Ike Holter (born 1985) is an

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playwright."Why Ike Holter Has No Choice But To Tell Chicago Stories"
''

Playbill ''Playbill'' is an American monthly magazine for theatergoers. Although there is a subscription issue available for home delivery, most copies of ''Playbill'' are printed for particular productions and distributed at the door as the show's pr ...

'', April 30, 2016. He won a Windham–Campbell Literature Prize for drama in 2017. Holter is a resident playwright at

Victory Gardens Theater Victory Gardens Theater is a theater company in Chicago, Illinois dedicated to the development and production of new plays and playwrights. The theater company was founded in 1974 when eight Chicago artists, Cecil O'Neal, Warren Casey, Stuart Go ...

, and has been commissioned by The

Kennedy Center The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (formally known as the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, and commonly referred to as the Kennedy Center) is the United States National Cultural Center, located on the Potom ...

The Eugene O'Neill Theater Center The Eugene O'Neill Theater Center in Waterford, Connecticut, is a 501(c)(3) non-profit theater company founded in 1964 by George C. White. It is commonly referred to as The O'Neill. The center has received two Tony Awards, the 1979 Special Awar ...

South Coast Repertory South Coast Repertory (SCR) is a professional theatre company located in Costa Mesa, California. Tony Award-winning South Coast Repertory, founded in 1964 by David Emmes and Martin Benson, is led by Artistic Director David Ivers and Managing Direc ...

and

The Playwrights' Center The Playwrights' Center is a non-profit theatre organization focused on both supporting playwrights and promoting new plays to production at theaters across the country. It is located in the Seward neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota. In Oc ...

Early life

Ike Holter was born in

Minneapolis, Minnesota Minneapolis () is the largest city in Minnesota, United States, and the county seat of Hennepin County. The city is abundant in water, with thirteen lakes, wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks and waterfalls. Minneapolis has its origins ...

. He has said that attending a performance of

Sweeney Todd Sweeney Todd is a fictional character who first appeared as the villain of the penny dreadful serial ''The String of Pearls'' (1846–47). The original tale became a feature of 19th-century melodrama and London urban legend, legend. A barber fr ...

at the

Guthrie Theatre The Guthrie Theater, founded in 1963, is a center for theater performance, production, education, and professional training in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The concept of the theater was born in 1959 in a series of discussions between Sir Tyrone Gut ...

in Minneapolis at the age of eleven inspired him to pursue a career in theater. He attended

Minneapolis South High School Minneapolis South High School is a four-year comprehensive public high school located in the Corcoran neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota. A member of the Minneapolis Public Schools district, it is both the oldest and largest public high sc ...

and then studied playwriting at

The Theatre School at DePaul University The Theatre School at DePaul University, previously the Goodman School of Drama (also known as TTS and GSD, respectively) is the drama school of DePaul University. Founded with its first class conducted at the Art Institute of Chicago on January 5 ...

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

. He is gay.

Career

His play ''Hit the Wall'' was produced by The Inconvenience as part of Steppenwolf Theater Company's Garage Rep in 2012. It made the

Chicago Tribune The ''Chicago Tribune'' is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (a slogan for which WGN radio and television ar ...

's "Top Ten Plays of 2012" list. It went on to be produced off-broadway at Barrow Street and in many cities around the country, including a sold out and three times extended 2015-2016 production in

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at the LGBT Center that was nominated for many "Best of the Year" awards in LA. In 2014, he wrote
Exit Strategy
' for Jackalope Theater. Chris Jones of the

called it "at once poetic, political, sad, funny, timely, complex and compassionate, Ike Holter's thrilling, beautiful new play
Exit Strategy
' is the story of the desperate final days of a condemned, crumbling Chicago public school dreading its upcoming prom date with the cruel bulldozers from City Hall." The play has also been produced at Philadelphia Theater Company and Off Broadway at Primary Stages Theater in addition to regional productions in Boston, Los Angeles, Houston, and other cities. His later plays have included ''B-Side Studio'' (2013),
Exit Strategy
' (2014),
Sender
' (2016) ''The Light Fantastic'' (2018) and ''The Wolf at the End of the Block'' (2017). The Goodman premiered ''Lottery Day'' in the spring of 2019, the capstone to the seven-play "saga" about a fictional Chicago neighborhood called Rightlynd. He served as a staff writer for the FX series produced by

Lin-Manuel Miranda Lin-Manuel Miranda (; born January 16, 1980) is an American songwriter, actor, playwright and filmmaker. He is known for creating the Broadway musicals ''Hamilton'' (2015) and ''In the Heights'' (2005), and the soundtracks for the Disney animate ...

, "

Fosse/Verdon ''Fosse/Verdon'' is an American biographical miniseries starring Sam Rockwell as director–choreographer Bob Fosse and Michelle Williams as actress and dancer Gwen Verdon. The series, which tells the story of the couple's troubled personal a ...

", writing "All I Care About is Love", the series 6th episode. He is a resident playwright of

. In 2021, Holter is developing a TV miniseries about the 1983 election and tenure of

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

mayor In many countries, a mayor is the highest-ranking official in a municipal government such as that of a city or a town. Worldwide, there is a wide variance in local laws and customs regarding the powers and responsibilities of a mayor as well a ...

Harold Washington Harold Lee Washington (April 15, 1922 – November 25, 1987) was an American lawyer and politician who was the 51st Mayor of Chicago. Washington became the first African American to be elected as the city's mayor in April 1983. He served as ma ...

, the first

African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...

to hold the office.

Awards

In 2017, Holter was one of eight winners of

Yale Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wor ...

's annual Windham-Campbell Literature Prizes, one of the highest awards for playwriting in the world. In 2018, the

American Theatre Critics Association The American Theatre Critics Association (ATCA) is the only nationwide professional association of theatre critics in the United States. The ATCA membership consists of theatre critics who write reviews and critiques of live theatre for print, broad ...

(ATCA) selected Holter as one of six finalists for the Harold and Mimi Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award, recognizing playwrights for the best scripts that premiered professionally outside New York City during 2017, for his play ''The Wolf at the End of the Block''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Holter, Ike 1985 births Living people 21st-century American dramatists and playwrights African-American dramatists and playwrights American male dramatists and playwrights DePaul University alumni American gay writers LGBT African Americans American LGBT dramatists and playwrights LGBT people from Minnesota Writers from Chicago Writers from Minneapolis 21st-century American male writers South High School (Minnesota) alumni 21st-century African-American writers 20th-century African-American people African-American male writers Writers Guild of America Award winners