Tom Fontana

Tom Fontana has written and produced such ground breaking television series as St. Elsewhere, Homicide: Life On The Street, and Oz, for which he has received, among others, three Emmy Awards, four Peabody Awards, three Writers’ Guild Awards, four Television Critics Association Awards, the CableACE Award, the Humanitas Prize, a Special Edgar, and the first prize at the Cinema Tout Ecran Festival in Geneva.

Fontana wrote the HBO film Strip Search, directed by Sidney Lumet, and contributed two pieces to the September 11th special America: A Tribute to Heroes. He was the executive producer of American Tragedy for CBS, Shot in the Heart for HBO Films, the documentary The Press Secretary for PBS, and the independent films Jean, In Good Conscience and Anytown, USA.

Fontana has written articles for such periodicals as The New York Times, TV Guide and Esquire and has taught at Columbia, Syracuse, Rutgers and the State University College at Buffalo, his alma mater, from which he received the Distinguished Alumni Award and an Honorary Doctorate of Letters.

Fontana has had numerous plays produced in New York, where he lives, and at San Francisco’s American Conservatory Theatre, the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, the Buffalo Studio Arena Theatre, Williamstown Theatre Festival and McCarter Theatre Company. He is a member of the Dramatists Guild, the Producers Guild of America, the Friars Club, the Players Club, the American Theatre Wing, and the Writers Guild of America, East, from which he received the Evelyn F. Burkey Award for Lifetime Achievement.

Fontana serves on the boards of Stockings with Care, People for the American Way Foundation, The Creative Coalition, The Acting Company, The Williamstown Theatre Festival, and is President of the WGAE Foundation.