Bio

Paul Calandrino's first full-length play THE FINAL LEG won the Lakewood Theatre Playwriting Competition and the Northwest Playwrights Festival, both in 2005. The play received a staged reading in Portland and a workshop production at Lord Leebrick Theatre in Eugene, Oregon. His second full-length play, I HEAR AMERICA BARKING, was inspired by his experiences moving from California to the Oregon coast. It was a finalist in the Lakewood Theatre Playwriting competition in 2007. He has finished a third full-length play, THE NINCOMPOOP, based on the character of Calandrino from the classic medieval work The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio.

Paul has also written a number of ten-minute plays, two of which, BRING ME THE HEAD OF DUFRESNE FISH and CUBISM, appear in the 2008 fall issue of Northwest Review.

As an actor, Paul has recently appeared in Mother Courage and Her Children and Last Train to Hicksville at Lord Leebrick Theatre Company. In January 2009 he appeared as Charles in LLTC's production of The Clean House by Sarah Ruhl, and before that as Antigonus in The Winter's Tale at Lane Community College.

Before writing plays, Paul wrote fiction and poetry. His short stories and poems have appeared in a number of online and print journals, most recently Contrary Magazine. He has worked as a technical writer in California and Oregon for over twenty years. His nonfiction book Spirit of Courage: A Tribute to People with Disabilities was placed on the New York Public Library's list of Best Books for the Teen-age in 1996.