Current Students
M.F.A. in Playwriting
Andrew Hinderaker
Andrew Hinderaker is a Resident Playwright of Chicago Dramatists, an ensemble member of the Gift Theatre in Chicago, and a two-time Jeff Award nominee. His play, Suicide, Incorporated, premiered at the Gift in 2010, was subsequently produced Off-Broadway at the Roundabout Theatre, and has since received several productions throughout the country. Additional work by Hinderaker, including Dirty, Kingsville, Colossal, and I Am Going to Change the World, have been produced/developed by the Kennedy Center, the Manhattan Theatre Club, Steppenwolf Theatre, the Araca Group, Mixed Blood Theatre, No Rules Theatre Company, Victory Gardens, Rattlestick Theatre, Stage Left Theatre, and several others. He currently holds commissions from the Roundabout Theatre and Marc Platt Productions. Hinderaker holds a B.A. and M.A. from Stanford University, and is currently completing his M.F.A. in Playwriting from the University of Texas at Austin. andrewsplays.com
Kevin Kautzman
Kevin Kautzman is a playwright originally from North Dakota pursuing his M.F.A. with a focus in playwriting and screenwriting as a Michener Fellow at the University of Texas at Austin. He began studying playwriting in London at the Royal Court Theatre, where he became a core writer out of the Young Writers Program. He has received commissions from History Theatre and Red Eye, and his work has been performed and/or developed at places including the Des Moines Social Club, Fox Valley Repertory, the Landing Theatre Company, the Living Theatre, Mondays Dark, the New Theatre Project, Nouveau 47, the Players’ Guild Theater, the Playwrights’ Center, the Soho Theatre Studio (UK), and the UK National Student Drama Festival. Honors include the Playwrights’ Center’s Jerome Fellowship, the Michener Fellowship, and the Sewanee Writers’ Conference’s Tennessee Williams Scholarship (THEN WAVES), Lavender Magazine’s Best Playwriting (IRIS), and the International Student Playscript Competition and Repertory Theatre Iowa’s Alpha Project awards (COYOTE). THEN WAVES was also a finalist for the Pen Center drama award and the Yale Drama Series.
Kevin has taught, tutored, and provided new play dramaturgy at organizations in Iowa, Minnesota, Texas, and the UK, is an alumnus of the University of Minnesota, where he studied history and philosophy, and is a member of the Dramatists Guild Inc., the Playwrights’ Center, and Scriptworks. His holiday comedy for teens A VERY STAGEHAND CHRISTMAS: REINDEER APOCALYPSE STORM! is available from Playscripts.
More information at kevinkautzman.com.
Brian Kettler
Brian Kettler is a first year M.F.A. Playwriting candidate in the Theater and Dance Department. He is a graduate of Kenyon College and The National Theater Institute. His full-length plays, Personal and In School Suspension, were workshopped at Portland Center Stage as part of the JAW: Made in Oregon Festival. He is a recipient of the 2012 Oregon Literary Fellowship in Drama. Brian is also a theater educator, and has worked at several elementary schools throughout the Portland area.
Brian Oglesby
Brian Oglesby (who writes under the pseudonym "Briandaniel Oglesby") is a Playwright in the Theatre and Dance Department. His play Halfway, Nebraska took part in Playwrights Week at the Lark in 2012. His short plays have been three-time National Finalists for the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival, as well as finalist for the Humana Festival Heideman Award. He curated The Coming Out Monologues at UC-Riverside for three years. Also a fiction writer, his short stories have been published in ZYZZYVA, Arroyo, and New California Writing, among others.
He is Literary Manager for Barnyard Theatre, a company that produces new plays in this old barn surrounded by alfalfa fields.
He's first generation American on his mother's side, and hails from Davis, California. Despite the picture, he's usually clean-shaven and wearing a button shirt.
Gabrielle Reisman
Gabrielle Reisman is a New Orleans based playwright and director. A member of The NOLA Project and former artistic director of The Alamo Underground, her plays have been produced in New York, New Orleans, Champaign, Chicago and Austin and have been translated into German. Gabrielle's first four full lengths are published in the 2007 anthology More Pepper by Hot Lead Press. Selected monologues from Brian and Shevat are published by Simon and Schuster. Gabrielle won the 2012 Kennedy Center ACTF Rosa Parks Award for her play, Catch The Wall. She was a semi-finalist for the 2012 Princess Grace Award, and received a Continuing Fellowship from The University of Texas for her research on public education and bounce music in New Orleans.
Sarah Saltwick
Sarah Saltwick is a playwriting and fiction Michener Fellow at the University of Texas in Austin and a graduate from Hampshire College. She writes new love stories between people, places, and things. Her plays are built of hope and danger; fantasy and history; that which is impossible and that which is necessary. This fall her adaptation of The Scarlet Letter was part of UT’s Mainstage Season. Her work has been presented, developed or produced by the University of Texas at Austin, Nouveau 47, paper chairs theatre company, TheatreMasters, Scriptworks, WordBRIDGE, Bristol Riverside Theater, Shrewd Productions, Last Frontier Theatre Conference, and Moving Arts. She has been a finalist for the Heideman Award and the Bay Area Playwrights Festival and was twice nominated for Best New Play by the Austin Critics Table. She's written plays inspired by giant rabbits, Texas, guacamole, Dolly Parton and more. Her fiction has been published by Escape Into Life.
Patrick Shaw
Patrick Shaw writes plays, acts, dances, and makes music. His plays have been produced at The Flea, the Drilling Company, Galapagos Art Space, Cherry Pit, Hudson River Guild, Flushnik Art Space, Bradley University (Peoria), and Gorilla Tango (Chicago), and his play, HAMLETTES, was a finalist for the Lark Workshop and was published by Playscripts, Inc. Two of his plays, A Miracle Study and Autobiography of a Sparrow, have been semifinalists for the National Playwrights Conference. A graduate of Kenyon College and the National Theater Institute, Patrick is a founding member of FullStop Collective, was the 2011 Playwright-in-Residence for Bakerloo Theatre Project (Troy, NY), and is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild of America. patrickshawplays.com
Diana Small
Diana Small is a M.F.A. candidate in the Michener Center for Writers focusing on playwriting and poetry. She earned her B.A. in Theatre Arts and English from Westmont College in 2009. Upon graduating, she was a resident artist at Westmont working as a playwright, director, and lyricist. Her plays Muéveme Muévete, Beauty Bomb, They Must Be Wings and Jupiter I Love You were produced at Westmont. She likes to write plays staged in cars, We’re Still Kids (Santa Barbara Museum of Art) and Lady in Waiting (Oregon State University, Best Play). Diana is a member of the Lit Moon Theatre Company; acting credits include Queen Margaret (Henry VI Part III), The Button Molder (Peer Gynt), Glumdalca (Tragedy of Tragedies), and Cassius (Julius Caesar). She co-formed the music collective, Patience, which premiered its rock-narrative Water Will Rise in 2010. Diana grew up in Martinez, California.
Eva Suter
Eva Suter spent past four years writing, directing, and whatever-elsing with The Working Theatre Collective in Portland, Oregon, where she received the new play Drammy in Spring '11. She received her B.A. in Theatre Arts from Western Washington University in Bellingham, WA. Eva is stoked to be in her first year as a playwright with the Michener Center.
