D

Steven Dietz

 1024 1024 Play Penn
How A Boy Falls (Year-Round Reading, 2019)

 

Steven Dietz‘s thirty-plus plays and adaptations have been seen at over one hundred regional theatres in the United States, as well as Off-Broadway. International productions have been seen in over twenty countries, including recently in Brazil, Thailand, South Africa, Estonia and Iran. His work has been translated into a dozen languages. Recent world premieres include Bloomsday (Steinberg New Play Award Citation); This Random World (Humana Festival of New American Plays); Rancho Mirage (Edgerton New Play Award), and On Clover Road (NNPN “rolling world premiere”). His interlocking plays for adult and youth audiences (The Great Beyond and The Ghost of Splinter Cove) recently premiered in Charlotte, NC. A two-time winner of the Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays Award (Fiction, Still Life with Iris), Dietz is also a two-time finalist for the American Theatre Critic’s Steinberg New Play Award (Last of the Boys,Becky’s New Car). He received the PEN USA West Award in Drama for Lonely Planet, and the Edgar Award® for Drama for Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure. Currently a Dramatists Guild “Traveling Master”, Dietz teaches workshops in playwriting and story-making across the U.S. He and his wife, playwright Allison Gregory, divide their time between Seattle and Austin.

Val Dunn

 1024 1024 Play Penn
Foundry Member

Val Dunn is a writer/deviser who creates plays, performance art, and rituals. Her work possesses a strong sense of place and tackles issues of feminism and queerness while pushing against the limitations of form. Plays and theatrical texts: DOWN IN THE HOLLER (PlayPenn, semi-finalist Bay Area Playwrights Festival), A SHOCK OF WHEAT (Philly Plays @ the Drake), NOW MORE THAN EVER (Philadelphia Fringe Festival), JOHNNY DEPP: A RETROSPECTIVE ON LATE-STAGE CAPITALISM (Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Philly SoLow Fest, Philly Theatre Week), THE BEAUTEOUS MAJESTY OF DENMARK (Washington College), and tiny works such as 100 WAYS THE WORLD COULD END and FUCK ME BE ME BETTE PORTER. She is a member playwright of Azuka’s New Pages, Writers on the Rocks, and an alumna of the Foundry @ PlayPenn. She has received developmental support from the Orchard Project (Core Company), Signal Fire, Centrum, the Bearded Ladies Cabaret, and SANDBOX. Val holds a B.A. with honors in drama and English from Washington College where she received the Stewart Award for Drama, The Mary Martin Prize, The Jude & Miriam Pfister Poetry Prize, The William W. Warner Prize for Writing on the Environment, The Literary House Genre Fiction Prize, and was a finalist for the Sophie Kerr prize in Literature. Val has also created zines about depression, the border crisis, and late-stage capitalism.

Russell Davis

Russell Davis

 1024 1024 Play Penn
The Day of the Picnic (PlayPenn, 2007)

Russell Davis’ plays include Appointment With a High Wire Lady, The Last Good Moment of Lily Baker, The Second Death of Priscilla, The Day of the Picnic, Mahida’s Extra Key to Heaven, and Sally’s Gone, She Left Her Name. They have been produced at various theatres, including People’s Light & Theatre, Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey, Long Wharf Theatre, Center Stage, Yale Repertory, and Actors Theatre of Louisville’s Humana Festival. They have also been presented at the Mark Taper Forum’s New Work Festival, the Sundance Insti­tute Playwrights Lab., O’Neill Center’s National Playwrights Conference, Playpenn, National New Play Network’s Showcase of New Plays, and New Harmony Project. Russell was resident playwright at People’s Light for the Theatre Residency Program of the National Endowment for the Arts/Theatre Communications Group.  He was a recipient of a 2008-10 Pew Fellowship in the Arts and has received playwright fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, McKnight Foundation, New York Foundation for the Arts, New York Council on the Arts, and Pennsylvania Council on the Arts.  He is also a juggler.

