JAMES STILL’s work has been produced throughout the United States, Canada, China, Japan, Europe, South Africa, New Zealand and Australia. He is an elected member of the National Theatre Conference in New York and a Kennedy Center inductee of the College of Fellows of the American Theatre. Other honors include the Todd McNerney New Play Prize from the Spoleto Festival, William Inge Festival’s Otis Guernsey New Voices Award, the Orlin Corey Medallion from the Children’s Theatre Foundation of America, and the Charlotte B. Chorpenning Award for Distinguished Body of Work. His plays have been nominated four times for the Pulitzer Prize, and have been developed and workshopped at Robert Redford’s Sundance, the New Harmony Project, Seven Devils Playwrights Conference, Eugene O’Neill Playwrights Conference, the Colorado New Play Summit, the Lark in New York, Launch Pad at UC-Santa Barbara, Perry-Mansfield New Works Festival, Telluride Playwright’s Festival, New Visions/New Voices, and Fresh Ink in Minneapolis. Three of his plays have received the Distinguished Play Award from the American Alliance for Theatre & Education. James is the Resident Playwright at Indiana Repertory Theatre, and an Artistic Affiliate at American Blues Theatre in Chicago. Other theaters that have produced his plays include the Kennedy Center, Denver Center, Geva, Cornerstone Theater Company, Ford's Theatre, People’s Light & Theatre, the Barter, Pasadena Playhouse, Portland Stage, the Station, the Asolo, Company of Fools, the Children’s Theater Company of Minneapolis, Metro Theater Company, B- Street Theatre, Tricklock, Theatrical Outift, Round House, American Blues, Shattered Globe, Illusion Theater, and the Mark Taper Forum.
Recent world premieres are the Denver Center Theatre production of Appoggiatura which was then a nominee for Outstanding New Play for the Henry Awards at the Colorado Theatre Guild. Appoggiatura is the second play in the family trilogy that began with the award-winning The House That Jack Built and concludes with Miranda which premiered in 2017 at Illusion Theater in Minneapolis followed by a second production at Indiana Rep. Also premiering recently was The Widow Lincoln at Ford's Theatre in Washington, DC.; and April 4, 1968: Before We Forgot How To Dream at Indiana Rep. James's short play When Miss Lydia Hinkley Gives a Bird the Bird has appeared in several festivals around the country including its premier at Red Bull in New York and was a finalist for the Heideman Award from Actors Theatre of Louisville. New plays include Dinosaur(s); (A) New World , and an adaptation of the classic Black Beauty commissioned by Seattle Children’s Theatre. Other plays include I Love to Eat (solo play about culinary icon James Beard); The Heavens are Hung in Black; Iron Kisses; Looking Over the President’s Shoulder; Searching for Eden; And Then They Came For Me; Amber Waves, and Illegal Use of Hands.
James also works in television and film and has been nominated for five Emmys and a Television Critics Association Award; he has twice been a finalist for the Humanitas Prize. He was a producer and head writer for the series PAZ, the head writer for Maurice Sendak’s Little Bear, and writer for the Bill Cosby series Little Bill. He wrote The Little Bear Movie and The Miffy Movie as well as the feature film The Velocity of Gary. James grew up in Kansas and lives in Los Angeles.