USA Projects

Joyce Van Dyke's newest play, DEPORTED / A DREAM PLAY, will open in Boston on March 8th, produced by Boston Playwrights' Theatre in association with Suffolk University, at the Modern Theatre at Suffolk.  A descendant of Armenian genocide survivors, the playwright developed this play from true stories including those of her own family. DEPORTED is the recipient of a grant from the Boston University Center for the Humanities, and a Finalist for the 2011 O'Neill National Playwrights Conference.  Earlier versions of the script had readings at the Huntington Theatre, New Repertory Theatre, and the Boston Theatre Marathon, as well as a developmental workshop at Boston University in 2009. 

Joyce's other recent work includes THE OIL THIEF, winner of Boston's 2009 Elliot Norton Award for Outstanding New Script.  THE OIL THIEF was originally commissioned by the Ensemble Studio Theatre / Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Science & Technology Project.  

Earlier plays include A GIRL'S WAR, a story of love and war that deals with an Armenian family in the Karabakh conflict.  Named one of the "Top Ten" plays of 2001 by the Boston Globe, it's been produced by Golden Thread Productions (2009), New Repertory Theatre (2003), and Boston Playwrights' Theatre (2001).  A GIRL'S WAR also won the John Gassner Playwriting Award and the Provincetown Theatre Company Playwriting Award, and was a Nominee for the American Theatre Critics Association Steinberg New Play Award and Finalist for the Jane Chambers Award.  It was published in  Contemporary Armenian American Drama (2004).  Other productions include THE EARRING, published in Laugh Lines: Short Comic Plays  (Boston Theater Marathon, 2005), NOT MY REAL MOTHER (Boston Theater Marathon, 2007), and LOVE IN THE GULF (Boston Playwrights' Theatre, 1996).

Joyce Van Dyke is a MacDowell Colony Fellow, Huntington Theatre  Playwriting Fellow, member of Central Square Theater's PlayPen, recipient of a Massachusetts Cultural Council Playwriting Finalist Grant, and graduate of Boston University's playwriting program. She attended Stanford (BA) and the University of Virginia (PhD), and teaches Shakespeare at Harvard Extension School where she was awarded the Shattuck Teaching Prize.  A member of the Dramatists Guild and StageSource, she is currently working on a new play about a historic production of OTHELLO.