Draft:Mark Schultz (playwright)

Mark D. Schultz (born March 7th, 1975) is an American playwright and Episcopal priest. He is the recipient of the Kesselring Prize,. and an Oppenheimer Award for his play Everything Will Be Different: A Brief History of Helen of Troy. His plays include Evocation to Visible Appearance, The Blackest Shore, The Gingerbread House, Ceremony, Deathbed, Gift, and Everything Will Be Different: A Brief History of Helen of Troy.

Life
Schultz grew up in the Inland Empire in Southern California. He graduated high school valedictorian from the Webb School of California in Claremont, California. He went to college at UCLA in the School of Theater Film and Television and graduated valedictorian with a Bachelor's degree in Theater. Schultz went on to earn a Master of Fine Arts in Theater from Columbia University in 2000, and a Master of Divinity from the Yale Divinity School in 2017.

Schultz married the printmaker Erich Erving in 2012 at St. Ignatius of Antioch Church (New York City) in Manhattan.

Ordained a priest in the Episcopal Church, Schultz accepted a call to St. Philip's in the Hills Episcopal Church in Tucson, Arizona after graduating seminary. He currently serves at Saint Thomas Church Fifth Avenue in New York City.

Theater
Schultz was a founding member of experimental, cross-cultural theater group Theater Mitu. From 1997 to 2006 Schultz composed and performed music, served as a dramaturg, and/or acted in several productions and workshops for the company. Productions with which he was involved include his own play Muin Al-Buka: The Master Of Weeping, as well as The Noh Cycle, But Above All Without A Plan, The Tutor, 4 Saints/in Mexico, The Shakespeare Project, Damashok, The Legend Of The Kinaree, The Odyssey (dramaturg), Ahraihsak, and Death Of A Salesman.

From 2000 to 2014 Schultz was a co-founder, member and co/coördinator of MCC Theater's Playwrights' Coalition. Schultz was a resident of New Dramatists from 2013 to 2020/23 and is a current member of Rising Phoenix Rep.

Full Length Plays
Schultz's 2005 debut play, Everything Will Be Different: A Brief History of Helen of Troy, was produced by Soho Rep and True Love Productions at Soho Rep in New York City, directed by Daniel Aukin. The play earned him both a Kesselring Prize, and an Oppenheimer Award, going on to be produced in the United Kingdom by The Actors Touring Company for a UK tour, directed by Gordon Anderson , and starring Andrea Riseborough in her professional stage debut. Jason Zinoman of The New York Times reviewed it saying: "This play pulls no punches in its portrayal of cruelty, and there are points when you want to look away, which is not a criticism at all. Mr. Schultz is a sensitive, ambitious writer ." Schultz followed up Everything Will Be Different in 2008 with Deathbed, a satirical critique of the issue play, produced by Apparition Productions at McGinn Cazale Theater. Produced by the stageFARM at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater in 2009, The Gingerbread House had on all-star cast comprised of Bobby Cannavale, Jason Butler Harner, Jackie Hoffman, Sarah Paulson and Ben Rappaport; it was directed by Evan Cabnet. The Gingerbread House was subsequently produced by Tiyatro Yan Etki in Istanbul, Turkey under the name Kurabiye Ev and ran from 2012 to 2014. Faruk Barman, who played the rôle of Marco, originated by Bobby Cannavale, won a 2013 Sadri Alışık Tiyatro Ödülleri for Best Actor of the Year in a Supporting Rôle. The Blackest Shore was a Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust commission from Playwrights Horizons which was produced at The Catastrophic Theater in Huston Texas in 2015. The Actors Theatre of Louisville commissioned Evocation to Visible Appearance, a play in which black metal is heavily featured, in 2014, finally producing it in 2018 as part of the 42nd Humana Festival at Actors Theatre of Louisville, directed by Les Waters.

Longer One Acts (30 to 60 minutes)
Gift was produced by Rising Phoenix Rep / New York International Fringe Festival for the New York International Fringe Festival in 2005, and presented at P.S. 122. Schultz wrote Polar Bear as a commission from Birmingham Rep & Actors Touring Company for the 2007 Generation Festival of work for young people at Birmingham Rep's The Door theater in Birmingham, UK. The Exchange produced Monkey’s Paw Variations based on W.W. Jacobs short story The Monkey’s Paw in 2008. Schultz's play Ceremony was produced in 2010 by Rising Phoenix Rep and made its premier at the Seventh Street Small Stage in New York.

Shorter One Acts (10 to 15 minutes)
Last was produced by Rising Phoenix Rep in 2001, and presented at Wax Space, in New York City. Rising Phoenix Rep produced still in 2002 and 2011. still made its debut at Blue Heron, and was remounted at The Cathedral of St. John the Divine where Schultz would later be ordained clergy in the Episcopal Church. In 2009 the stageFARM produced F*U*N at the Cherry Lane Theater. Schultz's play We Have the Music was produced in 2011 by F*it Club at IRT Theater where they would once again produce his play The Depression in 2012.

Francis Ford Coppola's magazine Zoetrope: All-Story published Schultz's short play Passion in 2001

Priesthood
After being an aspirant for two years Schultz was made a postulant in the Episcopal Church in 2013. He attended Berkeley Divinity School at Yale, the Yale Institute of Sacred Music, and Yale Divinity School, graduating in 2017. While at seminary, Schultz earned the William E. Downes Prize for highest proficiency in public reading of the scriptures and of hymns, and the Harriett Jackson Ely Prize for excellence and promise in theology from Yale Divinity School in 2016. In 2017 he received the St. Luke's Award for liturgical leadership and the E. William Muehl Prize for excellence in preaching at Berkeley Divinity School ; the Aidan Kavanaugh Achievement Prize from the Institute of Sacred Music ; and the Julia A. Archibald High Scholarship Prize, and the Henry Hallam Tweedy Prize for a graduating Master of Divinity student with exceptional promise for pastoral leadership: Mark Schultz (jointly with two others) from Yale Divinity School.

Schultz was ordained to the Transitional Diaconate on March 4, 2017 by the Right Reverend Mary Glasspool. He received his priestly ordination on September 9, 2017 from the Right Reverend Andrew M.L. Dietsche, 16th Bishop of New York.

He accepted his first call as Curate for Children,Youth and Families at Saint Philips in the Hills Episcopal Church in Tucson, Arizona in 2017. Schultz returned to New York in 2021 after accepting a call to Saint Thomas Church Fifth Avenue as Associate for Pastoral Care.

As a priest, Father Schultz has published a two-part article, An Argument for the Recovery of Ocular Reception Derailed or Why Digital Phantasms Cannot Confect the Eucharist (I) and (II) and a monologue, Pearl, for the online publication Earth&Altar.

Principal Theatrical Works

 * 2018: Evocation to Visible Appearance (Commissioned by Playwrights Horizons the Actors Theater of Louisville and performed by the Actors Theater of Louisville as part of the Humana Festival)
 * 2015: The Blackest Shore (A Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust Commission from Playwrights Horizons produced at The Catastrophic Theater)
 * 2010: Ceremony (Produced by Rising Phoenix at Seventh Street Small Stage at Jimmy's No. 43)
 * 2009:The Gingerbread House (Produced by the stage FARM at rattlestick Playwrights Theater)
 * 2008: Deathbed (Apparition Productions at McGinn Cazale Theater)
 * 2005: Gift (Rising Phoenix Rep @ NewYork Fringe Festival)
 * 2005: Everything Will Be Different: A Brief History of Helen of Troy (Produced by Soho Rep and True Love Productions at Soho Rep and in the United Kingdom by The Actors Touring Company UK tour)