Artist Bio

Carson Grace Becker

(Bio as of February 2003)

Carson Grace Becker most recently collaborated with the Goodman on By the Music of the Spheres during the 2002/2003 Season. She earned her MFA in Playwriting from the University of Iowa. Her play A Mislaid Heaven won a Joseph Jefferson Award for Best New Work and an ADA Award (Los Angeles) for Best South Coast Premiere and Best Ensemble. It has been produced at Famous Door Theatre Company (Chica­go), The Road Theatre (Los Angeles), The Open Door Theatre (Chapel Hill, NC) and Highland Repertory (Asheville, NC). She is the first playwriting recipient of the Ofner Prize from the Goodman Theatre, awarded as a commission for her play By the Music of the Spheres, writ­ten in collaboration with David Barr III. Her play The Erotic Life of Property earned her an Illinois Arts Coun­cil Grant, won first place in the Southwest Festival of New Plays (Stages Theatre, Houston), and was chosen for Play­Labs at The Playwright’s Center (Minneapolis). Book of Mercy was produced at Chicago Dramatists and was work­shopped at the midwest branch of the O’Neill Festival, sponsored by The Prop Theatre and Montana Repertory. She was recently commissioned to write the book for a new musical, Africa Plumbridge, which is currently being workshopped in Chicago and New York. Her play Re­membering Heloise was a regional finalist in The Ameri­can College Theatre Festival, and was honored with the Award for Playwriting Excellence from the Kennedy Cen­ter. She teaches playwriting at Columbia College and is a resident at Chicago Dramatists.