Biography of Simon Levy

UK representative Diamond Management. Simon Levy is the Producing Director/Dramaturg for the Fountain Theatre in Los Angeles where he's been a resident playwright, director, and producer since 1993. His stage adaptation of "The Great Gatsby," which completes his Fitzgerald Trilogy, will inaugurate the Guthrie Theater's new $125M theatre complex in July, 2006 in Minneapolis; it's also been optioned for a commerical production. "The Last Tycoon," which he also directed, won 5 Back Stage West/Drama-Logue awards including Best Adaptation and Best Direction, and was nominated for the prestigious Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Ted Schmitt Award for Original Play. "Tender is the Night," which he also directed, won the PEN USA Literary Award in Drama, and 7 Drama-Logue awards including Best Production and Direction. His most recent projects include: creating a theatre piece from Eliot Weinberger's celebrated article, "What I Heard About Iraq" which has received readings/productions all over the world; a new translation/adaptation of Ibsen's "An Enemy of the People: A Modern Version for America", scheduled for production in 2007; and a new play about Nobel Laureate, Andrei Sakharov. He teaches Playwriting at UCLA Extension, is a site evaluator for both the National Endowment for the Arts and California Arts Council, and is a member of the Dramatists Guild, Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas, the National New Plays Network, the F. Scott Fitzgerald Society, PEN USA, and the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers, as well as a host of political, environmental, and humanitarian advocacy groups.