Playwright/Screenwriter
Barbara Lhota is an award-winning playwright and screenwriter who has written over 200 plays and has had over 55 productions. The Studio's production of her play, Third Person, was selected by the Boston Herald as one of the top ten plays of the 1993-94 season. She received her MFA in Dramatic Writing from Brandeis University, where she was an artist-in-residence and taught playwriting. Barbara is a Chicago Dramatist Network Playwright, an International Women's Centre for Playwright and a member of the Dramatist Guide. She is also an associate member of the Theatre Company Babes With Blades.
She was awarded the Harold and Mimi Steinberg Award for Playwriting for Hanging By a Thread at Brandeis University and her full-length screenplay, The Long Shot, was optioned by Elizabeth Klaviter, a staff writer on the hit T.V. show Grey’s Anatomy.
Barbara lives in Chicago where she most recently won the Babes With Blades’ International Playwriting Competition Joining Sword &Pen for her play Los Desaparecidos: The Vanished, which was produced in April, 2008 with Babes With Blades at the The Raven Theater. Her children’s play The Nerdy Girl and the Intergalactic Dog was produced at The Side Project’s Rascal Children’s Theater. Barbara collaborated on the musical numbers in The Nerdy Girl with John Sparks, the former artistic director of the Theatre Building Chicago.
Barbara's plays Strangers and Romance are published in Women Playwrights: The Best Plays of 2001. Strangers and Romance, Barbara’s most frequently produced plays, have received a number of awards which include the American College Theater Festival Award, and The Love Creek Theater Co. Samuel French One-Act Contest Finalist. Her plays have been produced at a large variety of theaters in Boston, New York, Chicago, and various other cities.
Barbara is the co-author with Janet B. Milstein and Ira Brodsky on a 4-book collection of 20 minute plays which is part of the Smith and Kraus Forensics Series. She also has two monologues from Romance which are included in The Best Male Monologues of 2001 edited by D.L Lepidus. Additionally, she has two monologues in 221 one-minute monologues for women edited by John Capecci and Irene Ziegler Aston and approximately 50 male and female monologues included in the Audition Arsenal Series edited by Janet B. Milstein.
Barbara has most recently worked with freelance director Mark Lynall and collaborator Janet B. Milstein on a short film called Blindsided, Columbia College film professor, Carter Martin, on a film version of her play Strangers. She also recently worked with Matt Wechsler of Hourglass Films, co-writing with Janet B. Milstein, the short script Power Singles, which went on to win awards for best director and was nominated for best screenplay. Power Singles was also runner up for best film of 2009. Her script Donuts is soon to be in pre-production with Hourglass Films. .
Barbara is busily developing two new plays and one new film: Echo, a dramatic play set in the early 1990's about a family with a non-verbal autistic child using facilitated communication as a means of communication; The Laughing Circle (developing with director Dan Foss), a serio-comedic play about a neurotic, well-to-do Northshore family who find their lives changed by mysterious loner, a woman from India named Meera who begins to teach the family and their friends therapeutic laughter. A new film, (yet untitled) about infidelity and what happens, story Carter Martin.
Finally, Barbara is working with Anne Cadigan, a freelance NPR radio film writer/producer, on a short radio piece about a car's rogue GPS system.
AWARDS
Mimi and Harold Steinberg for Hanging by a Thread
Honorable American College Theater Festival for Strangers
Finalist, Love Creek Theater Co. Samuel French One-Act Contest for Romance
Winner, Babes With Blades' 2nd annual playwriting competition, Joining Sword and Pen, for Los Desaparecidos (The Vanished)
EDUCATION
MFA in Dramatic Writing, Brandeis University
BFA in Theater Arts, Wayne State University
PUBLISHED WORK
Strangers and Romance are published in a book edited by D.L. Lepidus entitled Women Playwrights: The Best Plays of 2001, Smith and Kraus
Two monologues from Romance are included in The Best Male Monologues of 2001 edited by D.L Lepidus, Smith and Kraus
Co-authored with Janet Milstein, Forensics Series Volume 1: Duo Practice & Competition: Thirty-five 8-10 Minute Original Comedic Plays, Smith and Kraus
Co-authored with Janet Milstein, Forensics Series Volume 2: Duo Practice & Performance: Thirty-five 8-10 Minute Original Dramatic Plays, Smith and Kraus
Co-authored with Ira Brodsky, Forensics Series Volume 3: Duo Practice and Competition: Thirty-five 8-10 Minute Original Comedic Plays for Two Females, Smith and Kraus
Co-authored with Ira Brodsky, Forensics Series Volume 4: Duo Practice and Competition: Thirty-five 8-10 Minute Original Dramatic Plays for Two Females, Smith and Kraus
She was awarded the Harold and Mimi Steinberg Award for Playwriting for Hanging By a Thread at Brandeis University and her full-length screenplay, The Long Shot, was optioned by Elizabeth Klaviter, a staff writer on the hit T.V. show Grey’s Anatomy.
