When Jessica was named an O’Neill semifinalist in 2019, Konner decided to devote himself as much as possible to play writing. When Vincent Murphy, retiring Theater Emory Artistic Director, first read the play he sent Konner an email with the subject line, “Wow.” When the director first read it she said she spent the first half wondering if it could work and the second half dabbing her eyes. The professional reading of Sixteen Springs (after five hours of rehearsal) was in Atlanta. It was transformative for him to work with a highly experienced dramaturg (Michael Evenden), director (Ariel Fristoe), and ten actors (including Tess Kincaid, William Murphey, Kyle Brumley, Elisa Carlson, and Doyle Reynolds). His early short fiction was published in MSS (edited by novelist John Gardner) andMassachusetts Medicine. He won the Oberon Poetry Prize for 2018. He has written five other plays, including Jessica, a romantic-comic sequel to The Merchant of Venice,a semifinalist in the O’Neill Center’s 2019 Playwriting Competition. His play ’Erb: An Ethical Romance, a dark comedy about the love lives of people involved in the little dramas of an Institutional Review Board (IRB ’Erb) at an up-and-coming university, received a professional staged (online) reading in September 2020 at Pumphouse Players, one of the oldest community theaters in the Southeast. His play, Sixteen Springs, a romance about the missing years of The Winter’s Tale, had a professional reading in 2018 by Out of Hand Theater and Theater Emory in Atlanta. He has always done and occasionally published imaginative writing, but in recent years he has fulfilled a lifelong dream by giving it a central role in his life. Before declaring himself a playwright, Mel Konner was an anthropologist and father of three who published nonfiction books and wrote often for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and other general media.
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