Stephen Ludwig began writing plays in 1997, after taking classes at South Coast Repertory with Cecilia Fannon and John Glore. Since then, productions of his short plays have been successfully received by both critics and audiences. His first full-length play, Accidental Dancers, premiered to sold-out houses at the Long Beach Playhouse Studio Theatre (June 2000), subsequently receiving the annual Best New Play Award from OC Weekly Magazine. In September 2001, the Rude Guerrilla Theatre Company in Santa Ana produced a collection of his short plays under the title No More Angels.  His recent works include a comedy, Hold the Virgin, and a drama, Facing Giacometti.  His translation/adaptation of Jarry’s King Ubu was produced in October 2004, and How Sex Made Me Rich is slated for production in 2006.

 In addition to playwriting, he helped found New Voices Playwrights Workshop, a group of Orange County playwrights. He is currently a Board member of the Rude Guerrilla Theater Company as well as Literary Manager, and facilitates a writers’ group. He is affiliated with Fringe Benefits in Los Angeles. He has worked as dramaturge on productions of David Stevens’ The Sum of Us  (Long Beach and Hollywood, 2001);  Ronald Harwood’s Taking Sides (Santa Ana, 2002,);  Steve Patterson’s Liberation (Santa Ana, 2003) and Joe Penhall's Some Voices (Santa Ana, 2005.). He also functioned as producer of the California premier of Sarah Kane’s Blasted (Burbank, 2004) and of a revivial of Mark Ravenhill's Some Explicit Polaroids (Hollywood, 2005.). He is a former member of the Literary Committee at the Long Beach Playhouse, and he has studied acting at SCR with Norma Bowles and has performed on-stage and in numerous readings.

 His plays have been produced at South Coast Repertory, the Theatre District and the Costa Mesa Civic Playhouse, all in Costa Mesa, California; the Vanguard in Fullerton; the Long Beach Playhouse; and the Rude Guerrilla Theatre Company in Santa Ana.

Playlist and Production History

Short Plays                                                                             Full-Length Plays

(bold face indicates productions, with dates)

The Last Night Club                                                                  Accidental Dancers (2000)

The Medea Variations                                                               Hold the Virgin

Twice Told Tales (1997)                                                        Facing Giacometti     

Joy.com  (1998, 1999, 2001)                                                  King Ubu, transl./adapt. (2004)

Jack’s Christmas (1997)                                                       How Sex Made Me Rich (2007)

Duet (1998)

Vacation Escape (1998, 2001)

No More Angels (1998, 2005)

Reverie of Friends  (2001)

Gift of the Beast  (1999, 2001)

Big Al at the Beach  (2000)

The Security Guard

Bearing Witness  (2001)

Mother of Memory  (2001)

\I had sinus so bad, when I was three, the doctors said it would cause brain damage if it wasn’t cured, and it wasn’t cured until some brave soul took some of my infected snot and re-injected me with it. It made a vaccine from my own poison.  I think that’s how I survive.

Starting about age three into my forties, I had painful, thrilling, ecstatic, devastating connections with friends/lovers named Russ, Ralph, Ricky, Linda, Carol, Sue, Emmy Lou, Ricky again, Bill, Louis, Chas, Patricia, Will, John, Jimmy, Dennis, Fran, Susan, Ken. Now, in my fabulous fifties, when I see someone I like, it just makes me smile. As I do it all over again.

I’m a Francophile – very at home in France: give me a long lunch at a table on a patch of gravel in the shade of some leafy trees, a warm breeze like a caress from some nearby river; some saucisson, fromage and vin du pays; a dark-eyed beauty sitting across from me, spilling out his or her soul, laughing, serious, passionate, sincere, intimate, the voice slipping into my ear like a French kiss – what more could I want?

Maybe a real kiss, warm lips in the cold rain on some bridge over the Seine.  Romantic, yes. Happily incurable. Besides, I love the rain – it always makes me horny.

There can never be too many words. They determine our perception of reality, so the more words we have, the more freedom we have in our choices. I don’t think any of us can ever experience the reality of anything we don’t have a word for.  Except maybe in the wordless arts – music, painting, sculpture, ballet, architecture – but then look how we search for words to define the essence of what they convey, as if the experience will slip away if we can’t give it a name. The Japanese have different words for the feeling that you get from beauty-that’s-ephemeral as distinct from beauty-that’s-eternal. And if you don’t have the words, how hard it is to share the experience – and what good is an experience that can’t be shared? We learn more words, other languages, because we learn to see and to feel what did not exist for us – as if we could suddenly see gamma rays and three hundred kinds of snow. The world opens up in delightful, unexpected ways. We keep reaching, touching, finding more to love and revel in.

And so creation is never finished, embraces never end.  I will never see deeply enough into your eyes.  But, oh, how I love to look.