Artist Bio

David Barr III

(Bio as of February 2003)

David Barr III most recently collaborated with the Goodman on By the Music of the Spheres during the 2002/2003 Season. As a writer, his plays include The Death of the Black Jesus, which helped him become a recipient of a 1995 Illinois Arts Council Fellowship, and was the winner of the 1994 National Play­writing Award, the 1993 Mixed Blood Versus America National Playwriting Contest and the 1997 Black Theatre Alliance Award for Best Original Writing. The play made its Chicago premiere at the Chicago Theatre Company. His adaptation of the Walter Mosley novel A Red Death had its world premiere in 1997 at the Chicago Theatre Com­pany and was the winner of the 1998 Edgar Allan Poe Award. His other work includes Black Caesar (winner of the 1997 Theodore Ward playwriting contest); Ev’ry Time I Feel the Spirit (winner of the 1999 Unicorn Theatre Na­tional Playwriting Award); a series of monologues for the Chicago Historical Society in conjunction with their Voice From History program; The State of Mississippi vs Em­mett Till, co-written with the late Mamie Till Mobley; a co­adaptation of The Journal of Ordinary Thought (voted as one of the best plays of 1999 by both the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times and winner of the Festival of Emerging American Theatre National Playwriting Com­petition); Those Union Station, Pullman Porter Blues; a stage adaptation of the Albert French novel, Billy; and the musical docu-drama Bronzeville. He was the lead writer for the syndicated television talk show Take Two and worked for three years as a feature writer for EM (Ebony Man Magazine). Mr. Barr is a resident playwright and board member at Chicago Dramatists, and the associate artistic director and playwright-in-residence of the Chica­go Theatre Company since 1994. He was named a 2000 re­cipient of the Donahue-Tremaine Trust Award for excellence in playwriting and also received Illinois Arts Council Fellowships in 1999 and 2002.

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