Dan O'Brien

Dan O’Brien is a playwright, poet, and librettist. His play The Body of an American received the inaugural Edward M. Kennedy Prize, the Horton Foote Prize for Outstanding New American Play, the PEN Center USA Award for Drama, the L. Arnold Weissberger Award, and was shortlisted for an Evening Standard Drama Award in the UK. 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 and Royal & Derngate in Northampton, England, directed by James Dacre, and premiered off-Broadway at Primary Stages in 2016. Previous plays by O’Brien have premiered at Second Stage Theatre, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Geva Theatre Center, and elsewhere.

O’Brien’s debut poetry collection, War Reporter (Hanging Loose Press, 2013; CB Editions, 2013), received the UK’s prestigious Fenton-Aldeburgh First Collection Prize, and was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection. A new poetry collection entitled Scarsdale was published in 2014 by CB Editions in the UK, and in 2015 by Measure Press in the US. O’Brien’s libretto for Jonathan Berger’s Visitations was commissioned by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Visitations premiered at Bing Concert Hall at Stanford University in 2013, directed by Rinde Eckert, and received its New York City premiere at the Prototype Festival in 2014. Originally from New York, O’Brien lives in Los Angeles with his wife and daughter. Website: danobrien.org.