Erin Courtney is an American

playwright A playwright or dramatist is a person who writes plays. Etymology The word "play" is from Middle English pleye, from Old English plæġ, pleġa, plæġa ("play, exercise; sport, game; drama, applause"). The word "wright" is an archaic English ...

and visual artist from

Hermosa Beach, California Hermosa Beach (''Hermosa'', Spanish language, Spanish for "Beautiful") is a beachfront city in Los Angeles County in the U.S. state of California, United States. Its population was 19,728 at the 2020 United States Census, 2020 U.S. Census. The c ...

. Courtney is known for employing nontraditional structures in her plays, with reviewers and collaborators describing her work as " delicate gem," "a visual and aural kaleidoscope," and "within a structure that is less linear than collage-like."

Career

Education and teaching

Courtney graduated from

Brown University Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...

in 1990 with a BA in Visual Art, the

San Francisco Art Institute San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) was a private college of contemporary art in San Francisco, California. Founded in 1871, SFAI was one of the oldest art schools in the United States and the oldest west of the Mississippi River. Approximately ...

in 1993 with an MFA in Painting, and from

Brooklyn College Brooklyn College is a public university in Brooklyn, Brooklyn, New York. It is part of the City University of New York system and enrolls about 15,000 undergraduate and 2,800 graduate students on a 35-acre campus. Being New York City's first publ ...

in 2003 with an MFA in Playwriting. As an educator, Courtney taught at Brooklyn College's Playwriting MFA program and acted as its Playwriting Program Coordinator. In 2020, she became an assistant professor at

Northwestern University Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1851, Northwestern is the oldest chartered university in Illinois and is ranked among the most prestigious academic institutions in the world. Charte ...

, in its Writing for Screen and Stage program.

New York and regional theater

Since 1997, Courtney has had work developed, read, and produced at Off-Broadway, Off-Off-Broadway, and indie theater venues including HERE Theater, Vineyard Theater, The Flea,

Atlantic Theater Company Atlantic Theater Company is an Off-Broadway non-profit theater, whose mission is to produce great plays "simply and truthfully utilizing an artistic ensemble." The company was founded in 1985 by David Mamet, William H. Macy, and 30 of their act ...

, Actors Theatre of Louisville and

Playwrights Horizons Playwrights Horizons is a not-for-profit Off-Broadway theater located in New York City dedicated to the support and development of contemporary American playwrights, composers, and lyricists, and to the production of their new work. Under the ...

. Courtney was a member of 13P, the downtown New York playwriting-producing collective that formed in 2003 and dissolved in 2012. Her 13P production, ''A Map of Virtue,'' won a 2012 Special Citation

Obie Award The Obie Awards or Off-Broadway Theater Awards are annual awards originally given by ''The Village Voice'' newspaper to theatre artists and groups in New York City. In September 2014, the awards were jointly presented and administered with the A ...

. Courtney was a Resident Playwright of

New Dramatists New Dramatists is an organization of playwrights founded in 1949 and located at 424 West 44th Street between Ninth and Tenth Avenues in the Hell's Kitchen (Clinton) neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. The members of New Dramatists parti ...

from 2012 - 2019. In 2013, Courtney was awarded a

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

in Drama and Performance Art. Courtney sits on the executive board of

Clubbed Thumb Clubbed Thumb is a downtown theater company in New York City that commissions, develops, and produces "funny, strange, and provocative new plays by living American writers." Since its founding in 1996, the company has earned five OBIES (including t ...

. In 2018, she helped develop Clubbed Thumb's Biennial Commission prompt, which urged writers to "alternative play shapes" in their storytelling.

Works

Plays

* 2015 ''I Will Be Gone'' * 2013 ''Black Cat Lost'' * 2012 ''A Map of Virtue'' * 2002 ''Demon Baby''

Musicals

* 2020 ''The Tattooed Lady.'' Book by Erin Courtney and Max Vernon, Lyrics and Music by Max Vernon. * 2015 ''The Nomad.'' Lyrics and book co-written by Erin Courtney and Elizabeth Swados

Performance pieces

* 2014 ''The Mysteries,'' "48 playwrights and 48 actors retelling the entirety of The Bible in a single night." Erin Courtney, co-writer along with 47 others. * 2014 ''I’m Bleeding All Over the Place: A Living History Tour'' at

The New Museum The New Museum of Contemporary Art, founded in 1977 by Marcia Tucker, is a museum in New York City at 235 Bowery, on Manhattan's Lower East Side. History The museum originally opened in a space in the Graduate Center of the then-named New S ...

. Created by Brooke O’Harra, written text by Brooke O’Harra and Casey Llewellyn, with Erin Courtney, Kristen Kosmas and Heidi Schreck. * 2013 ''Trade Practices,'' "an immersive site-specific theater experience that examines the notion of "value" against the backdrop of the booms and busts of the past decade."

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Courtney, Erin Living people American dramatists and playwrights American women dramatists and playwrights Brown University alumni San Francisco Art Institute alumni Brooklyn College alumni Year of birth missing (living people)