Will Dunne

Will Dunne is a Resident Playwright at Chicago Dramatists where he is now developing plays and teaching workshops. He also runs weekend seminars in San Francisco through his own program Will Dunne Dramatic Writing Workshops. For more information about Chicago workshops, visit www.chicagodramatists.org. For more information about San Francisco workshops and individual script consultations, visit www.willdunne.com.

Through his association with Chicago Dramatists, Mr. Dunne's short comedy DEEP GARDENS was presented at Chicago's Second City in the summer of 2006. More recent Chicago area productions include THE ASCENSION OF CARLOTTA at the 16th Street Theatre (2008), HOW I BECAME AN INTERESTING PERSON at Chicago Dramatists (2009), TWO MEN ON A TRAIN PLATFORM JUST BEFORE THE APOCALYPSE at Artistic Home (2012), IN THE DARK at Intuit (2012), LOVE AND DROWNING at the 16th Street Theatre (2012), and THE ROPER at The Den Theatre (2014) which was nominated for a 2014 Joseph Jefferson Award for Best New Work.

In the 35-year history of the Eugene O'Neill Theatre Center under the Artistic Direction of Lloyd Richards, Mr. Dunne is one of only five playwrights to be selected three consecutive times for the U.S. National Playwrights Conference. HOW I BECAME AN INTERESTING PERSON, LOVE AND DROWNING, and HOTEL DESPERADO were each one of ten plays chosen annually from about 1,500 submissions nationwide for presentation at the O'Neill Center.

HOW I BECAME AN INTERESTING PERSON received a Charles MacArthur Fellowship awarded by the O'Neill and founded by Helen Hayes for outstanding comedy that "exemplifies the comic irreverent spirit of Charles MacArthur." The play also was presented as an international selection at the Australian National Playwrights Conference in Canberra, New South Wales, and in a Croatian translation at the National Theatre of Istria in Pula, Croatia. HOTEL DESPERADO was translated into Russian by the Moscow Theatre Union and presented as the international selection at its 10th annual festival of new plays in Schelykovo, Russia.

Mr. Dunne has twice been a finalist for the Heideman Award at the Actors Theatre of Louisville for his short plays MOONRISE and GOOD MORNING, ROMEO. U.S. productions of his work -- such as ELEVENTH HOUR, I MARRIED A WEREWOLF, BETWEEN QUAKES, and THE BRIDGE -- have received four Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Awards, two DramaLogue Playwriting Awards, and a Best-of-Year mention from the San Francisco Examiner. His toll-taker play THE BRIDGE also was selected as a project of the 50-Year Celebration of the Golden Gate Bridge.

His playwriting background is supplemented by years of acting, directing, producing, and teaching. Since 1988, Mr. Dunne has led more than two thousand dramatic writing workshops through his independent program (Will Dunne Dramatic Writing Workshops) which continues to meet monthly in the San Francisco Bay Area and through Chicago Dramatists. He has attended the U.S. National Playwrights Conference as a dramaturg and the Australian National Playwrights Conference as a guest playwriting instructor. In addition, Mr. Dunne has served as a juror for Marin Arts Council playwriting grants in the Bay Area.