![Lovely Day](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/fw43ibfy/production/2d1a6cc26d5d0bad7633d20cb92fc6b9a9c3d6cb-2382x1384.png?rect=83,0,2217,1384&w=290&h=181&q=25&auto=format)
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High Dive
Meet the Artists
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Leslie Ayvazian is the author of 8 full-length plays and seven one-act plays, published variously by Samuel French and Dramatists Play Service. Some have been included in annual anthologies of best plays. Nine Armenians won the John Gassner/Outer Critics Circle Award for best new American play, The Roger L. Stevens Award, and second place for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. Rosemary and I received an honorable mention from the Susan Smith Blackburn jury. Leslie has received commissions from the Manhattan Theatre Club, Windancer Productions and South Coast Repertory Theatre. Make Me, directed by Christian Parker, was produced in New York by the Atlantic Theatre Company. High Dive was produced at the Long Wharf Theatre and the Manhattan Class Company, directed by David Warren, and went on to be produced in Poland and Slovakia. Her short film Every Three Minutes starring Olympia Dukakis was produced by Showtime and won a Telly Award. Her play Deaf Day was produced as a short film in Syria by Rana Kaz Kaz, and was included in the 2012 Palm Springs International Short Film Festival. Her latest short film, The Favor, stars Olympia Dukakis, Margaret Colin, and John Pankow. A theatrical version of The Favor ran at City Theatre in 2013 and also had a production in The Ensemble Studio Theatre’s Spring festival of one-act plays. A current play Out of the City has received workshops at the Manhattan Theatre Club and the Southampton Writers’ Conference. It will receive its first production in 2014 at the Merrimack Repertory Theatre in Lowell, Massachusetts. Her one-act play Above it All recently toured the Miami FL school system. Her latest play, 100 Aprils, recently received a workshop at the Atlantic Theatre in NYC. Leslie is an Adjunct Professor of dramaturgy at the Columbia University Graduate School of the Arts. Her credits as an actress include a recurring role on Law & Order – SVU and roles on Broadway in Lost in Yonkers and Naked Girl on the Apian Way.
Vacationing with her family in Greece, she stands frozen on the high dive above the hotel pool. Below, her son urges her to jump off. As she balances on the board, she recalls various adventures and mishaps that have brought her to this spot. Finally, she makes her move off the board.
“Ms. Ayvazian is an enticing performer with perfectly calibrated comic timing. By the time you come up for air from laughing with her, it’s all over except for the applause…”
–CurtainUp
“Ayvazian has an exuberant demeanor, and her crisp comic delivery only enhances the play’s many charms”
–The New Yorker
Related Productions
![Lovely Day](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/fw43ibfy/production/2d1a6cc26d5d0bad7633d20cb92fc6b9a9c3d6cb-2382x1384.png?rect=83,0,2217,1384&w=290&h=181&q=25&auto=format)
Written and Performed by
Leslie Ayvazian
Directed by
David Warren
Set Design
Neil Patel
Costume Design
Kristin Cahill
Lighting Design
Brian MacDevitt
Sound Design
Robert Murphy
Venue
MCC Theater 120 West 28th Street New York, NY