Mark Howard Medoff

Mark Medoff is a playwright, screenwriter, and director. He received a Tony Award for CHILDREN OF A LESSER GOD as well as London’s Olivier Award for Best Play. He was nominated for an Academy Award and a Writers Guild of America Best Adapted Screenplay Award for the film script of CHILDREN and for a Cable ACE Award (now EMMY) for his HBO Premiere movie, APOLOGY. He received an OBIE Award for WHEN YOU COMIN BACK, RED RYDER. Among his movies are CLARA'S HEART, OFF BEAT, and CITY OF JOY. He has written one novel, DREAMS OF LONG LASTING. In 2000, Mark directed and co-produced the documentary film, WHO FLY ON ANGELS’ WINGS, about a mobile pediatric unit traveling through the underserved areas of southern New Mexico. In 2001, Mark directed the feature film, CHILDREN ON THEIR BIRTHDAYS, based on the story by Truman Capote. Among other awards, it received the Houston World Film Festival Award for Best Family Film. His play PRYMATE ran briefly on Broadway in 2005. He was Reynolds Eminent Scholar in the School of Theatre at Florida State University 2003-2006. He is now Distinguished Lecturer in Playwriting at the University of Houston and Senior Fellow in the Creative Media Institute for Film & Digital Arts at New Mexico State University. He formerly taught at NMSU for 27 years and was Co-Founder and Artistic Director of the American Southwest Theatre Company and Head of the Department of Theatre Arts for 9 years. In 1974, he received NMSU’s highest faculty honor, the Westafer Award. In 1980, he was honored with the Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts, New Mexico’s most prestigious lifetime artistic honor. In 2005, he received The Kennedy Center Medallion for Excellence in Education and Artistic Achievement. In 2006 he directed the short film 100 MPG, which was selected to a number of film festivals. In 2007, he directed BOOM, a training film for the military, produced by the Creative Media Institute at NMSU and the Department of Justice. More recently, he directed the premiere of the stage musical EXTINCTION: A LOVE STORY, by Bob Diven; THE MEN OF MAH JONGG, a new play by Richard Atkins, that ran at New York City’s Queens Theater in the Park in December 2008; DISPOSABLE NUT, by Ross Marks, and his own THE SAME LIFE OVER at Las Cruces’ No Strings Theater Company. August 2009, he directed the feature film REFUGE, which he wrote from a story by Phil Treon and him. The movie stars Linda Hamilton, Christopher McDonald, Chris Payne Gilbert and Lena Georgas. He is now working on a 6 play cycle, THE DEBOOMER GENERATION, about the period between 1946 and 2006, which he is workshopping at the University of Houston. He has been married for thirty-eight years to Stephanie Medoff; they have three daughters and six grandchildren.