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CONTACT INFORMATION

kraus photo Joanna H. Kraus
E-Mail: tjkraushouse@hotmail.com

PROFILE

Joanna H. Kraus is an award-winning playwright of fifteen published and widely produced scripts throughout the United States, Canada, England, and Australia. Her popular play THE ICE WOLF (New Plays, Inc.) appears in New Women's Theatre, Dramatic Literature for Children, Around the World in 21 Plays, Theater for Young Audiences: 20 Great Plays for Children and Women of Courage. It was first produced Off Off Broadway by Equity Library Theatre.Translation: Spanish

REMEMBER MY NAME (Samuel French) was produced Off Off Broadway by the Jerusalem Group Theatre and won first prize in the Bonderman/IUPUI National Youth Theatre Playwriting Competition. An excerpt is included in Images from the Holocaust, A Literature Anthology (Scarecrow Press).

THE SHAGGY DOG MURDER TRIAL (Anchorage Press) appears in Scott, Foresman's Beginnings in Literature: America Reads.

ANGEL IN THE NIGHT (Dramatic Publishing) was commissioned by the Honor of Humanity Project under the direction of National Louis University in affiliation with the Avenue of the Righteous and won the 1996 Distinguished Play Award from the American Alliance for Theatre and Education. It's included in the anthology Voices, Plays for Studying the Holocaust (NTC). Translations: Dutch, Flemish.

Other works include Ms. Courageous: Women of Science (New Plays) an excerpt from which is included in Reading, Great Expectations (Scott, Foresman), Sunday Gold (Dramatic Publishing) and For the Glory (Kraus House). The anthology, Women of Courage, edited by Janet E. Rubin includes five of her plays (Dramatic Publishing).

Recent awards include First Place in the 2004 Marilyn Hall Awards for Youtheatre for her new play The Big Secret (Beverly Hills Theatre Guild) and First Prize in the 2002 and the 2003 California Focus on Writers, children's category, for Middle Grade novels.

She is Professor Emeritus of Theatre and former Graduate Coordinator of the Interdisciplinary Arts for Children program, State University of New York College at Brockport, has won the Charlotte Chorpenning Cup for playwriting and was a recipient of a Special Achievment Award from the New York State Theatre Education Association. Currently she's a byline columnist for 'The Sunday Times' (Knight Ridder) and a member of SCBWI, AATE, ASSITEJ and the Dramatists Guild.

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PLAYS AVAILABLE

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remember my name

REMEMBER MY NAME
Middle school and up. Samuel French, Inc.

Two acts, area staging, 5m, 5w. A young girl's survival in France during World War II and the courage of the villagers, who protect her at their own peril. Far from everything familiar, Rachel assumes a new identity and grows from a protected child to a determined adolescent who assists the Resistance and must fight for her life. "Characters...presented as real human beings in an inhuman situation." New York Casting.

Photo Credit: Master's Theatre


Angel in the Night

ANGEL IN THE NIGHT
High school and up. Dramatic Publishing

Two acts, area staging, 4m, 4w, l girl minimum with doubling. Based on the true story of Marysia Pawlina Szul, a Polish-Catholic teenager who in 1942 hid four Jews in the family barn, caring for them for two years during the Nazi invasion. Although arrested and imprisoned, she never betrayed them, proving that one individual can make a difference. AATE Distinguished Play Award.

Photo credit: National Louis University


Sunday Gold

SUNDAY GOLD
5th grade and up. Dramatic Publishing

Two acts, area staging, 3-4 m, 3w. In a North Carolina mining town (l840s), twelve-year-old Lizzie yearns for a pair of boots and an education. Her friendship with Annie, a hired-out slave, is rekindled as the two rocker girls work all day sifting out the precious gold particles. Risking her own future, Lizzie tries to help Annie escape and discovers that not all the gold is in the ground.

Photo Credit: Raleigh Little Theatre


For the Glory

FOR THE GLORY
High School and up. Available from the playwright, $7.95 plus shipping.

2 acts, 4W,6M with doubling. Unit set with levels. To get a better story, a freelance journalist volunteers to be a co-pilot in a kinetic sculpture race and pedals a wacky sculpture based on da Vinci's Flying Machine for three days over sea, sand, and slime. In the excitement and rigors of the competition, she finds herself and discovers what the race motto really means.

Photo credit: De la Salle High School


Ms. Courageous: Women of Science

MS. COURAGEOUS: WOMEN OF SCIENCE
5th grade and up. New Plays, Inc.

One act, area staging, 3w, 1m minimum with doubling. A play about Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman doctor with a medical degree and Marie Curie, who discovered the new element, radium. Done in a "living newspaper" style, the swift scenes accent the struggles these two women faced prior to their success and encourages the audience to follow their dreams. Includes Resource Guide.

Photo Credit: Meredith College


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LINKS

USA PLAYS FOR KIDS!
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