Ed Valentine (Playwright)
Ed Valentine is a co-founder of En Avant Playwrights - a New York City theatre group that produces its own works. The founding members took The Title of their company from Tennessee Williams' journals in which Williams wrote: "En Avant! (Forward!)" to keep himself eager for another day of writing.
Awards and Affiliations
Valentine is a member of the Dramatists Guild; he received a 2003 Dramatists Guild Fellowship. He studied at Hunter College with Tina Howe (also a member of En Avant Playwrights) and was a three-time winner of the Irv Zarkower award. He is also co-founder (along with Robin Reed) of the performance company Cardium Mechanicum.
Valentine's plays Women Behind the Bush and Women With Wings premiered at the Loewe Theater in New York. Mrs. B, an old fable with a twist AbOUT a bored housewife's fantasy life, won the 2003 Spotlight On Award for Best Short Play and the American Globe/Turnip Festival's Minieri Award. Couch Play, a surreal tale of men dating the same woman and receiving a visit from Nosferatu, and Snipe Hunt, the story of when the snipe turns the tables on a Boy Scout troupe, both won the 2003 Spotlight On Award for Best One Act Play.
Valentine's work has been performed around the U.S. He received an MFA in dramatic writing at New York University.
Current Projects
Ed Valentine is currently working on a fifty-play cycle with one play set in each of the fifty states. Valentine currently resides in Los Angeles, where he is a staff writer for Nickelodeon. His work Scout's Honor (a full length version of both Snipe Hunt and Becky's Beaver) was produced at the 2007 New York International Fringe Festival.
His performance company Cardium Mechanicum recently launched a new project called The Crush Project, which records dramatic readings of 'Missed Connections' - craigslist's personal ads.
Works and synopses
Scout's Honor! (Snipe Hunt & Becky'S Beaver) Synopsis: As described by www.doollee.com, "S'mores! Singalongs! Bear Attacks! [...] Tips demonstrated by Furry Woodland Puppets! In The New Jersey woods, Boy Scouts take Cubs on maneuvers not approved by the Scouting Manual, while Girl Scouts find their true selves on a hunt for Beaver." Playwright Ed Valentine describes his play as, "SCOUT'S HONOR! is all about growing up, coming of age, figuring out [...] and longing. Those things are always weird, funny, and fascinating. b) First Love, too, never goes out of date. The characters' journeys are sweet and true… c) …while the play is also more than a little naughty! We also have a lot of good-looking people making out with each other onstage rather frequently. d) Above all: it's a speedy 75 minutes of rollicking summer fun. SCOUT'S HONOR! takes place in summertime, so it seemed like the perfect summer offering — a 'midsummer night's scout dream,' of sorts. Young people fall under each others' spell as desire starts to stir in the forest (even when the woods are in New Jersey). We figured that our audiences might love to be a part of the fun and friskiness of SCOUT'S HONOR!, too."
(A brief preview of the show can be heard online with playwright Ed Valentine and actors Carrie Haugh and Robin Reed available through the Fringe preview podcast.)
Theatre is The Thing with Tentacle Synopsis: "That squid only wants to give us pleasure."