October 30, 1998

The Twice-born–latest in long list of hits for Fr. Ferlita

The Rev. Ernest Ferlita, S.J., received his degree in playwriting and dramatic literature at the Yale School of Drama. His first play, The Ballad of John Ogilvie, was produced Off-Broadway in 1968. In 1978, his Black Medea was staged at the first Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston. It was given three Off-Off Broadway productions and won four awards at the 54th Annual Black Theatre Festival. Another play, The Truth of the Matter, won the Miller Award in the 1986 Deep South Writers Conference. In addition to Black Medea, two other plays have been produced Off-Off Broadway: The Obelisk, and most recently, Two Cities, as well as a double bill of one-act plays, The Mask of Hiroshima (published in Best Short Plays 1989) and The Bells of Nagasaki.

Ferlita is author of Uttermost Mark, a book on the dramatic writings of the Jesuit poet Gerard Manley Hopkins and librettist for two operas, Dear Ignatius, Dear Isabel and Edith Stein. A member of the Dramatists Guild, he is currently a professor of drama at Loyola.