Jen Silverman

Jen Silverman is an American playwright, TV writer, poet, and novelist.

Jen Silverman
Education	Brown University (BA) University of Iowa (MFA) Juilliard School (GrDip)

Life and career

Silverman grew up living and traveling in Scandinavia, Asia, and Europe as well as the United States.^[1] They are the author of the books The Island Dwellers, an interlinked story collection published by Random House, and the novels We Play Ourselves and There's Going to Be Trouble.^[2]

Silverman has written a number of plays and has written for TV and film, including Netflix's Tales of the City and Tokyo Vice on which they are also a producer. Silverman has published essays on the relationship between art and morality in The New York Times and Vogue.^[3][4] Silverman made their Broadway debut as a playwright in the fall of 2024 with their play The Roommate at the Booth Theatre, starring Mia Farrow and Patti Lupone.^[5]

Background

Silverman completed a BA in comparative literature at Brown University,^[6] an MFA in playwriting at the University of Iowa, and an Artist Diploma at Juilliard under Marsha Norman and Chris Durang.

They have taught theatre and playwriting classes at the University of Iowa, Playwrights Horizons Theater School at New York University, and ESPA (at Primary Stages). Silverman completed residencies at MacDowell Colony (three-time fellow), New Harmony, Hedgebrook, the Millay Colony for the Arts, and SPACE on Ryder Farm.

Works

Full-length plays

• Phoebe In Winter (2013)^{[a][7][8][9][10]}
• Still (2013)^[b][11]
• Pirates of the Cafeteria (2014)^[12]
• The Roommate (2015)^{[c][13][14][15]}
• The Moors (2016)^{[d][7][16][13][17]}
• Collective Rage: A Play In 5 Betties; In Essence, A Queer And Occasionally Hazardous Exploration; Do You Remember When You Were In Middle School And You Read About Shackleton And How He Explored The Antarctic?; Imagine The Antarctic As A Pussy And It’s Sort Of Like That (2016)^[e][18][19]
• Witch (2018)^[f][20][21]
• Wink (2019)^[g][22][23]
• Spain (2023)^[h][24][25]
• Highway Patrol (2024)^[i][26][24]

Short plays

• The Astonishing and Dangerous History of Mazefield the Frog (2015)^[j]
• Hippos of the Eastern Enclosure(2017)^[k][27]
• The Visitations (2020)^[l][28]
• Real American Dinner Party (2020)^[m][29]
• Ubu Anew (A Play for Strange People) (2021)^[n][30]
• Your Mother in the Night Sky (2021)^[o][31]

Books

• The Island Dwellers: Stories (2018)
• We Play Ourselves: A Novel (2021)
• Bath: A Poetry Chapboook (2021)
• There's Going to Be Trouble: A Novel (2024)

Awards

Silverman has received the Yale Drama Series Award,^[6] Lilly Award, the Helen Merrill Fund Award in 2015,^[6] and the PoNY Fellowship (2016-2017).^[7] Recent honors include fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim.

Notes

1. Ran from June 7–16, 2013 at The Wild Project under the direction of Mike Donahue and produced by Clubbed Thumb. Ran from September 22 – October 21, 2018 at Facility Theatre under the direction of Dado.
2. Ran at Lincoln Center in 2013 under the direction of Kate Whoriskey. Received the 2013 Yale Drama Series Award.
3. Ran from March 6 – April 12, 2015 at Actors Theatre of Louisville under the direction of Mike Donahue. Ran from September 12 – December 15, 2024 at The Booth Theatre under the direction of Jack O’Brien.
4. Ran from January 29 – February 20, 2016 at Yale Repertory Theatre under the direction of Jackson Gay. Ran from February 27 – March 25, 2017 at Playwrights Realm under the direction of Mike Donahue.
5. Ran from September 12 – October 9, 2016 under the title Collective Rage: A Play In 5 Boops at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company under the direction of Mike Donahue. Ran from August 16 – October 9, 2018 at Lucille Lortel Theatre under the direction of Mike Donahue.
6. Ran from September 26 - December 16, 2018 at the Gillian Theatre under the direction of Marti Lyons.
7. Ran from June 13 – July 7, 2019 at Marin Theatre Company under the direction of Mike Donahue.
8. Ran from November 8 – December 17, 2023 at Second Stage Theatre under the direction of Tyne Rafaeli.
9. Ran from January 20 – February 18, 2024 at Goodman Theatre under the direction of Mike Donahue.
10. Presented as a part of Keen Teens 2015. Part of the collection Keen Teens: Volume 3.
11. Ran in the spring of 2017 at the 2017 Winterworks Festival under the direction of Christina Roussos.
12. Premiered in August 2020 at Weston’s One Room Festival under the direction of Mike Donahue.
13. Premiered in 2020 as an audio play by Playing On Air under the direction of Rachel Chavkin.
14. A shortened and extremely loose adaptation of Alfred Jarry's play Ubu Roi.
15. Written as an audio play and performed as part of the Plays On Call Festival in March 2021 under the direction of Michael Legg.