Playwrights West

Providing Platforms for Playwrights in the Pacific Northwest.

ANDREA STOLOWITZ

Andrea’s characters thrive in blasted heaths of the imagination—those liminal Arden Forests where transformation and sometimes even transfiguration takes place.
— Mead Hunter, New Harmony Project
Photo credit: Owen Carey

Photo credit: Owen Carey

Founding Member and Treasurer

Andrea Stolowitz’s plays have been developed and presented nationally and internationally at theaters such as The Long Wharf, The Old Globe, The Cherry Lane, and New York Stage and Film. The LA Times calls her work “heartbreaking” and the Orange County Register characterizes her approach as a “brave refusal to sugarcoat issues and tough decisions.”

A recipient of Artists Repertory Theater’s $25,000 New Play Commission, Andrea premiered her play Ithaka at the theatre in 2013. The play had its mid-west premiere in Chicago in 2014 at InFusion Theater and its Canada premiere in May 2016. The play won the 2015 Oregon Book Award in Drama, judged by Naomi Iizuka.

Andrea’s play Antarktikos also won the Oregon Book Award for Drama (2013) and was published in July 2013 in TheatreForum magazine. The play world-premiered at The Pittsburgh Playhouse in March 2013 and was workshopped at The New Harmony Project (IN), Portland Center Stage’s JAW Festival, and Seattle Repertory Theater. It was nominated for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize and received a 2015 Kilroy’s List Honorable Mention.

Knowing Cairo world-premiered at the Old Globe Theatre, which earned San Diego’s “Billie” Best New Play Award and an LA Times’ Critic’s Pick. It is published by Playscripts Inc. and continues to be produced nationally and internationally. It was presented at Profile Theater (OR) in 2013.

Andrea’s latest play Berlin Diary was presented at English Theater Berlin/International Performing Arts Center in October 2016 and Portland’s Coho Theatre in April 2017. The play was developed at PlayPenn/The National Museum of American Jewish History and the New Harmony Project. Berlin Diary was nominated for the Susan Smith Blackburn prize and is currently a finalist for the Oregon Book Award.

Andrea works as a collaborating writer with the award-winning devised theater company, Hand2Mouth Theater. Her current collaboration, Pep Talk, is touring nationally. The San Francisco Chronicle says “The genius of ‘Pep Talk’ is that it is at once a collective unburdening...in the way the best drama has always been, while also being very funny and self- aware.” She is currently at work on their latest collaboration Psychic Utopia.

Andrea is a resident company member and the Lacroute Playwright-in-Residence at Artists Repertory Theater, where she has just received a new play commission.

An MFA playwriting alumna of UC-San Diego, Andrea has served on the faculties at Willamette University, The University of Portland, Duke University and UC-San Diego.

  • Visit Andrea's Website Here
  • Take a look at a video about the world premiere of Antarktikos Here