Claudia Allen, a “master of small-town realism” according to Variety, created her adaptation of Stuart Dybek’s I Sailed With Magellan as her homage to her theatrical hometown, Chicago. A founding member of Chicago’s Victory Gardens Theater’s Playwrights Ensemble, Allen’s VGT premieres include I SAILED WITH MAGELLAN, WINTER and FOSSILS (both starring Julie Harris), CAHOOTS (starring Sharon Gless), UNSPOKEN PRAYERS, HANGING FIRE, DEED OF TRUST (starring Deanna Dunagan), and Jeff Award winners THE LONG AWAITED and STILL WATERS (also starring Deanna Dunagan). Some of Allen’s more fanciful work includes the Jeff-nominated XENA LIVE: XENA LIVES! and THE GAYS OF OUR LIVES. Allen has been produced across the U.S. and overseas. The Miami Herald called Florida Stage’s production of HANGING FIRE “insightful, moving, warmly funny…savor one of the season’s great theater experiences.” Chicago Magazine‘s Best Playwright/1999, Allen has also been a finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize (2003) and Scriptapalooza (2008). In 2000, she received a Trailblazer Award from Bailiwick Repertory Theatre. HANGING FIRE was published in an anthology from Northwestern University Press and the Alexander Street Press has published over a dozen of Allen’s plays in a scholarly CD-ROM collection, “North American Women’s Drama.” Allen has taught playwriting at a number of schools including the University of Chicago. She is currently co-executive producer and screenwriter for the film adaptation of her HANNAH FREE (starring Sharon Gless).