Kornhauser, Barry (USA)

BARRY KORNHAUSER recently joined the staff of Millersville University (www.Millersville.edu) to spearhead the school’s newly formed family arts collaborative.  Prior to this new endeavor, he served 32 years as the Playwright-In-Residence, TYA Director, and sundry other positions at the National Historic Landmark Fulton Theatre in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.  Barry is a recipient of the American Alliance for Theatre & Education (AATE) Charlotte Chorpenning Cup, honoring “a body of distinguished work by a nationally known writer of outstanding plays for children.”  Other accolades include the Twin Cities’ Ivey Award for Playwriting (Reeling), the Helen Hayes Outstanding Play Award (Cyrano), Bonderman Prize (Worlds Apart), and two AATE Distinguished Play Awards (This Is Not A Pipe Dream and Balloonacy), along with Pennsylvania’s “Best Practices Honor” and the state’s first Educational Theatre Award “for outstanding service by an individual for the advancement of theatre education in the Commonwealth.” He has also received fellowships/grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, TYA/USA, Doris Duke Foundation, Mid-Atlantic Arts, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and Pennsylvania Performing Artists on Tour (PennPAT). His plays have been commissioned and produced by such Tony Award-winning theatres as the Alliance, the Children’s Theatre Company, La Jolla Playhouse, and the Shakespeare Theatre, and have been invited to such festivals as One Theatre World, NYC’s Provincetown Playhouse New Plays for Young Audiences, the international Quest Fest, San Diego Theatre of the World, the Bonderman, the Playground, and the Kennedy Center’s New Visions/New Voices. The Kennedy also commissioned him to author a piece (Of Mice And Manhattan) based on newly discovered children songs by Broadway legend Frank Loesser, and invited him to take part and report on its 2012 “International Convening of Thought Leaders in Theater, Dance, Disability, Education, and Inclusion.”  Barry is one of three playwrights (along with David Ives and former U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky) to be commissioned by The Shakespeare Theatre to create new “American” adaptations of lesser-known classic dramas.  He has also served as a guest dramaturg at the Denver Theatre Center.  In 2008, Barry was selected as the United States nominee for the “ASSITEJ International Award for Artistic Excellence” and his Youtheatre program for at-risk teens and those living with disabilities was honored at the White House as one of the nation’s top arts-education initiatives.  For his work with this ensemble, Barry also received the AATE’s 2011 Youth Theatre Director of the Year Award. Over the years he has conducted theatre residencies everywhere from a one-room Amish school house to universities across the country, including several stints as the “Luminary Guest Artist” of the University of New Mexico’s Wrinkle Writing program endowed by A Wrinkle In Time author, Madeleine L’Engle.  (He was the only guest artist invited more than once).   A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Franklin & Marshall College, Barry has served on the TYA/USA board, various panels of the NEA, the Heinz Endowment, and three state arts councils.  Currently, he is an AATE State Representative, a member of the Dramatists’ Guild, and sits on the board of the Lancaster Education Foundation.  His lovely wife Carol and great kids Ariel, Sam, and Max (with Turkish bride Sena) complete his real-life cast of “characters.”