D.W. Gregory is a playwright* and recovering theatre critic whose work has appeared under the name ''Dolores Whiskeyman," a moniker the author has since retired, along with the jersey it came on. She is a member of the Dramatists Guild and a resident playwright at New Jersey Repertory Company, which premiered her play, The Good Daughter, in October 2003. Otherwise, the author is a humorless, colorless creature of habit who turned to playwriting as a cheaper substitute for group therapy. For many years now, she has labored under the delusion that her work will one day be widely produced and critically acclaimed. The fool! Until that day comes, the author pays her rent by editing articles about state tax law, a lucrative gig that is every bit as dull as it sounds.
2004
Despite checkered past, author lands gig teaching playwriting to impressionable high school students. Obscure Irish theatre troupe stages Savage Sex, launching author as internationally ignored dramatist, since the provocative title fails to draw any audience-generating protests from uptight moralists. Slow year ends with surprise win in national playwriting competition. Author chalks it up to dumb stupid luck. Gig writing one-acts for youth theatre turns out to be most lucrative of a brief, pathetic career.
2003
Radium Girls debuts in Montana, is published by Dramatic Publishing, and proves to be a hit with high school drama clubs. New play about Jack Dempsey workshopped at Theater of the First Amendment, is finalist for New Harmony Project and O'Neill, makes semi-finals for big, fat play prize. Hopes dashed by nicely worded rejection letter. Sideline as theatre critic comes to screeching halt when it becomes clear that writing reviews will never pay any better than writing plays. Good Daughter opens to glowing reviews, breaks all previous box office records, is nominated for Pulitzer Prize. Author drops over in dead faint, is revived by phone call from movie studio. Success of play leads to feeble effort to seek agent; query to William Morris returned unread with nasty note from legal department. Author goes shopping for 12-year-old scotch.
2002
Literary manager at The Guthrie rejects play author never sent him, an indication that her work is circulating, if not widely, then strangely. Author attends O'Neill Critics Institute in lame effort to schmooze director of O'Neill Playwrights Conference. Effort fails; play rejected. Radium Girls opens in Seattle; Driven to Abstraction stuns audiences at Western Kentucky University; both productions give author excuse to go traveling. Effort to schmooze literary managers in Seattle falls flat, plays rejected, author slinks off to local bar for a brewski. No literary managers to speak of in Bowling Green.
2001
Author lands gig writing theater reviews for the Washington Post, pisses off small theatre companies in town. Tries to use Post gig to impress literary agents; agents unimpressed. Reading of Radium Girls at Ensemble Studio Theatre results in panic attack for author, award of small grant to "develop play." Money funds subsequent trip to Seattle. Lands gig teaching playwriting at area community college; five of nine students drop the course.
2000
Radium Girls opens at Playwrights Theatre to rave reviews. Very first Equity production is named Best New Play of the Season and one of Top Ten Productions of 2000 by Newark Star-Ledger---two days after a New York agent rejects the script as "unproduceable." Good Girl Is Gone is finalist for O'Neill.
1998-1999
Author runs off to New Jersey to spend year as writer in residence at Playwrights Theatre, where she writes 30 drafts of Radium Girls and nearly bankrupts herself on phone calls to boyfriend back in D.C. Receives NEA production grant for Radium Girls, is finalist for O'Neill. Teaches various playwriting workshops; inspires students at Newark school. Panics over bank account. Starts new play, slinks back to old job and 401-k-plan. And boyfriend.
1965- 1998
Writes numerous plays, newspaper articles, essays, letters, short stories, post-cards, checks, and term-papers. Acquires MFA in drama and $20,000 in debt.
Pre-1965
Pre-literate. No plays written. Draws on a few walls, though.
* click here for
official bio -- for use by those legions of reporters desperate to write about
me