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2 <br /> PIEDMONT. .. .. L nMW' <br /> 2012'DRAMATIST/SCREENWRITER <br /> DRAMATIST IAN FINLEY SELECTED AS 2012 PIEDMONT LAUREATE <br /> Raleigh dramatist Ian Finley has been selected as the region's 2012 Piedmont <br /> Laureate. Mr. Finley will be introduced as the region's new laureate at the State of Arts and <br /> Culture in Wake County meeting on Thursday,January 12, 2012 at the North Carolina <br /> Museum of Art's East Building auditorium. The meeting, sponsored by the United Arts <br /> Council of Raleigh &Wake County,begins at 8 a.m. and is free and open to the public. <br /> The Piedmont Laureate program is dedicated to building a literary bridge for <br /> residents to come together and celebrate the art of writing. Co-sponsored by the City of <br /> Raleigh Arts Commission,Alamance County Arts Council, Durham Arts Council, Orange <br /> County Arts Commission and United Arts Council of Raleigh &Wake County,the program's <br /> mission is to "promote awareness and heighten appreciation for excellence in the literary <br /> arts throughout the Piedmont region." The program focuses on a different literary form <br /> each year (poetry in 2009, novels in 2010, creative non-fiction in 2011 and <br /> dramatist/screenwriter in 2012). <br /> "Ian Finley loves the theatre. That love radiates outward and is contagious," says <br /> Burning Coal Theatre Artistic Director Jerome Davis. "It's how he manages to win the <br /> hearts of all his students and it's why his writing registers with his readers as genuine. He <br /> is an integral part of our theatre, and his energy and passion are equally important parts of <br /> my life as an artist and as a citizen." <br /> For being named the Piedmont Laureate, Mr. Finley will receive an honorarium of <br /> $6,500 and serve for one year. His duties will include presenting public readings and <br /> workshops, participating at select public functions and creating at least one original <br /> activity to expand appreciation of the work of dramatists in literature.A schedule of the <br /> Laureate's 2012 activities will be posted in January on the sponsoring agency websites and <br /> on the Piedmont Laureate website at www.piedmontlaureate.com. <br /> Mr. Finley studied theatre at the University of Utah and received an MFA in <br /> Dramatic Writing from the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. His work <br /> during that time focused on drama as a means of dialogue. Most notable was The Nature of <br /> the Nautilus, commissioned for a group of deaf actors to perform in sign language, which <br /> dealt with the controversy of cochlear implants (surgically implanted devices that provide <br /> a sense of sound to the deaf and hard of hearing). Following productions at the University <br /> of Utah and the Kennedy Center American College Theater gathering in Hayward, <br /> California, The Nature of the Nautilus was awarded the 2002 Jean Kennedy Smith Award for <br /> a play dealing with themes of disability. <br />