6660 Manasota Key Road
Englewood
FL 34223
“A Conversation with 2024 Hermitage Greenfield Prize Winner Deepa Purohit”
with Playwright & 2024 Hermitage Greenfield Prize Winner Deepa Purohit
Presented in partnership with the Greenfield Foundation, Community Foundation of Sarasota County, and Asolo Repertory Theatre
Saturday, April 13 at 3pm
Hermitage Great Lawn (entrance at 6660 Manasota Key Rd, Sarasota, FL 34223)
Register here.
Registration is required. $5 per person.
While we do not often discuss it directly, there is a question we all must encounter in our lives — how does one die with dignity? This question is at the heart of this year’s Hermitage Greenfield Prize winner Deepa Purohit’s new play commission. Further complicating this personal and profound theatrical exploration is a society that values a sophisticated medical system centered on a key tenet: to prolong life. Growing up with a father who immigrated to Ohio and built his career as a surgeon in the American medical system, and a mother who spent many years at the end of her life navigating the complex system as a patient, Purohit brings deep personal connections and insight to the creation of this new work of theater. Join the Hermitage for a candid conversation with this gifted playwright at the very beginning of this work’s journey, as well as her recent Off-Broadway debut at the Atlantic Theater Company.
Deepa Purohit (she/her) is a Brooklyn-based playwright. She made her Off-Broadway debut in the Atlantic Theater Company’s 2022-23 season with the world premiere of her play Elyria (2023 Drama League Award Nominee for Outstanding Production of a Play, 2017 NEA Commission, and 2019 Jerome Foundation support w/Ma-Yi Theater Company). She received the 2023 Laurents/Hatcher Foundation Award for Excellence in Playwriting, and a 2022-23 Edgerton Foundation Award for Elyria. Plays: Crushed Earth with Sanjit De Silva (2017 People’s Light Theatre: New Play Frontiers Commission) – 2023 audio play debut with People’s Light, Theatre Horizon, and Hedgerow Theatre, The In Between, Mxx/perience, A Valentine (2016 Kilroys Honorable Mention), Bones (2017 Andrew Mellon Foundation Residency w/Ma-Yi Theater Company), Have Sari Will Travel! (Rising Circle Theater Collective), Flight, and Mothering: a collection of short form plays. Co-writing with Sanjit De Silva and Rising Circle Theater Collective: Pulling the Lever, American Family Project, Grace. Deepa is currently adapting Elyria into a TV series and working on a NYSCA new play commission from Atlantic Theater Company. She co-founded and ran Rising Circle Theater Collective (2000-2012), a theater company centered on the stories of people of color. A former Baltimore City middle school teacher and 1992 Teach For America alumna, Deepa has a BA in History from Northwestern University, Masters in Public Health from Columbia University, and an MFA in Playwriting from Brooklyn College. She is currently the Director of New Works at People’s Light Theatre.