When Martín applies for a position at the local Walmart-turned-Detention Center, he expects to be supervising hardened criminals facing deportation. But he soon discovers he's guarding a warehouse full of children, as young as his own, separated from their families at the nearby Texan border. Still, jobs are scarce, the graveyard shift pays well, and Martín is in no position to turn down a steady paycheck. But when a strange epidemic reaches the facility, he faces a moral reckoning. Stark and propulsive, Tender Age joins Brant’s Grounded (Studio, 2014) as a play about living at the edge of your ethics.
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Studio Theatre's 2020-2021 season is made possible through the generosity of Season Sponsors Susan and Dixon Butler; Dr. Mark Epstein and Amoretta Hoeber; David and Jean Heilman Grier; Arlene and Robert Kogod; Judge Albert Lauber and Prof. Craig Hoffman; Joan and David Maxwell; Teresa and Dan Schwartz; Steven and Linda Skalet; Bobbi and Ralph Terkowitz; and Amy Weinberg and Norbert Hornstein.
George Brant’s plays include Grounded, Marie and Rosetta, Into the Breeches!, The Prince of Providence, Elephant’s Graveyard, Tender Age, Salvage, The Mourners’ Bench, Three Voyages of the Lobotomobile, Any Other Name, Good on Paper, Dark Room, and Grizzly Mama.
An Affiliated Writer at the Playwrights’ Center, his scripts have been translated into 15 languages and performed in 22 countries by such companies as The Public Theater, Atlantic Theater Company, The Cleveland Play House, Trinity Rep, The Alley Theatre, London’s Gate Theatre, Page 73, and Studio Theatre, among others.
His plays have been generously developed by the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center, The New Harmony Project, The Kennedy Center, Theatre @ Boston Court, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, and WordBRIDGE Playwrights Lab.
His scripts have been awarded a Lucille Lortel Award, an Edgerton Foundation New Play Award, the Smith Prize, the Keene Prize for Literature, a National New Play Network Rolling World Premiere, a Scotsman Fringe First Award, an Off-West End Theatre Award, three Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Awards, a Creative Workforce Fellowship, and the Theatre Netto Festival Grand Prize.
George has received writing fellowships from the Michener Center for Writers, McCarter Theatre Center, the MacDowell colony, the Hermitage Artist Retreat, the Djerassi Resident Artists Program, the Blue Mountain Center, as well as commissions from the Metropolitan Opera, Trinity Rep, Dobama Theatre, and The Cleveland Play House.
George received his MFA in Writing from the University of Texas at Austin and is a member of the Dramatists Guild. He is published by Samuel French, Oberon Books, and Smith & Kraus. He is currently working on a stage adaptation of the novel Crooked River Burning, a musical version of The Land of Oz, and an adaptation of Grounded for the Metropolitan Opera with music by Jeanine Tesori.
(As of October 2020)
Henry Godinez is the Resident Artistic Associate at Goodman Theatre. His Goodman directing credits include Fannie Lou Hamer, Speak On It! by Cheryl West; Charise Castro Smith’s Feathers and Teeth; The Sins of Sor Juana and Mariela in the Desert by Karen Zacarías; José Rivera’s Boleros for the Disenchanted (and the world premiere at Yale Repertory Theatre); Regina Taylor’s Millennium Mambo (also as Urban Zulu Mambo, Signature Theatre); Luis Alfaro’s Electricidad and Straight as a Line; The Cook by Eduardo Machado; Zoot Suit by Luis Valdez; the Goodman/Teatro Vista co-production of José Rivera’s Cloud Tectonics and the 1996–2001 productions of A Christmas Carol. He also served as director of the Goodman’s Latino Theatre Festival. His other directing work includes Indiana Repertory Theatre, Dallas Theater Center, Portland Center Stage, The Children’s Theatre Company, Victory Gardens, Court Theatre, and Denver Center for the Performing Arts. Co-founder and former artistic director of Teatro Vista, Godinez is the recipient of the 1999 Theatre Communications Group Alan Schneider Director Award, the Distinguished Service Award from Lawyers for the Creative Arts, and was honored as the 2008 Latino Professional of the Year by the Chicago Latino Network. Born in Havana, Cuba, Godinez is a professor at Northwestern University and serves on the Board of Directors of the Illinois Arts Council.
(As of October 2020)