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Matthew Paul Olmos (playwright) Tommy Smith is a playwright based in New York, originally from Los Angeles. Contents Early life Was born in Montebello, California to a Labor/Delivery nurse and Los Angeles Police Officer. Olmos grew up in South Pasadena, CA and received his Bachelors Degree in Theater from the University of California at Santa Barbara. He then attended the University of California at Los Angeles in their Playwriting MFA program; however he was invited to leave after his first year. New York - Theater He moved to New York City in August 2001 to attend The Actor’s Studio program at New School University (now New School for Drama). While in school he co-founded woken’glacier theatre company with Nichol Alexander. He then begin working as a core staff member at the Lark Play Development Center, where he worked from 2006 – 2013. In 2009, Olmos was awarded the Sundance Institute’s Time Warner Storytelling Fellowship for his play i put the fear of méxico in’em, which is about an America couple who get accosted after crossing the border into Tijuana, México. In 2012, the play was given a world-premiere in Chicago at Teatro Vista, directed by Artistic Director Ricardo Guiterrez. The play is published by NoPassport Press and Samuel French

About the play, Sundance Institute of Theater Artistic Director Philip Himberg says, “What ensues is a complex encounter that challenges notions of boundary, safety, identity and what you would do for your family. It's a dissection of difference, of connection, of the borders and barriers we use to distance ourselves, and those dangerous moments when we cross over those borders and barriers." And playwright Rogelio Martinez says, “An American couple is taken hostage in Matt Olmos’ frightening trip through a real and imagined Mexico. Olmos’ writing is both hallucinatory and brutal. His story of an American couple’s nightmare is not at all different from America’s nightmare with its ever present neighbor.” Also in 2009, Olmos was invited to Mabou Mines/SUITE Resident Artist Program for his play The Nature of Captivity, where he was mentored by Mabou Mines co-Artistic Directors Ruth Maleczech and Terry O’Reilly. The play was presented in a workshop production directed by Victor Malana Maog and later published by Samuel French

About the play, Terry O’Reilly said: "In this fascinating and intelligent play we are not given shades of grey, but absolute force being punched through defeating utterly last survivors. In the first act a quartet of actors are a makeshift family who are tyrannized by incoming settlers. In the second act the play inverts with the same actors playing the settlers. We know they are the same people. Now they drive the grinding machines that once were out to kill them. This world is a firefight with explosions of laughter and outbreaks of kindness in the relentless progression of destruction and survival at any cost.”

In 2012, Olmos was selected as the Princess Grace awardee in playwriting for his play so go the ghosts of méxico, part one, which was inspired by the life of Marisol Valles Garcia. This play world-premiered in April 2013 by La MaMa e.t.c. as part of their inaugural Ellen Stewart Emerging Artist Award, as selected by playwright Sam Shepard. The production was directed by Meiyin Wang and was a New York Times Critic’s Pick (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/22/theater/reviews/matthew-paul-olmoss-so-go-the-ghosts-of-mexico-part-one.html?_r=0). Marisol Valles Garcia was brought out to New York for the prodcution. (http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/17/bravest-woman-in-mexico-sees-her-story-on-a-new-york-stage/) In the fall of 2013, the play was produced in San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, México and is scheduled to tour México in 2014. Currently, Olmos is working on several new plays including: and the second two plays in his 3-play cycle so go the ghosts of méxico, which focuses on the U.S./México drug wars, which were originally developed during his fellowship at New York Theater Workshop; a new work about American nationalism which is being developed as part of Primary Stages' Dorothy Stelsin New American Writers Group; a still untitled piece based on the behavior of cancer cells. Film Olmos and writing partner Nichol Alexander were commissioned to interview and write a script based on the life of Frederico Fiengo, who managed Frederico’s Restaurant in downtown New York in the 1980’s; the restaurant was visited by Oliver Stone and Michael Douglas in research for the film Wall Street. The screenplay, called Francesco’s was a semi-finalist in the Sundance Institute’s Screenwriters’ Lab. Olmos’ other screenplay, based on a work by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, was also a semi-finalist for the Sundance Institute’s Screenwriters’ Lab. Television Olmos is currently writing an original pilot. Other Writing Olmos is a contributing essayist for The Brooklyn Rail and New York Theatre Review. Honors Sundance Institute UCROSS Resident Playwright, New York Theatre Workshop fellow, Dramatists Guild Fellow, Primary Stages Dorothy Strelsin New American Writer's Group playwright; Brooklyn Arts Exchange Resident Artist, INTAR H.P.R.L playwright, Rising Circle Collective writer, terraNOVA Collective playwright, and is a Ensemble Studio Theater lifetime member.