Leslie Ayvazian

Leslie Ayvazian is the author of 8 full-length plays and 7 one act plays, published variously by Samuel French and Dramatist Play Service. Some have been included in annual anthologies of best plays. Nine Armenians won the John Gassner/Outer Critics Circle Award for best new American play, The Roger L. Stevens Award, and second place for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. Rosemary and I received an honorable mention from the Susan Smith Blackburn jury. Leslie has received commissions from the Manhattan Theatre Club, Windancer Productions and South Coast Repertory Theatre. Make Me, directed by Christian Parker, was produced in New York by the Atlantic Theatre Company. High Dive was produced at the Long Wharf Theatre and the Manhattan Class Company, directed by David Warren, and went on to be produced in Poland and Slovakia. Her short film Every Three Minutes starring Olympia Dukakis was produced by Showtime and won a Telly Award. Her play Deaf Day was produced as a short film in Syria by Rana Kaz Kaz, and was included in the 2012 Palm Springs International Short Film Festival. Her latest short film, The Favor, stars Olympia Dukakis, Margaret Colin, and John Pankow. A theatrical version of The Favor ran at City Theatre in 2013 and also had a production in The Ensemble Studio Theatre’s Spring festival of one-act plays. A current play Out of the City has received workshops at the Manhattan Theatre Club and the Southampton Writers’ Conference. It will receive its first production next season at the Purple Rose Theatre in Chelsea, Michigan. A second production will follow in 2014 at the Merrimac Theatre in Lowell, Massachusetts, directed by Christian Parker. Her one-act play Above it All recently toured the Miami, FL school system. Her latest play, 15/15, recently received a workshop at the Atlantic Theatre in NYC. Leslie is an Adjunct Professor of dramaturgy at the Columbia University Graduate School of the Arts. Her credits as an actress include a recurring role on Law & Order – SVU and roles on Broadway in Lost in Yonkers and Naked Girl on the Apian Way.