Gino Di Iorio

Gino Di Iorio, Author of SCAB

Gino is a New York City based playwright. His plays have been produced all over the United States. Many are published and available through both Samuel French and Dramatists Play Service. His new play James Hemings was just featured at the Great Plains Theatre Conference in Omaha, Nebraska. His play Sam and Dede or My Dinner with Andre the Giant was given its world premiere at the Custom Made Theatre in 2016 and was given an Off Broadway production at 59 East 59 in March of 2017. The play was recently published by Dramatists Play Services. The Jag was given its world premiere at The New Jersey Rep in 2017, featuring Soprano’s star Dan Grimaldi. The play was also produced at the Shadowland Theatre in Ellenville, NY. The Jag was the winner of the 2010 Firehouse Theatre’s Great American New Play Award. The Jag was also a finalist in the Laurents Hatcher Award Competition. The Jag is available through Samuel French.

His new play Crib was just given its world premiere at Playhouse in the Square in Memphis, TN, where it won the theatre’s 2016 New Works Competition. Gino’s short play Blue Tent was featured in “Best Ten Minute Plays of 2017” (Smith and Krauss). Blue Tent was also produced in the Boston Marathon 2016 at the Boston Playwrights Theatre. Gino was recently commissioned to write a feature length screenplay by King’s Road Pictures. Release Point was a finalist for the 2011 Thomas Barbour Memorial Playwright’s Award. The play was also a finalist in the Greenhouse New Play Festival through the HotCity Theatre, St. Louis, Missouri. The play was given its world premiere at the New Jersey Rep in 2012. Reparation won the 2011 E. Desmond Lee Playwriting Prize (University of Missouri-St. Louis). The play was also a Yale Drama Series Finalist in 2010 and received its world premiere in 2012 at Luna Stage featuring HBO’s Frankie Faison.

Dead Ringer received its world premiere at the New Jersey Rep in 2009 and its 2nd production at the Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theatre. The play won 1st place in the BBC’s 2005 International Playwriting Competition and was performed on BBC Radio. Dead Ringer is published by Samuel French. Darwin at Down won 2nd place in the 2007 Julie Harris Playwriting Competition. The play has been given staged readings at the Urban Stages Theatre, and the International Theatre Festival in Timisoara, Romania. Centennial Casting, co-written with Nancy Bleemer, has had productions at Penguin Repertory Theatre, the Virginia Stage Company and the Arclight Theatre in NYC and the Seven Angels Theatre. The play is available through Samuel French. Apostasy was given its world premiere at the New Jersey Rep in July of 2006. The play received its New York premiere at the Urban Stages Theatre in April of 2007. Apostasy is also published by Samuel French.

Are You the Wife of Michael Cleary? received its NY premiere in January of 2008 at the Irish Arts Center. The play was also produced at various venues throughout Ireland. Sandbox was produced at the Garter Lane Theatre in Waterford, Ireland. Gino has also written The Key, a one man show addressing teen depression. The Key was developed through Educational Theatre of New England and Boston Children’s Hospital, and will begin a high school tour in 2009-10. Gino was the winner of the 2007 Urban Stages Emerging Playwrights Award. He also has won a Berrilla Kerr Playwriting Award (2003) and a Higgins School Grant (2001). His plays have been finalists at the O’Neill Center, the Humana Festival and New Dramatists.

Winterizing the Summer House was chosen as one of the top ten plays in the 2002 Writer Digest’s national play competition. The play received a main stage production in 2003 at the New Jersey Repertory Theatre. His first play, White Noise, received second prize in Delaware Theater Company’s “Connections” Contest for plays dealing with racial themes and received its first public reading starring Oscar winner F. Murray Abraham. White Noise was given a main stage production by the Turnip Theatre Company in NYC.

Gino has written a number of screenplays, including “Fatboy” and “Morally Straight”, a 2002 Austin Film Festival Semifinalist. “Morally Straight” was given a reading by The Actor’s Playground in NYC, featuring Norbert Leo Butz in the lead role.

Gino is a Professor of Theatre at Clark University in Worcester, MA. He has won a number of awards for his teaching including a Logan Faculty Fellowship and a Hayden Junior Faculty Fellowship. He has also taught at The New School for Social Research, NYU, Rockland Community College, and Acteen. He is a member of the Dramatists Guild.