Described by Road Less Traveled Productions executive and artistic director Scott Behrend as “Buffalo’s most successful native playwright,” A.R. Gurney has agreed to join RLTP’s National Advisory Board, which currently includes TV icon Alec Baldwin.

Increasingly involved in Western New York theater happenings over the last three years, but especially 2012 through an appearance at the 2012 RLTP Spring Gala and the production of his play Ancestral Voices, Gurney earns the distinction for the quality and bulk of his work as well as his relevance locally.

“Mr. Gurney is an outstanding addition to the Board and we are grateful for his willingness to support our efforts,” said Behrend to BroadwayWorld.com. “His profile, locally and nationally, and close relationship to Buffalo, his hometown, make him particularly attuned to our mission.”

The National Advisory Board, which serves as a “source of inspiration and reference for RLTP’s artistic mission and vision,” features five influential individuals in addition to Gurney: Baldwin, Eric Bogosian, Scott Ellis, Stephen McKinley Henderson and James Rebhorn. Baldwin, the most recognizable name on the list, played an acting role in RLTP’s presentation of “The Big Knife” by Clifford Odets in January at the University at Buffalo Center for the Arts (Don Nieman’s photo gallery here).

Road Less Traveled Productions is a professional not-for-profit theater company dedicated to the development and production of new theatrical works by Western New York playwrights as well as presentations of esteemed modern dramas of outstanding literary merit. RLTP’s Behrend writes a bi-monthly blog for Buffalo.com—“The Blog Less Traveled”—updating the local theater scene.

Here’s Behrend’s most recent entry, a conversation with Matthew Crehan Higgins and Donna Hoke.