David deserves this award — and I'm not saying this because he's my boss, I swear — because he's a sort of literary renaissance man, able to write arts features, news stories, plays and prose. His passion — and his background — lies in the arts; he has a BA in English & American Literature and Language from Harvard and an MA in Theater from Villanova; he created CL's multi-disciplinary performing arts event, GASP! (in collaboration with TMA); he’s written for Keep St. Pete Lit's Fantastic Ekphrastic two years running and wrote a short play, Big Bird, for Stageworks' TampaWorks, a collection of short one-acts based in Tampa Bay.
He also acts — he's part of Radio Theatre Project Live!, plus you've seen him on stages ranging from Stageworks and Studio @620 to Gulfport Community Players' Back Door Theater.
Before he came to CL in 2004, he edited the Philadelphia City Paper where, like CL, the paper won awards for its arts coverage under his leadership. He's also been a theater critic and arts columnist.
Yeah, it's no pressure being A&E editor under this guy.
Fun facts you may not know about David: he and his husband, Larry Biddle, appeared in the New York Times' "Wedding" section, they live in Roser Park with the sweetest, haughtiest Cairn terrier (shout-out to Walter), and he doesn't wash his coffee mug as much as he should.
Kudos to David Warner and all the MUSE winners: Kyu Yamamoto (MUSE Visual Arts Award), Eric Davis (MUSE Performance Award), Kathryn Howd (MUSE Patron of the Arts Award) and Leon "Tes One" Bedore (MUSE Arts Ambassador Award). Look for writeups on each of them in the weeks to come.
This article appears in Dec 29, 2016 – Jan 5, 2017.