September 7, 2005
Clark University Theater Director Earns Accolades for Play
WORCESTER, MA -- Clark University’s Theater Program Director Gino DiIorio’s new play, “The Hard Way,” recently won the 2005 BBC World Service/British Council Playwright Competition. He received a cash award and an all-expense-paid trip to London to see his play being recorded for broadcast as part of BBC Radio’s Play of the Week series. The play will be performed over BBC radio late in 2005.
The competition received over 500 entries. DiIorio’s play was the best overall by a native English speaker.
“The Hard Way” takes place in Sunset Valley, Texas, in 1885. Tyrus Cole, a horse trainer, lives on a ranch with his invalid sister, Mary, whom he has confined to a root cellar. Mary, who is intelligent and at times displays a mystical quality, is never seen throughout the play, but her presence is felt through her wonderful singing voice and her acerbic wit. When Dwight Foley arrives at the ranch seeking help with his horse, he and Mary fall in love and begin plotting the demise of Tyrus. Their plan escalates, and, in the end, the three find themselves trapped in a complex web of greed and secrets.
"The Hard Way" was recently given two staged readings as part of the Utah Shakespeare festival’s "Plays in Progress" series. The reading was directed by Brian Vaughan and featured actors Donald Mackay and Melinda Pfundstein.
DiIorio joined Clark in 1989 and has acted in many films, soap operas and television commercials, as well as more than 100 plays in New York City and regionally. Among his many awards, he won a Berilla Kerr Award for Playwriting in 2003 and his play “Winterizing the Summer House” received a mainstage production at the New Jersey Repertory Theatre in fall 2002. The play was also chosen as one of the top 10 plays in the 2002 Writer’s Digest national play competition.
DiIorio teaches Playwriting, Modern Drama and Contemporary Women Playwrights at Clark. He co-teaches a workshop, Writing Out Loud, with Writing Center/Writing Program Director Anne Ellen Geller www.clarku.edu/academiccatalog/course.cfm?id=1732&lc=ENG209%20&mode=majors&pprog=12, and a course, Shakespeare from Page to Stage, with Clark English Professor Virginia Mason Vaughan www.clarku.edu/research/courseroadmap/pagetostage/.
DiIorio received his Master of Fine Arts in Acting from the City University of New York and his Bachelor of Arts in Theater from Clark University. He has appeared in over 100 plays, films, soap operas and commercials. He is a member of the Dramatists Guild and the Screen Actors' Guild.
DiIorio lives in New York City with his wife and two sons. He grew up in Providence, Rhode Island.
Clark University is a private, co-educational liberal-arts research university with 2,000 undergraduate and 600 graduate students. Since its founding in 1887 as the first all-graduate school in New England, Clark has challenged convention with innovative programs such as the International Studies Stream, the Strassler Family Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies and the five-year BA/MA programs with the fifth year tuition-free for eligible students.
Angela M. Bazydlo
Associate Director of Media Relations
Clark University
Worcester, Mass.
phone: 508-793-7635
www.clarku.edu
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