The Inevitable Hurt: Nicholas Ray

Hurt McDermott

Hurt McDermott is the writer-director of four feature films, among them BLACK MAIL and NIGHTINGALE IN A MUSIC BOX.

Among other prizes NIGHTINGALE IN A MUSIC BOX won the Jury Prize for Outstanding Screenplay at The Slamdance 2004 Film Festival and the Best Director Prize at The 2005 Shriekfest Film Festival.

His most recent feature film entitled BLACK MAIL, stars Taylor Nichols, but for the last several years he has been writing the book, ARTIFICE, RUSE & ERDNASE, the story of the search for the real identity of S. W. Erdnase, one of the most of the underrated American writers and the author of The Expert at the Card Table, the founding text of modern magic.

ARTIFICE, RUSE & ERDNASE is to be published in hard back and e-book by Lybrary.com in April 2012.

Hurt's plays have been produced in New York and Los Angeles as well as Chicago, where he received a 1999 Joseph Jefferson Citation for Outstanding New Work for his play WarHawks & Lindberghs. Other plays include repeat w/Madeline, which Daily Variety called an "hilarious and brilliant ... comedy" and Sleepwalker.

His Fermat's Elevator was a Finalist for the 2002 Heideman Award at the Humana Festival of the Actors Theatre of Louisville.

His most recent Chicago production was of his English rendering of Aristophanes’ BIRDS was produced by Chicago’s acclaimed TUTA Theater Company.