The Body of an American

(Paperback)

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Mogadishu, 1993. Paul is a Canadian photojournalist who is about to take a picture that will win him the Pulitzer Prize. Princeton, the present day, Dan is an American writer who is struggling to finish his play about ghosts. Both men live worlds apart but a chance encounter over the airwaves sparks an extraordinary friendship that sees them journey from some of the most dangerous places on earth to the depths of the human soul.Flying from Kabul to the Canadian High Arctic, The Body of an American sees two actors jump between more than thirty roles in an exhilarating new form of documentary drama. It urgently places these two mens battles both public and private against a backdrop of some of the worlds most iconic images of war. The Body of an American is the recipient of the 2013 Edward M. Kennedy Prize for Drama Inspired by American History. It also received the PEN Center USA Award for Drama and the L. Arnold Weissberger Award, and premiered at Portland Center Stage in 2012, directed by Bill Rauch. The play was the recipient of the McKnight National Residency & Commission from the Playwrights Center, as well as a Sundance Institute Time Warner Storytelling Fellowship and a TCG Future Collaborations Grant. For further information and resources on this play, visit the Edward M Kennedy website: http://kennedyprize.columbia.edu/winners/2013/obrien/

Reviews

...a feisty docu-drama about Paul Watson...a fascinating mix of troubled and troubling biography and autobiography...holds you in a steely grip. * Four Stars - Time Out *
...an engrossingly subjective docu-drama which feels psychologically acute and politically important...a really superb piece of theatre. * The Stage *
The Body of an American is a play about writing a play but it's also an intricate meditation on the nature of memory and guilt. * Four Stars - Evening Standard *
A play that tightens its grip as it probes where war lives, and discovers we each carry it inside ourselves. * Four stars - Guardian *
Provides ample food for thought - Moment by moment the livewire, oddly introspective theatrical experience keeps us on our toes, and accumulatively it presents us with a debate about where we should draw the line between observation and involvement, what's good about curiosity and what's bad. * Four stars - Telegraph *

Author Bio

Dan O'Brien's current projects include The Body of an American, which also received the PEN Center USA Award for Drama and the L. Arnold Weissberger Award, and premiered at Portland Center Stage in 2012. O'Brien's debut collection of poetry entitled War Reporter was published in 2013 from Hanging Loose Press in Brooklyn and CB Editions in London. War Reporter is currently on the shortlist for the UK's Forward Prize for Best First Collection.