Sarah Mantell

Sarah is the recipient of the 2023 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize for In the Amazon Warehouse Parking Lot (Playwrights Horizons). Their other plays include Everything That Never Happened (Baltimore Center Stage, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Boston Court Pasadena), The Good Guys (Second Stage), Tiny (Seven Devils, Seattle Rep), and Fight Call (Artists Repertory Theatre, Breaking the Binary) They have been first-runner up for the Leah Ryan Award, a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award, and longlisted for the Bruntwood Prize.

A current Colt Coeur resident artist, Sarah is also a two-time MacDowell fellow and Yaddo resident. They have also received residencies at Wildacres, Hedgebrook, Fresh Ground Pepper, Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and SPACE on Ryder Farm, as well as a Toulmin grant, an Edgerton Foundation grant, and a Playwrights Realm Writing Fellowship.

Sarah began their career in literary offices at the Magic Theatre, Geva Theatre, and People's Light. They went on to launch the education department at PlayPenn, inventing signature programs like Rent a Dramaturg and dramaturging for the annual conference. They have been a judge for new work submissions across the country including Hedgebrook, The Public Theater, Sewanee Writers Conference, MIT, Breaking the Binary, and the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. Essays on supporting new work include “Touch the Wound, But Don’t Live There” in American Theatre Magazine and "Read This Before You Have a Reading" for the Playwrights Realm.

Teaching credits: Wesleyan University, SUNY Purchase, Occidental College, Hudson Valley Writers Center, University of Vermont, and Worcester Polytechnic. They run the independent workshop Five Weeks to a First Draft as well as a Free Application Help pilot program for historically underrepresented writers.

BFA Rhode Island School of Design. MFA Yale School of Drama.