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American playwright and visual artist From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Erin Courtney is an American playwright and visual artist from Hermosa Beach, California.[1]
Courtney is known for employing nontraditional structures in her plays, with reviewers and collaborators describing her work as "[a] delicate gem," [2] "a visual and aural kaleidoscope," [3] and "within a structure that is less linear than collage-like."[4]
Courtney graduated from Brown University in 1990 with a BA in Visual Art, the San Francisco Art Institute in 1993 with an MFA in Painting, and from Brooklyn College in 2003 with an MFA in Playwriting.[5] 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, in its Writing for Screen and Stage program.[6]
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, Actors Theatre of Louisville and Playwrights Horizons.[7]
Courtney was a member of 13P, the downtown New York playwriting-producing collective that formed in 2003 and dissolved in 2012.[8] Her 13P production, A Map of Virtue, won a 2012 Special Citation Obie Award.[9]
Courtney was a Resident Playwright of New Dramatists from 2012 - 2019.[10]
In 2013, Courtney was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in Drama and Performance Art.[11]
Courtney sits on the executive board of Clubbed Thumb. In 2018, she helped develop Clubbed Thumb's Biennial Commission prompt, which urged writers to "alternative play shapes" in their storytelling.[12][13]