Photo: Peter Bellamy
Biography
Dan O'Brien is a playwright, poet, librettist, and a 2015 Guggenheim Fellow in Drama and Performance Art. In 2016 his play, The Body of an American, will receive an off-Broadway premiere at Primary Stages, after opening in co-production with Hartford Stage, directed by Jo Bonney. The Body of an American is the winner of the Horton Foote Prize for Outstanding New American Play, the inaugural Edward M. Kennedy Prize for Drama Inspired by American History, the PEN Center USA Award for Drama, and the L. Arnold Weissberger Award. In the UK the play was shortlisted for the Evening Standard's Wintour Award for Most Promising Playwright. The Body of an American premiered at Portland Center Stage, directed by Bill Rauch, and received its European premiere in an extended run at the Gate Theatre in London in 2014, in a co-production with Royal & Derngate Theatre in Northampton, England, directed by James Dacre. O'Brien is currently under commission from Center Theatre Group in Los Angeles to write a new play about Syria, ISIS and Hollywood, as well as an American Revolutions joint-commission from the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and New York City's Public Theater on the history of guns in America.
O'Brien's plays have premiered at Second Stage Theatre, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Geva Theatre Center, Wilma Theatre, Humana Festival of New American Plays at Actors' Theatre of Louisville, Page 73 Productions, and elsewhere. His plays are published by Playscripts, Oberon, and Samuel French. O'Brien's third collection of poetry, New Life, was published by CB Editions in London in 2015, and Handing Loose Press in Brooklyn in 2016. His second collection, Scarsdale, was published by CB Editions in 2014, and in the US by Measure Press in 2015. War Reporter, his debut collection, was published in 2013 by CB Editions, and by Hanging Loose Press in Brooklyn. War Reporter received the Fenton Aldeburgh First Collection Prize and was shortlisted for the Forward Foundation's Felix Dennis Prize for Best First Collection. O'Brien's poems have appeared internationally in journals, magazines, and newspapers. O'Brien has taught playwriting at Princeton University, Sewanee Writers' Conference, The University of the South (Sewanee), University of Wisconsin-Madison, SUNY Purchase, Grinnell College, and in his private workshop in New York City. He holds a BA in English & Theatre from Middlebury College and an MFA in Playwriting & Fiction from Brown University. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, actor, writer, and producer Jessica St. Clair, and their daughter Isobel.