Artist Bio

(Bio as of November 2009)

Alan Gross is a Chicagoan born and bred. After studying journalism at the University of Missouri, he worked in improvisational theater with Byrne Piven, Del Close and Paul Sills. In an attempt to merge those improvisational techniques with the structure of the “well-made play,” he wrote his first play, Lunching, in 1977. Subsequent plays included The Phone Room, La Brea Tarpits, The Man in 605, The Houseguest, Morning Call and The Secret Life of American Poets. After a stint in Hollywood in the 1990s, Mr. Gross worked on a novel, then returned to playwriting with High Holidays, on which he began work in 2005. His play Push Comes to Shove will be seen in a staged reading at Indiana University this winter, and he has begun work on his latest play, A Little Madness in the Spring. A published poet, Mr. Gross was awarded the Robert Frost Festival Poetry Award in 2008; his work is included in the current edition of Modern Haiku.