Tyler Whidden’16 has won the prestigious Trisolini Award which is given to grad students at Ohio University! There were 5 recipients of a graduate fellowship award and each was awarded $15,000, plus a full tuition scholarship for fall and spring semesters. Last year Neal Adelman won the award with his proposal for his thesis play about taxidermied animals and masculinity, “Only Good Things Happen at the Fair.” Congrats Tyler on this big honor and we are so excited to see how this new play idea will take shape!
More about the project:
Project Title: Occupation: Dad
Statement:
In my thesis play, I intend to explore what it means to be a father today in a world where more women are working and more men are staying home with their children. Occupation: Dad follows a day in the life of new father, Jason, as he and his newborn son navigate through the rocky terrain of stay-at-home parenting. Like James Joyce’s Ulysses (but with slightly less drinking), Jason and his son are on a journey encountering people and situations that question and challenge Jason’s ability to be a parent. During his search, Jason faces his relationship with his own father and soon realizes the answers to being a good father can be found in being a better son. The Named Fellowship will allow me the freedom to continue to explore topics and situations that come with being a stay-at-home father and how those situations can shape the new family dynamic.
Click here to read the full OU Press Release
More about Tyler
Tyler Whidden was born and raised in Cleveland, OH where he grew up the least-talented son of a hockey-first family. After earning his BFA in Playwriting at Ohio University, he began a tragic career as a stand-up comic based out of Seattle, WA. As a comedian, Tyler was labeled by critics and fans alike as, “hilarious,” “tragic,” and “probably stoned.” After years of toiling on the road, he moved to Chicago where he returned to theater, studying and working with Victory Gardens and the Neo-Futurists theaters among many others. He received his MFA in Creative Writing from Goddard College and worked as Director of Education with the great Ensemble Theatre of Cleveland. His play Dancing With N.E.D. has seen productions in New Jersey, Ohio, and Washington. His family-friendly farce, The Unofficial Almost True Campfire Tales of Put-in-Bay was commissioned by the Put-in-Bay Arts Council as part of their Bicentennial Celebration of the Battle of Lake Erie in the Summer of 2013 and his one-act play, Detour, was part of the “Truck Stop Plays” production in Chicago. He is currently an Instructor at Ohio University and at Southern New Hampshire University and lives in Athens, Ohio, with his beautiful wife, Angie — who is way out of his league — and their beautiful boy, Booker — who is Tyler’s intellectual equal.
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