Noted playwright and Cornell alumnus Oliver Mayer '86 will present a staged reading of his play Joy of the Desolate Thursday, Oct. 19, at 5 p.m. in the Cornell Center for Theatre Arts Film Forum. The playwright will take questions following the reading, which is free and open to the public.
Joy of the Desolate, which centers around a Native American at an Ivy League school, recently had its world premiere and performance run at the Apple Tree Theatre in Chicago. Mayer is the author of 12 plays, including the popular boxing play Blade to the Heat, which will be made into a film by Madonna this fall. His newest play, Conjuncto, was presented at a workshop at the Sundance Institute this past summer and is being developed in conjunction with the Latino Theatre Initiative and San Jose Repertory Theatre. Mayer's play Ragged Time was staged at the Royal Court Theatre in London as well as the Mark Taper New Work Festival and is anthologized in the new book Out of the Fringe.
Mayer's screenplays include: Manifest Destiny, Slow Blind Curve, Wetback Academy, Mojado Power, Caliente and Sins of the City. A graduate of Cornell and Columbia universities, Mayer is a visiting professor of playwriting at the University of California-Riverside. Mayer was voted one of the "100 Coolest People" by BUZZ Magazine. His literary archive can be accessed through Stanford University library.
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