Playwright

Meridith Friedman

Meridith was born in Madison, Wisconsin, and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii. She received her BA from Connecticut College, and her MFA in Writing for the Stage & Screen from Northwestern University.

Her play THE FIRESTORM is a current National New Play Network (NNPN) Rolling World Premiere, receiving productions in Chicago, Dallas, and Boulder. Her work has been developed and workshopped at The Kennedy Center, Chicago Dramatists, The Greenhouse Theatre Center, Curious Theatre Company, the NNPN National New Play Showcase, New Repertory Theatre, The Lark, Actor’s Express, Interlochen Center for the Arts, Kitchen Dog Theater, Stage Left Theatre, LOCAL Theatre Company, The Samuel French OOB Short Play Festival, The American Southwest Theatre Company at NMSU, The Johnny Mercer Writers Colony at Goodspeed Musicals, Florida Repertory Theatre, The Ashland New Play Festival, Orlando Shakespeare Theater, and Actor’s Theatre of Charlotte.

She was the NNPN Playwright-in-Residence at Curious Theatre Company for their 2010-2011 season, a 2012-2013 Dramatist Guild Fellow, and the recipient of a 2013-2014 Downstage Left Playwriting Residency at Stage Left Theatre. She was awarded the 2014 NNPN Annual Commission to write and develop a new play with Curious Theatre Company. The commissioned play, THE LUCKIEST PEOPLE will premiere at Curious Theatre Company in the 2016-2017 season. Curious has also commissioned Meridith to write a trilogy of plays to premiere over the next three seasons at Curious.

Meridith was a Visiting Assistant Professor of Drama at Kenyon College during the 2011-2012 academic year, and taught two sections of screenwriting to undergraduates while completing her graduate work at Northwestern University. She has also taught playwriting to talented high school and middle school dramatists at Interlochen Center for the Arts and Curious Theatre Company.

She recently completed the book for a new musical with composer/lyricist Ryan Langer, and is currently working on a new musical with composer/lyricist Madeline Myers and director Emily Maltby.

UPCOMING WORKS

The Firestorm at Local Theatre Company

The Luckiest People at Curious Theatre Company

The Luckiest People at Actor’s Theatre of Charlotte

CREDITS

The Luckiest People
full-length play; 3m/1f
What is our responsibility to our parents? In the days following his mother’s funeral, a son is forced to grapple with that question. When his elderly father proposes moving in with him unspoken hostilities are unleashed, spiraling the men into a vicious game of finger pointing. The father’s growing suspicions over the circumstances of his wife’s death lead him to make a startling accusation against his son.

The Firestorm
full-length play; 2f/2m
When a racially charged prank from a gubernatorial candidate’s past emerges in the media, his African-American wife is thrust to the forefront of his campaign. Charged with defending her white husband against accusations of racism and saving the campaign from collapse, she begins to have serious questions about the very foundation of her marriage.

West Highland Way
full-length play; 2m/1f
A young woman, reeling from a broken engagement, sets forth on a 95-mile walking trail in Scotland with her father. When a chance encounter with a charming Irishman re-opens her heart, she must navigate the uneven terrain that lies between the life you planned for and the life you can’t plan.

Blue Monday
full-length play; 2m/1f
An aspiring oil painter is devastated when her husband, a talented poet and her former professor, develops Semantic Dementia. As he begins to lose the semantic meanings of words and objects, painting becomes a way for him to recall mental pictures without the mediation of language. A silent rivalry soon develops as his paintings start to garner attention.

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