Helping Actors & Audiences Understand
Alley dramaturg Mark Bly honored with career achievement award
Houston, we have an award-winning dramaturg.
Mark Bly, The Alley Theatre's resident dramaturg, has received the G. E. Lessing Career Achievement Award. The Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas (LMDA) presented the award to Bly at its recent 25th anniversary conference in Alberta, Canada. Established in 1985, LMDA was formed to affirm, expand, and promote the role of the dramaturg.
Bly is only the fourth artist in LMDA's history to receive this honor. According to LMDA Chair Cynthia M. SoRelle, the award celebrates Bly's "distinguished career as a dramaturg, scholar, teacher, mentor and driving force in the sustenance and growth of LMDA."
Dramaturgs help actors and audiences understand a play, providing valuable context and history, bringing the written words to life on the stage. Just this season, Bly, a rock star in his field, has dramaturged world premieres Intelligence-Slave and Gruesome Playground Injuries, along with such classics as Our Town and Harvey. Thus far, Bly has dramaturged over 90 productions, including such seminal plays as Suzan-Lori Parks' The America Play at Yale Rep and the Public Theater and Moises Kaufman's 33 Variations at Arena Stage, La Jolla Playhouse and on Broadway.
A graduate of of Yale School of Drama, Bly currently serves as Alley's Senior Dramaturg and Director of New Play Development. He is also a Distinguished Professor of Theater at the University of Houston. Prior to coming to Houston he served as Senior Dramaturg at the Arena Stage and Director of Arena's New Play Development Series.