2011: John Patrick Shanley

An accomplished and award-winning writer and director, John Patrick Shanley has written extensively for film and the stage. His play Doubt, which opened off-Broadway in 2004, became the first of his plays to transfer to Broadway and then to the screen. The screen adaptation of Doubt, written and directed by Shanley, earned him 2009 Academy Award and Writers Guild Award nominations for best adapted screenplay. While on Broadway, Doubt won numerous awards, including the Tony, New York Drama Critics Circle Award, The Drama League Award, the Drama Desk Award and the Pulitzer.

Shanley's original screenplays include: Five Corners, Moonstruck (for which he won an Oscar and a Writers Guild Award), The January Man and Joe Versus The Volcano, which he also directed. Five Corners was awarded the Special Jury Prize for screenplay at the Barcelona Film Festival. Shanley also wrote the adapted screenplay for Alive.

His long list of acclaimed plays, many of which he directed in their original productions, includes: Defiance, Savage In Limbo, The Dreamer Examines His Pillow, Beggars In the House of Plenty, Where's My Money?, Italian American Reconciliation, Four Dogs And A Bone, Danny and the Deep Blue Sea and Dirty Story, which earned Shanley a Drama Desk nomination.