Eric Mansfield
The Emerging Artist award recognizes an individual in the visual or performing arts with less than five years working in their discipline who illustrates the outstanding potential for making a significant impact on their discipline through creativity and growth.
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Eric Mansfield is an Emmy Award-Winning TV Journalist, retired U.S. Army Officer, current PR professional, and Dramatist Guild member who is continuing his passion for storytelling through playwriting and other creative outlets.
He recently received the “Best New Play by a Local Playwright” Award from the Cleveland Critics Circle.
Eric’s first full-length play, Love in Reserve, debuted on Nov. 5, 2021, as a mainstage Equity production at Rubber City Theatre in Akron, Ohio. This play was previously named a 2020 national semi-finalist for the Bridge Award from Arts in the Armed Forces and received four professional reviews, including a Sunday color feature in the Akron Beacon Journal.
In addition, Mansfield’s full-length play, Whitesville, debuted on March 31, 2022, at the Akron Civic Theatre’s Knight Stage in conjunction with the Millennial Theatre Project and received coverage from multiple media outlets based in part on its contemporary focus on a mixed-race family struggling in the days immediately after the murder of George Floyd.
His short plays have been performed in Ohio, Boston, and Pennsylvania. Mansfield’s crime drama, The Confession, debuted earlier this year at Convergence-Continuum in Cleveland, and a screenplay adaptation of his military play, The Board, was recently optioned for production.
Mansfield’s inspiration comes from his own life experiences either from being deployed with the military or from being a front-line TV News journalist in Cleveland, Ohio.
Born in Akron, Ohio, Mansfield earned his B.A. in Journalism from the University of Dayton and his M.A. in Public Relations from Kent State University. He is currently pursuing his M.F.A. in Creative Writing (Playwriting) from Kent State.
A 20-year career as a broadcast news anchor-reporter (18 of those years with WKYC-TV), concurrent with 20 years of service in the Ohio Army National Guard, including deployments to Iraq and other hotspots, gives Mansfield a unique life experience to share as a creative writer.
On stage, Mansfield has participated in community theatre dramas and musicals, and he enjoys the challenge of inhabiting characters with a sense of humor.
Mansfield’s full-length and short plays can be viewed on New Play Exchange. He is often tinkering with multiple short and full-length play scripts along with several screenplays. Mansfield looks forward to learning from other creative writers and welcomes feedback and engagement.
