Kenneth Prestininzi

Kenneth Prestininzi’s play IMPURE THOUGHTS (WITHOUT APOLOGY), inspired by the life story of Sor Juana, was read in June at Repertorio Español, directed by Jose Zayas as part of the MetLife Nuestras Voces new play festival. He is also currently working on his two person musical, TOM VISITS HIS SISTER ROSE ONE LAST TIME and has received a commission from Trinity Rep. His play COOKIE PLAY premiered at Trap Door Theater in Chicago in January 2015 under the direction of his long time collaborator Kate Hendrickson. COOKIE PLAY is his fourth collaboration with Trap Door Theater and Ms. Hendrickson. Other premiered plays at Trap Door are BEHOLDER, AMERIKAFKA and CHASTE. BEHOLDER received a Joseph Jefferson Award for best new play 2008-2009. His play UGMO AND EENIE GO DOWN THE RUSKI HOLE, produced by Sleeping Weazel, received unanimous praise when performed in Boston, June 2014 and was restaged at Dixon Place, October 2015. His short play ARCHIVE was a winning entry in the Playground “Race Matters” festival, September, 2015. READING IN BED, a previous short play with Playground (1998), was also presented at the Lincoln Park Center/HOME Theatre festival in New York City and turned into a short film by Sandor Weiner and presented at film festivals. Sleeping Weazel also produced his one-woman lecture play, BIRTH BREATH BRIDE ELIZABETH, which was featured at The Next Thing Festival in Boston in 2013 and was invited by the Boston Mayor's office to appear at FirstNights on December 31, 2014. His plays have been seen in Brighton, Boston, Chicago, Edinburgh, Kalamazoo, Los Angeles, Mexico City, New York City, Philadelphia, Prague, Providence, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. New York City’s Frank Theatre Company recently produced his play, LOVE IN THE SEVENTH KINGDOM OF WRATH. Wearing multiple performance and theatre hats, Ken is also a director of new plays and has a long collaboration history with Charlotte Meehan, Greg Moss and Peter Sinn Nachtrieb. He directed the premiere of Peter's play THE TOTALITARIANS in New Orleans and San Francisco. T.I.C. in San Francisco, and boom in its first workshop production at the Brown/Trinity Playwrights Repertory where he was artistic director. He has also directed new plays by Andy Bragen, Jennifer Haley, Quiara Alegría Hudes, and Emily Young and revival productions of plays by Migdalia Cruz, Sarah Ruhl and Paula Vogel. He has received theatre awards from ACTF, California Arts Council, Christina Crawford, Djerassi Program, Gerbode Foundation, Goethe Institute, LEF, Millay Arts Colony, National Endowment of the Humanities, Rockefeller Foundation and the San Francisco Cultural Equity Office. Ken is the Theater CHair and an Associate Professor of Theatre at Connecticut College, where he directs and teaches acting, playwriting and dramatic literature. He is the former Artistic Director of the Brown/Trinity Playwrights Repertory Theatre and an affiliated artist with Sleeping Weazel. He was the Chair(Acting) and Associate Chair of Playwriting at the Yale School of Drama 2008-2013. He has taught at ACT of San Francisco, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, Brown University, Charles University (Prague), Cornell University, International Literary Arts (Mexico), Intersection for the Arts, Northwestern University, University of Iowa and West Coast Playwrights. He is also a long time teacher of the Creative Ensemble and began writing for specific ensembles with Joseph Chaikin and Tracy Ward with the play TOUCH ME in San Francisco. He has done dramaturgy for modern dance companies, been a resident artist at Perishable Theatre, and served as treasurer of Performance Studies international. In his younger years, Ken studied with Maria Irene Fornes in Mexico and San Francisco (West Coast Playwrights) and had the following musicals and plays performed in the San Francisco area: Ariadne, Burger Girl Jingle, Faustus on My Mind, Gaveston, The Hole, Kept, Presto Pronto, Soblonski and an adaptation of Peer Gynt. Los Angeles: Alien Ambition, Mine and Patty Cake.