Paula Cizmar is a playwright and librettist who has had work produced all over the United States and abroad. In addition to productions of her works she has received a number of accolades including having her work selected for EnVision, the Sundance Theatre Lab, and the O’Neill National Playwrights Conference; an NEA grant; a nomination to The Kilroy List; a number of residencies, including an international residency at the Rockefeller Study Center in Bellagio, Italy; a Susan Smith Blackburn Prize Special Commendation; and a TCG/Mellon Foundation On the Road grant. Some of her most notable works are The Death of a Miner, Candy & Shelley Go To the Desert, Still Life with Parrot & Monkey, Ghost Dance on Mulholland, Bone Dry, The Last Nights of Scheherazade, January, and Street Stories. She is also currently an associate professor at the University of Southern California teaching playwriting.
Early life
Paula was born on August 30, 1949 in Youngstown, Ohio. She grew up in Youngstown, and as a child played piano and wrote poetry. She attended Chaney High School before continuing on to Ohio University where she was in the Honors College. She majored in English and wrote for the Ohio University Post, which led to an internship on the Detroit Free Press, where she covered everything from the courts to crime to feature stories. After holding this position, and a stint writing magazine articles, she changed her focus to solely creative writing endeavors.
Awards, nominations, and honors
Awarded three Critics Picks for Playwrights Arena production of Street Stories. Earned an NEA grant and Susan Smith Blackburn Prize Special Commendation for The Death of a Miner. Awarded a National Endowment for the Arts Consortium grant and a Residency Fellowship at Bard College for the collaborative work Seven. She was selected for an international residency at the Rockefeller Study Center in Bellagio, Italy. Had her work chosen for O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, Sundance Theatre Lab, and EnVision at Bard College. Received a TCG/Mellon Foundation On the Road grant for work on the play Salvage/Spasiti. Awarded the Outstanding Instructor of the Year award in 2003 for screenwriting at UCLA Extension Writers Program. Awarded the Mellon Mentoring Award at the University of Southern California. Selected for the 2016 Mach 33 Festival of Science-Driven plays for The Chisera. Selected for 2018 Lab Results at Antaeus Theatre for Along the River, Almost Winter.
Career
She is one of the authors of the acclaimed documentary theatre piece Seven, written with Carol K. Mack, Catherine Filloux, Gail Kriegel, Ruth Margraff, Susan Yankowitz, and Anna Deveare Smith. Seven has been produced at the 18th Istanbul International Theatre Festival, and has been translated in over 20 languages. It has also been performed in Amman, Jordan, Tokyo, Japan, Riga, Latvia, Rabat, Morocco, and a number of other locations. Seven has been recorded by LA Theatre Works and was named Best Audio Book, memoir category, in 2017. Her play The Death of a Miner was produced at the American Place Theatre by the Women’s Project. Paula wrote two seasons for the television seriesAmerican Family, starring Edward James Olmos, Esai Morales, and Sonia Braga. Some of the places Cizmar has had her plays produced are San Diego Rep, the Jungle Theater, Playwrights Arena, off-Broadway, Theatre LaBeet, Passage Theatre, Portland Stage, as well as a number of other regional theaters from California to Maine. She collaborated on The Hotel Play, a site-specific work that was commissioned by Center Theater Group and Playwrights Arena and produced on the grounds of the downtown LA Radisson Hotel in 2017. Scenes from her opera, The Night Flight of Minerva's Owl, music by Guang Yang, libretto by Paula Cizmar, were performed at Pittsburgh Festival Opera in their Music That Matters program in both 2018 and 2019. The opera premieres in 2020. Had work selected for the O'Neill National Playwrights Conference, as well as Sundance. Held playwriting residencies at Skidmore College, Ohio University, and Portland Stage.
