1. Oren Safdie is a Canadian-American-Israeli playwright and screenwriter, and the son of architect Moshe Safdie.
22 Facts About Oren Safdie
1. 2.
Oren Safdie originally planned to become an architect like his father Moshe Safdie.
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Oren Safdie obtained a master of architecture degree, attending the Graduate School of Architecture at Columbia University in New York.
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Oren Safdie wrote a 10-minute scene, drawing on his experience at Columbia presenting a design to a jury of critics, which involved three ego-driven architects and one student.
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Oren Safdie stayed another four years at Columbia and completed an MFA in Fiction Writing.
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Oren Safdie was awarded a Woolrich Fellowship, and founded The West End Gate Theatre, a student theater company that included actors like Oscar nominee Ethan Hawke and The Whole Nine Yards actress Amanda Peet.
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Oren Safdie became a playwright-in-residence at La MaMa back in 1996, and he produced the first ever Canadian Theatre Festival in New York.
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Oren Safdie spent a year at Iowa State University where he taught architecture and studied with Jane Smiley.
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Oren Safdie teaches playwriting and play analysis at the University of Miami and advises the Astonishing Idiots, a new student-run theater company, housed under the Department of Theatre Arts.
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Oren Safdie resides in Los Angeles with his wife, actress and playwright M J Kang, and their daughter born in 2008.
11.
Oren Safdie wrote the 1998 film You Can Thank Me Later, based on his play Hyper-Allergenic.
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Oren Safdie is determined to fulfill his lifelong dream of being a playwright.
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Oren Safdie selected the Arkansas venue because of a positive experience he had at the theater the previous year.
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Oren Safdie attended the grand opening of the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, which was designed by his father, architect Moshe Oren Safdie.
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Oren Safdie was impressed with how the audience in Rogers got jokes that New Yorkers missed.
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Oren Safdie's intern feels his design is not a worthy memorial to the millions who died.
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Oren Safdie held a reading of the play at the Blank Theater in Santa Monica, CA in 2013.
18.
In December 2014, Oren Safdie staged a reading of his play Mr Goldberg Goes to Tel Aviv which explores the relationship between left-leaning Diaspora Jews and Israelis in the context of Mideast politics at the Rialto Theatre in Montreal, Quebec.
19.
Oren Safdie's other plays include: Hyper-Allergenic, Laughing Dogs, and Gratitude, which opened at MainLine Theatre in Montreal and winning at META, before playing off-Broadway at Urban Stages to critical acclaim.
20.
Oren Safdie co-wrote the 2007 Israeli film Bittersweet, directed by Doron Benvenisti, which played at the Jerusalem and Montreal World Film Festivals, nominated for a Wolgin Award for Best Israeli Feature and a Golden Zenith Award.
21.
Oren Safdie has been a contributor to Metropolis Magazine, and has written for Dwell, The Forward, The New Republic, The Jerusalem Post, Israel National News, The Algemeiner, The Times of Israel, the National Post, the Canadian Jewish News, and the Israeli radio network Arutz Sheva.
22.
Oren Safdie is the recipient of numerous grants and fellowships including the Canada Council for the Arts, the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Quebec, the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, the John Golden Fund and the Societe de developpement des entreprises culturelles.