Stephen Belber

Stephen Belber (born March 3, 1967) is an American playwright, screenwriter and film director. His plays have been produced on Broadway and in over 50 countries. He directed the film adaptation of his Broadway play, Match, starring Patrick Stewart, (playing the Tony nominated role created by Frank Langella). He also wrote and directed the film Management, starring Jennifer Aniston, Steve Zahn and Woody Harrelson and wrote the HBO film O.G., starring Jeffrey Wright, Theothus Carter, and William Fichtner. Belber was an actor and associate writer on The Laramie Project, (which later became an HBO film, for which he received an Emmy nomination), as well as a co-writer of The Laramie Project, Ten Years Later. Early life Belber was born in Washington, D.C. He studied philosophy at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, graduating in 1989. He attended the Trinity/La MaMa Performing Arts Program following his graduation. He moved to New York in 1992 and held a variety of jobs including waiter, substitute teacher, and wire service operator for the United Nations. His first show in New York was a solo piece titled Psychotic Busboy Blues followed by two more one-man shows, Eclectic Mulatto Moondance and One Million Butterflies. He attended the Playwrights Horizons Theater School and in 1994 he was accepted to the playwriting program at The Juilliard School, where in his second year his full-length play, The Broken Fall, was produced as part of the 4th year repertory.[4] Career In 1997 he was the winner of the Fringe NYC Overall Excellence Award in playwriting for Finally, and in 2000 he won the same award for The Death of Frank. Also in 2000, the Actors Theatre of Louisville produced Belber's Tape at the Humana Festival of New American Plays. He then wrote the screenplay for the 2001 film adaptation of the play Tape, directed by Richard Linklater and starring Ethan Hawke, Uma Thurman, and Robert Sean Leonard. The Naked Angels production of Tape, starring Dominic Fumusa, Josh Stamberg and Alison West, had earlier played in New York, London and Los Angeles.