William Mastrosimone

WILLIAM MASTROSIMONE (Playwright) made his debut with THE WOOLGATHERER in 1981, which later won the Los Angeles Drama Critics ward for Best play of 1982. His play EXTREMITIES won the New York Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Play of 1982-1983, the John Gassner Award for Playwriting, and later became a feature film by the same title. His pay NANAWATAI! Opened in Bergen, Norway, at Den National scene; it later became a film called THE BEAST directed by Kevin Reynolds and won the 1988 Roxanne T. Mueller Award for Best Film at the Cleveland International Film Festival. His five-hour mini-series, SINATRA was broadcast in November 1992, and won the 1992 Golden Globe Award for Best Mini-series.

He wrote the feature film WITH HONORS and THE BURNING SEASON, an HBO feature about the life of Brazilian hero Chico Mendes, for which he received The Humanitas Award and an Emmy nomination. He recently completed a screenplay for Columbia Pictures entitled ARK OF AFRICA. His play TAMER OF HORSES won the Los Angeles Chapter of the NAACP Award for Best Play of 1987. His other plays include A TANTALIZING, SHIVAREE (Warner Communications Award), A STONE CARVER, THE UNDOING, SUNSHINE, CAT'S PAW, BURNING DESIRE, and LIKE TOTALLY WEIRD.

He recently completed a screenplay for Dawn Steel Productions, IN THE STILL OF THE NIGHT (working title) and wrote four hours of ESCOBAR for HBO. He is currently rewriting PATRIOTS for Paramount Pictures and writing USA for Hallmark. Mr. Mastrosimone earned the degree MFA from the Mason Gross School of the Arts, is a 1989 recipient of the New Jersey Governor's Walt Whitman Award for Writing, and is a 1989 recipient of an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Rider College. His most recent play Sleepwalk is a story again focusing on the traumas of modern teenage society in the United States.

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