Who Are the Playwrights

Sam Chanse

Resident Playwright

2016 — 2025

Sam Chanse is the author of TriggerMonument, or Four Sisters (A Sloth Play), The Opportunities of ExtinctionFruiting BodiesThe Other InstinctWhat You Are NowLydia’s Funeral Videoabout that whole dying thing, and Asian American Jesus. Her work has been developed and/or produced with the Lark, Ma-Yi Theater, Cherry Lane, Leviathan Lab, Ars Nova, Broken Nose, Ensemble Studio Theater/Sloan Project, 24 Hour Plays, and the Ojai Playwrights’ Conference, and is published by Kaya Press (Lydia’s Funeral Video) and TCG (The Kilroys List). 

She is a resident playwright of New Dramatists, a Lark Venturous Fellow, and a member of the Ma-Yi Writers Lab.

A past fellow at MacDowell, Cherry Lane, Sundance Theatre Institute, and Playwrights Realm , she has also received residencies and commissions from Djerassi, SPACE at Ryder Farm, EST/Sloan, Merrimack Repertory Theatre, University of Rochester’s International Theatre Program, Ma-Yi/the Flea, and the SF Arts Commission. She is an alum of Ars Nova’s Play Group, the Civilians R&D Group, and the Lark’s New York Stage & Film Vassar Retreat.

As an educator, she has taught writing and playwriting at Columbia University, New York University, the University of Rochester, and elsewhere. A native New Yorker, she was based in San Francisco for several years, when she served as artistic director of Kearny Street Workshop and co-director of Locus Arts, and developed work as a writer and performer at Bindlestiff, AATC, Playground, standup spots, and other artistic homes. She received her MFA in playwriting from Columbia University, and in musical theater writing from NYU/Tisch. She is currently based in Brooklyn.