Nationality United States Period 1982 - present | Name Elizabeth Searle Role Novelist | |
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Occupation Novelist, short story writer Genre Literary fiction, erotic literature, theater Education Brown University, Oberlin College Books Celebrities in Disgrace, Girl Held in Home: Novel, A four‑sided bed, My Body To You | ||
Girl Held in Home.mov
Elizabeth Searle is an American novelist, short story writer and playwright. She has a new novel forthcoming in 2016 and a NYC festival production of her rock opera in 2015. Her works have included the novel A Four Sided Bed and the short story collections My Body to You and Celebrities in Disgrace. Her most recent novel "Girl Held in Home" was published in 2011 by New Rivers Press. She wrote the libretto for Tonya and Nancy:The Opera which was produced in 2006 and 2010 and 2014. She also wrote the libretto for the full length musical, "Tonya and Nancy: The Rock Opera" which is being produced in NYC as an official Full Production show at the New York Musical Festival (NYMF) in July, 2015. The show premiered in February 2008. A full production was presented in Boston in 2011. A new 'rock concert' production was performed in sold-out club dates in Hollywood in February 2014. Searle's theater works have drawn national media attention.
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Early life
Searle was born in Penn Wynne, Pennsylvania. Her father Bill is a Democratic Party activist and retired personnel director; Barbara, her mother, is a children's librarian. She has a younger sister, Kate, who works at MIT and Bill, her older brother, is a videographer.
Education
Searle received a B.A. from Oberlin College and her Master's degree from Brown University. She was a special education teacher and taught students with autism in schools located in New Haven, Connecticut and Providence, Rhode Island.
Career
In 1982, Searle's short story, "Missing LaDonna", appeared in Redbook. This was followed by stories placed in the South Carolina Review, the Indiana Review, The Greensboro Review, the Kenyon Review, Ploughshares and other journals. In 1993 her first book, My Body To You, was published. In 1992, it had been named winner of the Iowa Short Fiction Award by the Iowa Writers Workshop. James Salter, a novelist and screenwriter, who wrote The Hunters, Downhill Racer, The Appointment and others, acted as judge.
A Four Sided Bed, Searle's first novel, was published by Graywolf Press in 1998 and received positive reviews from Kirkus Reviews and Booklist.
A novella and collection of short stories entitled Celebrities in Disgrace was published in 2001. It was a finalist for the Paterson Fiction Prize. When discussing one of the themes of this collection during an interview with Post Road Magazine, Searle said, "I had a phrase in my mind, 'the witch of ambition,' and I do think there is this sort of dark force inside of people and any of those dark forces are hard to write about but they're the ones you want to write about...." Ambition and the search for attention seem to be the "...driving forces of our time."
"Celebrities in Disgrace," the title novella, was called a 'miniature masterpiece' by New York Times Book Review. Celebrities in Disgrace was produced as a short film in 2010 by Bravo Sierra Pictures, with a script co-written by Elizabeth Searle. The film premiered as an official selection at Woods Hole International Film Festival on Cape Cod and has screened at other festivals throughout the country. Searle's novel A Four-Sided Bed is being developed as a feature film.
Tonya and Nancy:The Opera previewed at the Zero Arrow Theatre of the American Repertory Theatre in 2006, produced by Tufts Music. It was selected by Opera Vista as one of the three best new one-act operas of the year in 2007. In 2010, it was performed by Mixed Precipitation in a new production in Minneapolis and St. Paul. Mixed Precipitation produced another production in February 2014.
Tonya and Nancy: The Rock Opera', a full length musical, is being produced in NYC in the summer of 2015. It premiered in 2008 in Portland, OR, produced by Triangle Productions. It featured libretto by Searle and music by Michael Teoli. The show was based on Searle and Abigail Al Doory Cross's Tonya & Nancy: the Opera, libretto and concept by Elizabeth Searle; adapted for the Portland production by Don Horn and Searle. The rock opera reviewed as "brilliant and touching" in Portland Mercury and received widespread media attention described in The Oregonian. Tonya & Nancy: the Rock Opera premiered in a new version with a new Book by Searle in January 2011, produced by Harborside Films and performed at the American Repertory Theater's Oberon Theater. Boston reviews included these comments: "Black Swan on Ice" (The Boston Herald); "Absurdly funny; surprisingly poignant moments amidst the comedy and a rousing soundtrack" (The Boston Phoenix); ; "An explosive cabaret of over-the-top rock tunes sung with operatic glass-shattering intensity…practically Shakespeare on ice"; (The Noise); "Brilliant; amazing music; one of the most exciting spectacles I have ever seen' (Steve Almond; WGBH Boston). In 2013, the rock opera was performed as a Staged Reading Showcase in NYC, produced by Harborside Films and directed by Kenny Howard of Broadway Consortium; the NY cast included Broadway performers Melissa van deer Schyff and Janine Divita. A new 'rock concert' performance of the show (Music by Michael Teoli and Libretto with new Book material by Elizabeth Searle) premiered in Hollywood at the King King Club on February 4, 2014, as a benefit for the LA theater Celebration. The show is performing as an official Full Production show at New York Musical Theater Festival (NYMF) in July 2015.
Searle's essays appear in three 2015 anthologies, including "Paper Camera" from New Rivers Press. Her essay "Knitted Goods: Notes from a Nervous Non-Knitter" appeared in the anthology Knitting Yarns: Writers on Knitting, published by W. W. Norton & Company in 2013. Searle's One Act Play 'Stolen Girl Song' premiered at the Northern Writes New Play Festival in Maine in May 2013; it was performed at Poet's Theater in Somerville, MA in December 2013. Searle's novel A Four-Sided Bed is being developed as a feature film by Creatrix Films. Her script for A Four-Sided Bed has won prizes at the American International Film Festival and at Woods Hole International Film Festival in 2013.
Searle has taught creative writing at Brown University, Emerson College, the University of Southern Maine's Program in Creative Writing, the University of Massachusetts Boston and other institutions. She has been a member, Board officer and committee chairperson of the New England chapter of International PEN. In 1984, Searle married software developer John Hodgkinson; they have a son, Will and reside in Arlington, Massachusetts.