Stephen Adly Guirgis Biography

Perhaps best known for his work at the LAByrinth Theater Company in New York with Philip Seymour Hoffman, playwright and director Stephen Adly Guirgis was born in New York in 1965. He attended the University at Albany, SUNY before joining the New York theater scene, where he was recruited into the LAByrinth theater by both Hoffman and John Ortiz in 1994, becoming the theater's co-artistic director in 1998. Meanwhile, Guirgis continued writing, premiering "Behind the Counter with Mussolini" at the New York Theatre in 2000. He would also experiment with other avenues in theater, directing Liza Colón-Zayas' play "Sistah Supreme" for Danny Hoch's Hip Hop Theater Festival. His 2000 play "Jesus Hopped the 'A' Train" won him immense acclaim, and he followed it up with 2003's "Our Lady of 121st Street," directed by Hoffman. His 2008 endeavor "The Little Flower of East Orange" was also directed by Hoffman at the LAByrinth, with actor Ellen Burstyn in the lead role. That same year found Guirgis indulging in another of his favorite artistic pursuits: acting. He made a small but memorable appearance in Charlie Kaufman's film "Synecdoche, New York" (2008), working again with Hoffman, his longtime collaborator. Guirgis moved steadily up the ladder of acclaim with his 2011 play "The Mother----er With the Hat," which opened on Broadway. But an even greater achievement was yet to come, when his 2014 play "Between Riverside and Crazy" premiered Off-Broadway at the Atlantic Theater Company and won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Having reached what some would call the uppermost echelon of theatrical achievement, Guirgis shifted gears for his next project, writing and executive producing the Netflix series "The Get Down" (Netflix, 2016-).