 

Dan Dietz

Dan Dietz

 1024 1024 Play Penn
Clementine in the Lower Nine (PlayPenn, 2010)

Dan Dietz’s plays include Tilt Angel (New Jersey Rep), American Misfit (Boston Court), Clementine in the Lower Nine (TheatreWorks), Blind Horses, and tempOdyssey (which received a rolling world premiere from the National New Play Network in 2006-07, and premiering at Curious Theatre, Studio Theatre, Phoenix Theatre, and New Jersey Rep). His work has been commissioned, developed and presented at such venues as Actors Theatre of Louisville, the Guthrie Theater, the Public Theater, Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, the Playwrights’ Center and the Lark. Mr. Dietz has been honored with a James A. Michener Fellowship, a Josephine Bay Paul Fellowship, and the Austin Critics Table Award for Best New Play. He is a two-time finalist for the Princess Grace Award and a nominee for the Oppenheimer Award, the Osborn Award, and the ATCA/Steinberg Award. His short play Trash Anthem received the 2003 Heideman Award from the Actors Theatre of Louisville, and in 2010 he received the award again for his play Lobster Boy.  He has written and produced for television, including the series Person of Interest and Westworld.

Lisa Dillman

Lisa Dillman

 1024 1024 Play Penn
No Such Thing (PlayPenn, 2013)
American Wee-Pie (PlayPenn, 2011)

Lisa Dillman’s plays include Ground, The Walls, American Wee-Pie, Rock Shore, No Such Thing, Six Postcards, Flung, Half of Plenty, and Shady Meadows. Her work has been produced by Steppenwolf Theatre, Actors Theatre of Louisville/Humana Festival, American Theatre Company, Rogue Machine, Seattle Public Theatre, SPF-NYC, and many other companies. She has been commissioned by the Goodman Theatre, Steppenwolf, Northlight Theatre, the Chicago Humanities Festival, and Rivendell Theatre Ensemble, (where she is a company member and where American Wee-Pie, Shady Meadows, and The Walls  all premiered), as well as by Centerstage, where her Story of a House was a part of the company’s My America video series, directed by Hal Hartley. She has also developed work at the O’Neill Playwrights Conference, two stints at Philadelphia’s PlayPenn Conference, The Women Playwrights Festival at Hedgebrook/ACT Theatre, and the National New Play Network. She was a member of the Goodman Theatre’s inaugural Playwrights Unit. Her work is published by Samuel French, Playscripts Inc., Dramatic Publishing Company, Smith & Kraus, Heinemann, and New Issues Press, and she is a past recipient of the Sprenger-Lang New History Play Prize, the Morton R. Sarett National Playwright Award, and the Julie Harris–Beverly Hills Theatre Guild’s Nesburn Prize. She is also a two-time recipient of the Illinois Arts Council’s Artist Fellowship in Playwriting/Screenwriting and a three-time Joseph Jefferson Award nominee for Best New Work.

 

Gabriel Jason Dean

 1024 1024 Play Penn
Heartland (PlayPenn, 2016)
Terminus (PlayPenn, 2013)

Gabriel Jason Dean returned to PlayPenn in 2016, after developing his play Terminus at PlayPenn in 2013.  Selected plays include In Bloom (Kennedy Center Paula Vogel Prize, Runner-Up Princess Grace Award); The Transition of Doodle Pequeño (AATE Distinguished Play Award, NETC Aurand Harris Award); Qualities of Starlight (Essential Theatre New Play Award, B. Iden Payne Award). Notable awards include a Hodder Fellowship from Princeton University and a Dramatist’s Guild Fellowship. His plays have been produced or developed throughout the United States at places such as New York Theatre Workshop, Manhattan Theatre Club, McCarter Theatre, Araca Group, The Lark, The Flea, Oregon Shakespeare, The Kennedy Center, PlayPenn, Interact, Abingdon Theatre, The Playwrights’ Center, Davenport Theatrical, ASSITEJ International, American Theatre Company, Red Orchid Theatre, Stage Left, The VORTEX, Theatre [502], Aurora Theatre, Dallas Children’s Theatre, People’s Light and Theatre, Dad’s Garage Theatre , Actor’s Express, Horizon Theatre, FronteraFest, Source Festival, the Cohen New Works Festival, Essential Theatre, and the Illinois Shakespeare Festival. His scripts are published through Samuel French, Dramatic Publishing and Playscripts. Gabriel is currently an Affiliated Writer at The Playwrights’ Center in Minneapolis and a Usual Suspect at New York Theatre Workshop. MFA: UT-Austin Michener Center for Writers. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and son.