Tom Lysaght

Raised in Brooklyn, Tom Lysaght graduated from Harvard University and has written some 30 plays in both English and Spanish — published by Samuel French, and produced from villages in the Andes to off-Broadway (Nobody Don't Like Yogi, starring Emmy Award-winning actor Ben Gazzara as Yogi Berra, toured nationally and was inducted into the permanent collection of the Billy Rose Performing Arts Library at Lincoln Center). Lysaght was founding director and resident playwright 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.