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Black-tie ceremony hosted by USC alumnus John Ritter to honor writers David Hare and Michael Cunningham, winners of the 2003 USC Scripter® Award for their work on The Hours.
Playwright and screenwriter David Hare (above) began writing in 1975 for the National Theatre in London, which produced his plays Plenty (1978, adapted by him for the screen in 1985), A Map of the World (1983) and Pravda (1985). His screen credits in addition to Plenty include Damage(aka Fatal), the 1992 Louis Malle film starring Jeremy Irons and Juliette Binoche. Hare has directed many of his own works, as well as those of other playwrights, and has written several teleplays for the BBC. His most recent plays are Amy's View (1997) and The Judas Kiss (1998). Hare has won a BAFTA Award (1979), the New York Drama Critics Circle Award (1983), the Berlin Film Festival Golden Bear (1985), the Olivier Award (1990) and the London Theatre Critics' Award (1990). Novelist Michael Cunningham received both the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for fiction and the PEN/Faulkner Award for The Hours. The winner of a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1993, Cunningham also received a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in 1988 and a Michener Fellowship from the University of Iowa in 1982. He published his first novel, A Home at the End of the World, in 1990, followed by Flesh and Blood in 1995. In addition to his extensive work as a lead character in hit comedy series, Ritter has starred in more than 25 television movies, guest starred on numerous series, including Ally McBeal, which earned him an Emmy nomination. His motion picture credits include Sling Blade, They All Laughed, Noises Off, Skin Deep, and Problem Child. Most recently, he co-starred with Sigourney Weaver and Bebe Neuwirth in Tadpole. Ritter has also appeared in more than 50 plays and recently completed a nine-month starring role in the Broadway premiere of Neil Simon's The Dinner Party,which won a Theatre World Award and the 2001 Outer Critics Circle Award. Veteran comic talent Hal Kanter, who has lent his humor to every Scripter event since the award's inception, returns for the third year as grand emcee. The other nominees for the 15th Scripter® Award were author Louis Begley and screenwriters Alexander Payne & Jim Taylor for About Schmidt; Susan Orlean, whose book The Orchid Thief provided the inspiration for Adaptation, and screenwriters Charlie Kaufman and Donald Kaufman; author J.R.R. Tolkien and screenwriters Frances Walsh, Philippa Boyens, Stephen Sinclair & Peter Jackson for Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers; and screenwriter Ronald Harwood and the late Wladyslaw Szpilman, on whose life and book, Death of a City,the film The Pianist is based. The USC Scripter® Award is given annually to honor the best adaptation among English-language films based on books or novellas that were released the previous year, determined by a panel this year chaired by legendary screenwriter Robert Towne. Past Scripter® winners include the authors and screenwriters of A Beautiful Mind, Wonder Boys, A Civil Action, L.A. Confidential, The English Patient, Sense and Sensibility, The Shawshank Redemption and Schindler's List.
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