Bush Foundation Fellowships

Kira Obolensky

1999 Bush Artist Fellowship
Minnesota

Career Field: Script Works
Secondary Field: Playwriting

Kira Obolensky’s new plays include Modern House (finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize) and Lune (pronounced “loony”), commissioned and produced by the B Street Theatre, with thanks to the NEA and Irvine Foundation. Her play Quick Silver, premiered as a play for puppets and actors in Minneapolis, produced by 3Legged Race and The Playwrights’ Center. Named by Twin Cities Critics as the “most outstanding experimental theatre event of 2003,” it was presented in Prague, Czech Republic, in June 2006, where it was lauded for its script and visual landscape. Other plays include Lobster Alice (Kesselring Prize, finalist for Susan Smith Blackburn, published in Best Plays by American Women 2000, and produced in Atlanta, California, Texas, Minneapolis, Off Broadway, and Los Angeles, with Noah Wylie as Salvador Dali); The Adventures of Herculina, (Honorable Mention Kesselring Prize, Edith Oliver Award, produced in Chicago and in Minneapolis). Other plays include Pleasure Cruise, commissioned by the Guthrie Theatre and published in Best 10 Minute Plays of 2002-03; Collective Nightmare, commissioned by the McCarter Theatre and A New House, or 21 Lies for Four Characters. She is a recipient of numerous fellowships and awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Jerome Fellowship and a McKnight Advancement Grant. She is a graduate of Williams College and the Juilliard School’s Playwriting Fellowship Program, as well as a core alumna of the Playwrights’ Center in Minneapolis. Obolensky is also a published author (The Not-So-Big House, co-author; Garage: Reinventing the Place We Park; and Good House/Cheap House). She teaches at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design and at the University of Minnesota and is currently completing an MFA in fiction writing through Warren Wilson Program for Writers.