Tom Lysaght is a playwright with some 30 plays in both English and Spanish to his name. He was the founding director of El Teatro de Pan y Paz in rural Peru, where he wrote “circus drama” plays about economic and health challenges, utilizing masks, stilts, and 15-foot high puppets for open-air performances. As manager of Radio Bahá’í of Lake Titicaca, he developed radio scripts that complemented these live performances. After the tsunami of 2004, he made three trips to the villages of southern India to help launch similar community development theater. He has also made seven trips to South Africa.
He has received writing fellowships from MacDowell, the Edward F. Albee Foundation, Scotland’s Hawthornden Castle, the Israeli Center for the Arts, Waves of Three Seas in Rhodes, Art Omi, Byrdcliffe, and the Montalvo Center. He holds an MFA in fiction and playwriting from the University of Montana.