About The Playwright

Israel Horovitz was born in Wakefield, Massachusetts, the son of Hazel Rose (née Solberg) and Julius Charles Horovitz, a trucker who became a lawyer at age 50. Horovitz has five children: film producer Rachael Horovitz, television producer-director Matthew Horovitz, composer/performer Adam Horovitz of the Beastie Boys, grad student Hannah Horovitz and writer/filmmaker Oliver Horovitz. He is married to Gillian Adams, former English national marathon champion and record-holder. Horovitz’s plays have been translated and performed in more than 30 languages, worldwide. His is the author of over 70 plays including Line and Indian Wants the Bronx. Screenplays include My Old Lady, Author! Author!, The Strawberry Statement (Prix du Jury, Cannes Film Festival), Sunshine (European Academy Award – Best Screenplay), New York, I Love You, and Emmy and Golden Globe-nominated James Dean. Horovitz wrote, directed and performed the award-winning documentary 3 Weeks After Paradise.

Awards include the OBIE (twice), the Prix de Plaisir du Théâtre, The Prix Italia (for radio plays), The Sony Radio Academy Award (for Man In Snow), The Writers Guild of Canada Best Screenwriter Award, The Christopher Award, The Drama Desk Award, an Award in Literature of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, The Elliot Norton Prize, a Lifetime Achievement Award from B’Nai Brith, The Literature Prize of Washington College, an honorary Doctorate in Humane Letters from Salem (Massachusetts) State College, Boston Public Library’s Literary Lights Award, The Walker Hancock Prize, and many others.

Horovitz is Founding Artistic Director of Gloucester Stage Company and is active Artistic Director of the New York Playwrights Lab. He teaches a master class in screenwriting at Columbia University and La Fèmis, France’s national film school, and a playwriting master class at University of St. Andrews, Scotland. Horovitz visits France, frequently, where he often directs French-language productions of his plays. He is the most-produced American playwright in French theatre history, and has recently been decorated as Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, France’s highest honor for foreign artists. His memoires Un New-Yorkais a Paris have recently been published in France by Grasset. He also works frequently in Italy, where he is co-Artistic Director of Compagnia Horovitz-Paciotto. The 70/70 Horovitz Project, created by NYC’s Barefoot Theatre, began on Horovitz’s 70th birthday. During the year between 31 March 2009 and 31 March 2010, 70 of Horovitz’s plays were given productions and/or readings by theatres in more than 20 countries around the globe.