Department of Theatre
Ed Simpson
Ed Simpson received his MFA in acting and directing from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and a BA in speech and drama from Guilford College.His work as a playwright includes Additional Particulars, which won both the 2000 Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award and the Backstage-West Garland Award for Playwriting, and Elephant Sighs, which received highly acclaimed productions in Los Angeles, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. His other full-length plays The Battle of Shallowford, The Comet of St. Loomis, and A Point of Order are regularly produced throughout the United States and Canada. Adaptations include A Christmas Carol, Dancing With Father, and Ladies and Gentleman, This Is Your Crisis! His one act plays include The Amazing Goldin and the Regeneration of the Punjabs, The Paris of the Lackawanna, A Journey Standing Still, Standing Up V and E, The Night Dave Spit in My Ear, Pratt Falls, Cityscape, and Sounds of the Shoah.
As a screenwriter, he wrote for the acclaimed ABC Family Channel television series State of Grace, and he has written the screenplays Apparently Leaving, Elephant Sighs, and Vin Fiz.
From 1980 to 2006, he was Professor of Theater and Playwright-in-Residence at Indiana University of Pennsylvania (IUP). While there, he directed over 30 productions including Waiting for Godot, Little Shop of Horrors, Scapin, The Time of Your Life, Fuddy Meers, Into the Woods, All in the Timing, A New Brain, On the Verge, Cabaret, The Rimers of Eldritch, Devious Means, As You Like It, A Flea in Her Ear, The Skin of Our Teeth, Hot L Baltimore, and The Pirates of Penzance. He is currently teaching theater at High Point University, continuing his work as a playwright/screenwriter, and working as a free-lance director.
He is a recipient of the IUP Distinguished Faculty Award for the Creative Arts in both 1998 and 2002, a Meritorious Achievement Award for Directing from the Kennedy Center/American College Theater Festival, and a Pennsylvania Playwrights Fellowship. He is a member of the Writers Guild of America, Dramatists Guild, and Actors' Equity.
Ed is the father of two children, Ben and Molly, and lives in Winston-Salem, NC, with his wife, Cydney.