Craig Volk Named Winner in the 2007 PEN CENTER USA's "Best in the West" Competition
DENVER (Nov. 8, 2007) - University of Colorado Denver assistant professor Craig Volk has been named a winner in the 2007 PEN CENTER USA's "Best in the West" competition. Volk won in the drama category for his play "Mayakovsky Takes the Stage" performed at the King's Center's Eugenia Rawls Courtyard Theatre in Denver. Volk received the honor at the 17th Annual Literary Awards Festival. The first college teacher to ever win a PEN, Volk brings is passion in writing to his teaching at the College of Arts and Media at the downtown Denver campus.
"Mayakovsky Takes the Stage" takes audiences inside the life and mind of Vladimir Mayakovsky, artist, playwright, and leading poet during the Russian Revolution of 1917. Mayakovsky, a passionate and disturbed man who led a life of public disobedience and passionate love, succumbed to the critical beatings of his work in 1930 when he committed suicide by revolver. The darkly humored play originally began as an epic screenplay not even the most patient agent would read. Set in two acts, it uses original and witty dialogue alongside snippets of Mayakovsky's most famous poetic works. Research for both cinematic and theatrical versions took almost ten years.
Craig Volk, an assistant professor in the Theatre, Film, and Video Production Department, was a staff writer for the hit television series, "Northern Exposure," and has written pilots for ABC and CBS, as well as a feature film for Showtime while he was under contract at Viacom.
PEN USA is a nonprofit membership organization of writers working west of the Mississippi River. Its members are connected by goals of building interest in the written word and defending writers worldwide.
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