five "Best of Fest" which also received a special award from the U.S. Army and garnered him several other playwriting awards including "Best Play" from the National Association of Speech and Dramatic Arts and the Mary Roberts Rinehart Award for playwriting. Mr. Clark was honored at the 15th Annual William Inge Theatre Festival as the "New Voice in American Theatre." He is distinguished as the recipient of the Beverly Hills Theatre Guild's Julie Harris Award for his play, The Ivory Alphabet. In 2000, he completed work on the Emmy-nominated documentary series Part of the Family for PBS, hosted by Gary Burghoff. In 1999, he was awarded the New England Playwright's Award for his drama, The Touch. Mr. Clark's other works include The Velveteen Rabbit, Island of the Blue Dolphins, Down Came the Rain, Relative Strangers, Cola Wars, Southern Cross, and The Immaculate Conception of Malfie Dibbs which received staged readings at the Missouri Repertory Theatre and went on to Los Angeles for a showcase run. Another of his plays, an adaptation of Dylan Thomas' A Child's Christmas in Wales, has been performed at the National Theatre of the Deaf.
Mr. Clark has taught playwriting for the University of Hawaii, The Mid-Pacific Institute, Honolulu Theatre For Youth, and the Office of Very Special Arts at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., where five of his students have won the Young Playwrights' Award. He served as the Managing Director for the Perry-Mansfield School of the Arts Summer Program in Steamboat Springs, Colorado for several years and is currently the Director of Education at the North Shore Music Theatre in Beverly, MA.
A member of the Dramatists Guild, he makes his home in Vermont.
