Playwright Actress. She was born Vera Lampley in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Her plays were produced in New York and regionally. Her first play, Mixed Babies (1990), won a Helen Hayes award for Outstanding New Play for its Washington Stage Guild production in Washington D.C. It was produced in New York City by Manhattan Class Company. Her second play, The Dark Kalamazoo (1997), earned her a Helen Hayes nomination for the Woolly Mammoth production, was produced at the Freedom Repertory Theatre in Philadelphia and premiered in New York at the Drama Department and was published in The Fire This Time. Her play, Tough Titty (2003), premiered at Williamstown Theatre Festival under the direction of Charles Randolph Wright. The play was commissioned by South Coast Repertory and made Lampley a finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Award and a recipient of a 2006 Helen Merrill Emerging Playwright Award. It will open at the Magic Theatre in San Francisco in January 2009 directed by Robert O’Hara. As a member of Juilliard’s Playwrighting Program, she received the Lincoln Center LeComte du Nouy Award. Other grants and commissions include The Booomarang Fund for Artists Inc., the Smithsonian Institute, the William and Eva Fox Foundation grant, the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, and a NYSCA grant via Brooklyn Information and Culture (BRIC), which was a frequent supporter of her work. She was a member of New Dramatists, The Actors Center and a Playwright-In-Residence with Mud/Bone Theatre Company. In 2007 she participated in the three-week New Dramatists’ Ted Tulchin/Max Weitzenhoffer playwriting residency at the National Theatre in London. As a “working New York actor” she appeared in several films; Stay, Brother To Brother (2004), Money Train (1995), Jungle to Jungle (1997), and Lone Star (1996). On television she appeared in all the Law and Orders (1993-2003), Third Watch (2001), “The Sopranos”, “As the World Turns”, NYPD Blue (1993), Homicide: Life on the Streets (1993), One Life to Live (1994 1997), and Oz (1999-2000). She was seen on Broadway in The Ride Down Mount Morgan (2000), Biblical Pieces, Amsterdam (1999), Two Trains Running (1990), and Mule Bone (1991). She was seen off-Broadway in “Mud, River, Stone”, “Zooman and the Sign”, “The Destiny of Me” and “Boesman and Lena” among others. Regionally she worked at Hartford Stage, Long Wharf Theatre, Woolly Mammoth, Old Globe, Center Stage and The Acting Company. In 1996 she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She is survived by her husband and two sons. (bio by: Jackie)