"Moments of grace or insight or good writing actually are dependent on a day-to-day process."
Russell Davis (b. 1948) is a politically engaged playwright with a long and distinguished career. In his view, "what makes a play is language, is subtext, and how language can play off of silence, or unacknowledged emotions or intentions, and be the mere surface, the very tip, of what is going on. What makes a play are the choices of setting and lighting, the choices of actors and director, and how all these can come together sometimes in one huge and surprising whole."
Davis' plays include Cecilia's Last Tea Party, Appointment with a High Wire Lady, Crispin: The Cross of Lead,* The Song of Grendelyn, *The Second Death of Pricilla, and The Thoughts & Travels of Nicki. They have been produced at various theaters, some of which include the Passage Theatre Company, Trenton, NJ; School House Theatre, Croton Falls, NY; Ensemble Studio Theatre, New York City, NY; People's Light & Theatre Company, Malvern, PA; and the Touchstone Theatre, Bethlehem, PA. In 2004, Davis received a playwright fellowship from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and from 1999–2001, he was resident playwright at People's Light & Theatre Company for the Theatre Residency Program of the National Endowment for the Arts/Theatre Communications Group. Davis received two earlier fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts as well as grants from the McKnight Foundation, the Tennessee Arts Commission, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and the New York State Council on the Arts.
