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 The New York Dance and Performance Awards, also known as the Bessie Awards, are awarded annually for exceptional achievement by independent dance artists presenting their work in New York City. The broad categories of the awards are: choreography, ...

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). Overview It premiered on January 12, 1982, with ''The Shady Hill Kidnapping'', written and narrated by John Cheever an ...

. Born in

Waterloo, Iowa Waterloo is a city in and the county seat of Black Hawk County, Iowa, United States. As of the 2020 United States Census the population was 67,314, making it the eighth-largest city in the state. The city is part of the Waterloo – Cedar Falls ...

, 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 (UI, U of I, UIowa, or simply Iowa) is a 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 into 12 col ...

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

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

in the early 1970s, beginning an affiliation with the Magic Theatre 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