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Anton Piatigorsky

Biography

Anton Piatigorsky

Anton Piatigorsky is an award-winning writer of fiction, plays and librettos.THE IRON BRIDGE, his first work of fiction, is a collection of short stories about 20th-century dictators as teenagers, and was named a runner-up for the Danuta Gleed Literary Award.

As a playwright, Anton is the recipient of two Dora Mavor Moore awards for best new play, the Summerworks Prize, the 2005 Elinore and Lou Siminovitch Protégé Award for playwrighting, and numerous other nominations.

"Eternal Hydra," commissioned by the Stratford Festival for its 50th anniversary, inaugurated the festival’s Studio Theatre in 2002. An expanded version of the play was produced in 2009 and 2011, winning four Dora Mavor Moore Awards. Reviewers called it “one of the best Canadian plays of the past decade” (Jon Kaplan, NOW Magazine), and a “work [that] must be considered part of the canon of great Canadian plays.” (Christopher Hoile, Eye Weekly).

Other plays include "The Kabbalistic Psychoanalysis of Adam R. Tzaddik," "Mysterium Tremendum," "The Offering," "Breath in Between," and "Easy Lenny Lazmon and the Great Western Ascension," which won four Dora Mavor Moore Awards in 1999. His plays have traveled across Canada, the United States and Austrailia. He has received commissions and residencies from the Stratford Festival, Soulpepper Theatre Company and other companies. His new adaptation of  S. Ansky’s "The Dybbuk" premiered at Soulpepper Theatre in Toronto in May 2015 to rave reviews.

Piatigorsky’s libretti for "Airline Icarus" and "Inventory," two chamber operas with music by composer Brian Current, were featured at the VOX festival of the New York City Opera, in 2007 and 2010. Winner of the Italian Primo Fedora Award in 2011, "Airline Icarus" was produced by Soundstreams in Toronto, and by Atelier la Voce dell’Arte in Verbania, Italy. It has received concert productions by Tapesty New Opera, Fort Worth Opera, and the Royal Conservatory of Music. The Naxos recording of "Airline Icarus" won a Juno Award for Best Classical Composition in 2015.

Born and raised in the Washington, DC area, Anton studied religion and theatre at Brown University. He is a dual citizen of Canada and the United States, and lives in Toronto.

Anton Piatigorsky

Books by Anton Piatigorsky

by Anton Piatigorsky - Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

AL-TOUNSI tells the behind-the-scenes story of U.S. Supreme Court Justices as they consider a landmark case involving the rights of detainees held in an overseas U.S. military base. Inspired by a true case from 2008 addressing Guantanamo Bay, the fictional lawsuit of Al-Tounsi v. Shaw pits Majid Al-Tounsi, an Egyptian prisoner, against the President of the United States. It challenges U.S. laws that apply to non-citizens under wartime circumstances and the extent of executive power. As the controversial case maneuvers through the minds and hands of the Justices, the novel explores in detail how the personal life dramas, career rivalries and political sympathies of these judicial titans blend with their philosophies to create the most important legal decisions of our time.