Representation: c/o Abrams Artists, 275 Seventh Ave, 26th Fl. NYC 10001 (646) 436-8600 x223 RUTH MARGRAFF was born in Ohio and grew up singing and playing piano all over the Midwest for her father who was a traveling preacherman.   She carved a path through some prestigious writing programs including Iowa and Brown to New York City where she went from being a vaudeville actor to being lately being named as a leader in the new opera, music/theater movement in America.   Her writings with music have been produced and developed all over the United States and in Russia, Japan, Serbia, Greece, New Zealand, Canada, etc. She has received numerous grants and awards from foundations including 3 Rockefeller commissions in new opera, Jerome and McKnight Playwriting Fellowships, 2 NYSCA Individual Artist Awards, an NEA/TCG Fellowship for Playwriting and several travel grants from TCG/ITI and Arts International.   With composer Nikos Brisco, Ruth has been creating a trilogy of operatic collaborations including JUDGES 19: BLACK LUNG EXHALING, CAFÉ ANTARSIA and WELLSPRING: AN AMERICAN OPERA BOX FOR THE BALKANS during her 3-year artist residency at Here Arts Center in New York which have been toured the east coast, New York, Texas and to Russia, Great Britain, Greece, Turkey and Serbia.   She has also created 6 full-length martial arts ballets with composer Fred Ho and his Afro-Asian Ensemble including VOICE OF THE DRAGON 1, 2 and 3 which have enjoyed commercially successful tours through Columbia Arts Management, Inc. to 33 cities in 2003 and have been produced at venues such as the Apollo Theater in Harlem (2004 and 2006), Brooklyn Academy of Music's Next Wave Festival (2001 and 2007), JVC Jazz Festival/John Harms Center for the Arts (1999) and the Guggenheim Museum (1999 and 2000), with support from ICM Artists and the World Music Institute.    She has also created 3 operas with Austin-based composer Graham Reynolds and many New York composers, choreographers and martial artists including Douglas Dunn, Tsuyoshi Kaseda, Deborah Hay, Jose Figueroa, Kristin Marting, Joshua Fried, etc.   Her lyrics and libretti include THE ELEKTRA FUGUES, CENTAUR BATTLE OF SAN JACINTO, WALLPAPER PSALM, EXOTICA ORANGE, BACK OF THE DOLLAR LATIN, LOCKET ARIAS, VINYL PRESSINGS and have been published in American Theater Magazine Vol. 19, No. 9 (TCG), Theater Forum 22: International Theater Journal , Salvage Vanguard Press, NuMuse Anthology (Brown ), Epoch (Cornell) , More Monologues For Women By Women (Heineman) , Patterson Literary Review, the Mac Wellman Festival Journal, Conjunctions:28 "Music Theater Portfolio" (Bard) , EDGE New York, !Factorial Press, Autonomedia/Big Red Media, The Dramatist , CHAIN 9, BAMCinematec, Artes Marcial Y Algo Mas (Caguas, Puerto Rico ), Fight Master,   Bijenale '02 “Galerija Savremente Umetnosti Svecano Otvaranja” (Pancevo, Yugoslavia) , Play, Theater in Crisis (Manchester University). THE ELEKTRA FUGUES is forthcoming in 2005 from BackStage Books in Divine Fire: Eight Contemporary Plays Inspired by the Greeks , and THE CRY PITCH CARROLLS and STADIUM DEVILDARE are forthcoming in a new Introduction to Theater anthology from Kendall/Hunt this year and she is a national member of the Tony-Award winning New Dramatists since 1997.   Email: Ruth.Margraff@yale.edu