(Playwright)

John Belluso's plays include Gretty Good Time, The Rules of Charity, Henry Flamethrowa, and Body Songs, a collaboratively written theatre piece created with legendary theatre director Joseph Chaikin and featuring text by John and music and lyrics by Elizabeth Swados. John was formerly an NEA/TCG Playwright-in-Residence at Trinity Repertory Company in Providence, Rhode Island, where Henry Flamethrowa had its world premiere in January 2001, also directed by Lisa Peterson. He was a member of Center Theatre Group's L.A. Writers' Workshop and the co-director of the Other Voices Project, a professional developmental lab for theatre artists with disabilities. His play Gretty Good Time was first workshopped at Center Theatre Group's 10^th Annual New Work Festival, and went on to be produced at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts as part of the VSA/Arts Playwright Discovery Program. The play has since been produced by Perishable Theatre Company in Rhode Island and by Ensemble Studio Theatre in NYC. John received numerous playwriting awards and honors, including the VSA/Arts Playwright Discovery Award, Center Theatre Group's Richard E. Sherwood Award for Distinguished Emerging Theatre Artist, the Berrila Kerr Foundation Award, the Blanche and Irving Laurie Foundations Theatre Visions Award (for Henry Flamethrowa) and a fellowship from the New York Foundation for the Arts. He received his Bachelors and Masters degree from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, Dramatic Writing Program, where he studied with Tony Kushner, John Guare, Tina Howe, and Eduardo Machado, among others. John was born in Warwick, Rhode Island and lived in Los Angeles up until his death in 2006.