Susan Kathryn Hefti: An Emerging American Playwright

An emerging American playwright, Susan Kathryn Hefti’s plays have been developed or produced at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater NYC; The Lark Play Development Center NYC; The Harold Clurman Playwrights Division at The Stella Adler Studio NYC; St. Mark’s Church-in-the Bowery Theatre NYC; Long Beach Playhouse Theatre CA; Capital Stage Company CA and in Paris at Théâtre Mélo d'Amelie & La Comédie Bastille.

Susan’s newest play THE POWER PLAY, or Smart Bombs & Other Sexy Toys received a Roundtable Reading at the Lark Play Development Center NYC in July 2013. Selected by Capital Stage for its annual New Works Festival PLAYWRIGHTS REVOLUTION, the play also received a staged reading in California in August 2013. THE POWER PLAY is scheduled to receive a second Roundtable Reading at the Lark Play Development Center NYC in November 2013.

AMERICAN DAMES, or Waiting for Dolley (2012 Long Beach Playhouse New Works Festival Finalist; 2011-2012 Harold Clurman Playwright-in-Residence Finalist & Beverly Hills Theatre Guild's 2012 Julie Harris Playwright Award Semi-Finalist) enjoyed readings at both the 2012 Harold Clurman Playwrights Division’s New Play Reading Festival in NYC and the 2012 Long Beach Playhouse Theatre’s New Works Festival in Long Beach, California.

Following a staged reading at St. Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery Theatre, Susan’s one-act history play A DEFIANT SOUL – which explores religious persecution in 17th century New Amsterdam – was adapted to be used as a teaching tool in workshops led by theatre artist Vernice Miller and has been widely performed by students exploring early NYC history and the establishment of religious freedom in America.

A DEFIANT SOUL also brought Susan a commission from the City of NY to research, curate and write the narrative for the related exhibit on the 1657 document protesting religious intolerance in New Amsterdam. The exhibit – which Susan entitled The Flushing Remonstrance: Who Shall Plead For Us? – was designed to travel around the country following its 2009 NYC debut. In 2010, the history exhibit authored by Hefti enjoyed a NYC encore, extending again due to popular demand and was most recently on display in Philadelphia (2012).

Susan’s other plays include KEEPIN' COOL (2004 Princess Grace Award Semi-Finalist), OFF THE BENCH and DEAR PRUDENCE.

  

A proud member of the Dramatists Guild, The Playwrights’ Center and Fractured Atlas, Susan began her professional writing career as a journalist specializing in environmental news before transitioning into writing for the stage.

In 2009, NY Theater Critic Leonard Jacobs invited Susan to write a regular column for his online magazine The Clyde Fitch Report. Happy to use the opportunity to explore yet another issue close to her heart, Susan dubbed the series The Preservation Diaries.

A 2004 recipient of a PEN American Center Writers Grant, Susan has taught at several Universities including Brown & Yale. 

  

Playwright Susan Kathryn Hefti

Susan Kathryn Hefti is an American Playwright. An active member of the Dramatists Guild of America, Hefti's debut work for the stage was launched by the highly successful 2003 world premiere of her play Dear Prudence which enjoyed an extended run Off-Broadway.

Hailed by Gay City News as "a light, wonderful play that will have you laughing all the way through", Dear Prudence is now wowing a whole new audience - this time in Paris - having enjoyed exciting staged readings at Théâtre Mélo d'Amelie in June 2010 and again at La Comédie Bastille in October 2010 - in preparation for an upcoming French production!

The impressive success of Dear Prudence also led Tony Award winning Arielle Tepper Productions to select Hefti as Guest Speaker for the 2003 Syracuse University Tepper Theater Program in Manhattan.

Hefti's next play, Keepin' Cool, was honored as a Semi-Finalist for the 2004 Princess Grace Award. Inspired by the tragic and sudden death of one of her Yale students, Keepin' Cool is a bittersweet love story exploring questions of fate, romance, loss, the boundaries of social convention and the deep connections that can transcend them all when unlikely souls unexpectedly collide.

In 2006, Hefti's history play A Defiant Soul, set in 1661 and bringing to life the dramatic battle of wills between New Amsterdam‘s Dutch Director-General, Petrus Stuyvesant, and the English Quaker John Bowne, whose dangerous and singular act of civil disobedience led directly to the establishment of religious freedom in the new world, was presented Off-Broadway (directed by Vernice Miller) as part of a city-wide program entitled 5 Dutch Days.

A Defiant Soul was later adapted to be used as a teaching tool in the NYC school system, where it has been widely performed by students exploring early NYC history and the establishment of religious freedom in America.

The success of that play also brought Hefti a commission from the City of NY; to write the narrative for the related exhibit on the 1657 document protesting religious intolerance in New Amsterdam. The exhibit, The Flushing Remonstrance: Who Shall Plead For Us?, was designed to travel around the country following its celebrated 2009 NYC debut.

Hefti's other full-length plays include American Dames (or…Waiting for Dolley); Off The Bench; Robbed and The Cocktail Party about a clutch of Columbia University Professors whose annual Christmas party devolves into tragedy evoking the cannibalism referenced in the T.S. Eliot play by the same name. Impressed by its wit and insights, Playwrights Horizons wrote of The Cocktail Party, "[w]e found it bitingly wry and intelligent."

In 2003 Hefti authored a series of one-act plays entitled, The Farmer Trilogy - comprised of The Home Stretch, Parlor Beauty and Tea & Sympathy. Her other one-act plays include Actias Luna; Positively Glowing; Eros & Sophia; Venus Under Water; Broadway@Fulton and Crashing Into Moonlight.

Nominated to the 2010 Nantucket Screenwriters Colony by acclaimed filmmaker Mitchell Lichtenstein (Teeth, Happy Tears), Hefti is the author of the screenplays The Polka Dot Tea Party and Sum Luv Kitchen. With Canadian filmmaker Chris Smets, Hefti co-authored the screenplay Bad Dates a dark comedy about dating and mating in NYC based on Hefti's original story idea.

Hefti also spent a number of years working as a journalist and writing for television and radio. Her column, The Preservation Diaries, is published online by NY Theater Critic Leonard Jacobs at The Clyde Fitch Report.

A 2004 recipient of a PEN American Center Writers Grant, Hefti has taught at several Universities including Brown and Yale.