John O'Keefe (born 1940) is an American playwright, director and solo performer. Notable awards include the 2002 Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award for ''Times Like These'', and a Bessie Award for ''Shimmer'', which was also made into a motion picture by

American Playhouse ''American Playhouse'' is an American anthology television series periodically broadcast by Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). It premiered on January 12, 1982, with ''The Shady Hill Kidnapping'', written and narrated by John Cheever and direc ...

. Born in

Waterloo, Iowa Waterloo is a city in and the county seat of Black Hawk County, Iowa, Black Hawk County, Iowa, United States. As of the 2020 United States census the population was 67,314, making it the List of cities in Iowa, eighth-most populous city in the st ...

, in 1940, O'Keefe was raised in a series of Catholic orphanages and juvenile homes. He began singing in church choirs at the age of five and pursued his musical interests, subsequently receiving a vocal scholarship at the

University of Iowa The University of Iowa (U of I, UIowa, or Iowa) is a public university, public research university in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1847, it is the oldest and largest university in the state. The University of Iowa is organized int ...

, where he earned a BA degree in philosophy and an MFA in theater. O'Keefe moved to

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

in the early 1970s, beginning an affiliation with the

Magic Theatre The Magic Theatre is a theatre company founded in 1967, presently based at the historic Fort Mason Center on San Francisco's northern waterfront. The Magic Theatre is well known and respected for its singular focus on the development and producti ...

that continues to this day. O'Keefe also co-founded the Blake Street Hawkeyes, a performance-lab ensemble based in Berkeley. He wrote the libretto for ''Chrysalis'', a new opera written with Clark Suprynowicz for the Berkeley Opera in 2006.

Major works

* ''The Man in the Moon'' (1983) * '' Shimmer'' (1988) * ''The Promotion'' (1989) * ''The Bronte Cycle'' (2000) * ''Times Like These'' (2002)

References

External links

Official siteHawk-Eyed Optimist
at Backstage Magazine
John O’Keefe
at KQED Arts 20th-century American dramatists and playwrights University of Iowa alumni 1940 births Living people {{US-playwright-stub