Paula Vogel

"Paula Vogel was born November of 1951.  She was born in Washington, D.C. and is a graduate of The Catholic University of America, Cornell University and also attended Bryn Mawr College.  Vogel is an American playwright as well as a university professor.  She was married to Brown University professor and author, Anne Fausto-Sterling in 2004."

"Paula Vogel is a productive playwright and has been since the 1970s. She often examines traditionally controversial issues such as sexual abuse and prostitution in her work, but has no particular theme that dominates her work.  She only writes about things that directly impact her life.  Vogel's family is known to serve as an influence to her writings.  She writes her plays for emotional circumstances and character to craft narrative structure.  She tends to select sensitive and difficult issues to write about.  Her works embrace theatrical devices such as puppetry, omniscient narration, and fantasy sequences."

How I Learned to Drive:

"Paula Vogel's play How I Learned to Drive opened in New York in 1997.  The play concerns an affair between its protagonist, names Li'l Bit, and her uncle Peck.  The affair takes place over the course of years, with the characters of Li'l Bit maturing from age eleven to eighteen before she puts an end to it.  In spite of the serious situation, there are many comical elements of the play, which avoids the expected condemnation of this situation to look at the basic humanity that binds these two characters.  It uses innovative staging techniques to fade from one time frame to another and one place to the next.  It also uses just three actors, in addition to those playing Li'l Bit and Peck, to represent all of the other characters who affect their lives, especially their quirky, intimidating rural Maryland family.  The addition of popular music from the early-and-late-1960s, such as "Dream Baby" and "Little Surfer Girl," helps audiences understand the prevailing mood of the era that Vogel covers in this play: it is romantic and sexist, emphasizing youth and fun, the sort of social message that would make a girl like Li'l Bit, who has many feelings of insecurity, turn to a flawed relationship where she can bask in the reverence of an older man." 

http://www.topic/how-i-learned-to-drive#Notes_on_DramaAwards:

Awards:

Paula Vogel received the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for her play, How I Learned to Drive.

Obie Award for Best Play (1992)

Pulitzer Prize in Drama (1998)

The American Academy of Arts and Letter in (2004)

Sources:

http://www.enotes.com/drama-criticism/vogel-paula

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paula_Vogel

http://www.http://www.doollee.com/PlaywrightsV/vogel-paula.html.com/gay/lesbian/news/ARTICLE.php?AID=16679

http://www.youtube.com/watchv=4dDbZ47txvU&feature=PlayList&p=C1BDCE81D25C13FE&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=1

http://www.topic/how-i-learned-to-drive#Notes_on_Drama