Barrie Stavis

Barrie Stavis (June 16, 1906 – February 2, 2007) was an American playwright.

Stavis was educated at New Utrecht High School in Brooklyn, and later Columbia University. Afterwards, he covered the Spanish Civil War from 1937 to 1939 as a foreign correspondent and served in the US Army Signal Corps from 1942-1945 as a Technical-Sergeant. Career Stavis wrote several plays about men struggling in the vortex of history. His subjects include scientist Galileo, abolitionist John Brown, and labor leader Joe Hill. His play, Lamp at Midnight, about Galileo's struggle with the Catholic Church to get his ideas accepted, was performed and televised on the Hallmark Hall of Fame in 1966. Melvyn Douglas starred as Galileo.

Stavis's plays can be done on a clean, simple stage. They have been translated into 28 languages and have been produced in dozens of major theaters around the world and in numerous college theaters.

Stavis was actively working until his death on February 2, 2007, at the age of 100.

The National Theatre Conference names its prize for emerging playwrights the Barrie and Bernice Stavis Playwriting Award in Stavis and his wife's honors.