William Mastrosimone (born August 19, 1947) is an American playwright and screenwriter from Trenton,

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...

. He attended high school at

The Pennington School The Pennington School is a private (independent), coeducational college preparatory school for day and boarding students in sixth through twelfth grades, located in Pennington, New Jersey, a small community in the northeastern United States mid ...

and received a graduate degree in playwriting from

Mason Gross School of the Arts Mason Gross School of the Arts is the arts conservatory at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. It is named for Mason W. Gross, the sixteenth president of Rutgers. Mason Gross offers the Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance, Theater, Digi ...

, a part of

Rutgers University Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's College, and was ...

. His plays include ''The Woolgatherer'', ''Extremities (play), Extremities'', ''Shivaree (play), Shivaree'', and ''Cat's Paw''. He also wrote ''Bang Bang You're Dead (play), Bang Bang You're Dead,'' which was once able to be downloaded from the Internet and performed by students for free. Other plays include ''The Afghan Women'' and ''Nanawatai#In popular culture, Nanawatai'', upon which the film ''The Beast of War, The Beast'' is based. Two recent plays are ''Sleepwalk'', a story again focusing on the traumas of modern teenage life, and "Dirty Business", a play about a party girl caught between the mafia and the newly elected President of the United States. Mastrosimone's first play was ''The Woolgatherer'' which premiered at Rutgers Theatre Company in New Jersey of 1979 His screenwriting credits include, ''With Honors (film), With Honors'', ''Into the West (TV miniseries), Into the West'' and the adaptation of his play ''Extremities (film), Extremities''. He won 2 Daytime Emmy Awards for ''Bang Bang You're Dead (film), Bang, Bang You're Dead'' and was nominated for a Prime Time Emmy for ''Into the West (TV miniseries), Into the West'' and ''The Burning Season (1994 film), The Burning Season''. His play ''Bang Bang You're Dead (play), Bang Bang You're Dead'' is being toured by 'Playground Theatre Project' with students from Actor's Playground School of Theatre (in NJ), directed by Ralph Colombino, based in the Tri-State Area. This company goes to middle schools, high schools, and universities to prevent violence.

External links

Icarus Plays''Bang Bang You're Dead''
* 1947 births Living people 20th-century American dramatists and playwrights Rutgers University alumni People from Trenton, New Jersey The Pennington School alumni American male screenwriters Screenwriters from New Jersey American male dramatists and playwrights 21st-century American dramatists and playwrights 20th-century American male writers 21st-century American male writers {{US-playwright-stub