Dan O'Brien

Dan O’Brien is a playwright, poet, and librettist whose recognition includes a Guggenheim Fellowship in Drama & Performance Art, the inaugural Edward M. Kennedy Prize for Drama Inspired by American History, the Horton Foote Prize for Best New American Play, the PEN Center USA Award for Drama, the L. Arnold Weissberger Award, and, for poetry, the Fenton Aldeburgh First Collection Prize. His most recent play, The House in Scarsdale: a Memoir for the Stage, premiered at The Theatre @ Boston Court in 2017, directed by Michael Michetti, and has been nominated for five Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Awards, including Best Play. His docu-drama about the haunting of war reporter Paul Watson, The Body of an American (New Harmony Project 2011), has been produced in recent years off-Broadway at Primary Stages, in a co-production with Hartford Stage directed by Jo Bonney, at the Gate Theatre in London (shortlisted for an Evening Standard Theatre Award), and regionally in Chicago, Washington DC, Denver, Portland, and elsewhere. O’Brien wrote the libretto for Visitations: Theotokia & The War Reporter, an opera by composer Jonathan Berger, that premiered at Stanford University and the Prototype Festival in New York City, directed by Rinde Eckert. Fellowships and residencies include the Hodder Fellowship from Princeton University, the Djerassi Fellowship from University of Wisconsin-Madison, and the Rockefeller Center in Bellagio, Italy. O’Brien’s poetry collections are published in the UK and the US: War Reporter (2013), Scarsdale (2014), and New Life (2015). Dan O’Brien: Plays One was published in 2017 by Oberon Books in London. O’Brien teaches frequently at the Sewanee Writers’ Conference. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, actor and writer Jessica St. Clair, and their daughter Bebe. More information at www.danobrien.org.