Barbara lives in Chicago where she most recently won the Babes With Blades’ International Playwriting Competition Joining Sword &Pen for her play Los Desaparecidos: The Vanished, which was produced in April, 2008 with Babes With Blades at the The Raven Theater. Her children’s play The Nerdy Girl and the Intergalactic Dog was produced at The Side Project’s Rascal Children’s Theater. Barbara collaborated on the musical numbers in The Nerdy Girl with John Sparks, the former artistic director of the Theatre Building Chicago.
Barbara's plays Strangers and Romance are published in Women Playwrights: The Best Plays of 2001. Strangers and Romance, Barbara’s most frequently produced plays, have received a number of awards which include the American College Theater Festival Award, and The Love Creek Theater Co. Samuel French One-Act Contest Finalist. Her plays have been produced at a large variety of theaters in Boston, New York, Chicago, and various other cities.
Barbara is the co-author with Janet B. Milstein and Ira Brodsky on a 4-book collection of 20 minute plays which is part of the Smith and Kraus Forensics Series. She also has two monologues from Romance which are included in The Best Male Monologues of 2001 edited by D.L Lepidus. Additionally, she has two monologues in 221 one-minute monologues for women edited by John Capecci and Irene Ziegler Aston and approximately 50 male and female monologues included in the Audition Arsenal Series edited by Janet B. Milstein.
Barbara has most recently worked with freelance director Mark Lynall and collaborator Janet B. Milstein on a short film called Blindsided, Columbia College film professor, Carter Martin, on a film version of her play Strangers. She also recently worked with Matt Wechsler of Hourglass Films, co-writing with Janet B. Milstein, the short script Power Singles, which went on to win awards for best director and was nominated for best screenplay. Power Singles was also runner up for best film of 2009. Her script Donuts is soon to be in pre-production with Hourglass Films. .
Barbara is busily developing two new plays and one new film: Echo, a dramatic play set in the early 1990's about a family with a non-verbal autistic child using facilitated communication as a means of communication; The Laughing Circle (developing with director Dan Foss), a serio-comedic play about a neurotic, well-to-do Northshore family who find their lives changed by mysterious loner, a woman from India named Meera who begins to teach the family and their friends therapeutic laughter. A new film, (yet untitled) about infidelity and what happens, story Carter Martin.
Finally, Barbara is working with Anne Cadigan, a freelance NPR radio film writer/producer, on a short radio piece about a car's rogue GPS system.
AWARDS
Mimi and Harold Steinberg for Hanging by a Thread
Honorable American College Theater Festival for Strangers
Finalist, Love Creek Theater Co. Samuel French One-Act Contest for Romance
Winner, Babes With Blades' 2nd annual playwriting competition, Joining Sword and Pen, for Los Desaparecidos (The Vanished)
EDUCATION
MFA in Dramatic Writing, Brandeis University
BFA in Theater Arts, Wayne State University
PUBLISHED WORK
Strangers and Romance are published in a book edited by D.L. Lepidus entitled Women Playwrights: The Best Plays of 2001, Smith and Kraus
Two monologues from Romance are included in The Best Male Monologues of 2001 edited by D.L Lepidus, Smith and Kraus
Co-authored with Janet Milstein, Forensics Series Volume 1: Duo Practice & Competition: Thirty-five 8-10 Minute Original Comedic Plays, Smith and Kraus
Co-authored with Janet Milstein, Forensics Series Volume 2: Duo Practice & Performance: Thirty-five 8-10 Minute Original Dramatic Plays, Smith and Kraus
Co-authored with Ira Brodsky, Forensics Series Volume 3: Duo Practice and Competition: Thirty-five 8-10 Minute Original Comedic Plays for Two Females, Smith and Kraus
Co-authored with Ira Brodsky, Forensics Series Volume 4: Duo Practice and Competition: Thirty-five 8-10 Minute Original Dramatic Plays for Two Females, Smith and Kraus
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