{"id":459,"date":"2022-07-23T11:20:04","date_gmt":"2022-07-23T15:20:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/artnow\/?page_id=459"},"modified":"2022-10-16T21:00:03","modified_gmt":"2022-10-17T01:00:03","slug":"robert-ohara","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/artnow\/robert-ohara\/","title":{"rendered":"Robert O’Hara"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
Robert O\u2019Hara Headshot<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Biography<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Robert O\u2019Hara\u2019s professional career as a playwright began in 1996 with the Public Theater\u2019s production of his Columbia master\u2019s thesis play Insurrection: Holding History<\/em>, which was awarded Newsweek\u2019s Oppenheimer Award for Best New American Play<\/a>.  O\u2019Hara served as the Mellon Playwright in Residence at the Woolly Mammoth Theater in Washington, D.C. from 2013 to 2015 and had been active with that theater company since 2009 when his play Antebellum<\/em> was produced there, for which he was awarded the Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding New Play<\/a>.  His play Bootycandy<\/em> premiered at the Woolly Mammoth as well in 2011, before moving to the off-Broadway theater Playwright\u2019s Horizons where it would earn him and his cast the Obie Award\u2019s Special Citation<\/a>, as well as the LAMBDA Award for Best Literary LGBT Drama<\/a>.  He directed Bootycandy<\/em> for the Windy City Playhouse in Chicago in 2017, where it was met with unanimous and widespread critical acclaim.  His other works include Brave Blood<\/em>, produced by the Transparent Theater Company in Berkeley, CA in 2001, An American Maul<\/em>, produced during his residence at the American Conservatory Theater in 2018, and Barbecue<\/em>, produced in 2015 by The Public Theater in New York and for which he received the NAACP Award for Best Play<\/a>.  He has also written several projects for the screen, including an unproduced screenplay based on the life of Richard Pryor set to be directed by Martin Scorsese, and a script for the unproduced Oscar Micheaux biopic to which the equally legendary black filmmaker Spike Lee was attached.  His over twenty years of playwriting have garnered him the TANNE Award for Exceptional Body of Work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Career Highlight<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Besides his work as a playwright, O\u2019Hara is also an exceptionally acclaimed theater director; having won the NAACP Award for Best Directing<\/a> for Danai Gurira\u2019s Eclipsed and having been nominated for the Tony Award for Best Director<\/a> for his work on the 2020 production of Jeremy O. Harris\u2019 Slave Play<\/em> at the Golden Theater.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bootycandy<\/em> (2011)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n