Sylvan Oswald

Sylvan Oswald creates plays, texts, and publications. His plays are often set in Philadelphia, his hometown. Sylvan is the author of Mystery plays: Profanity, Nightlands, and Sun Ra; Romance plays: Pony, Vendetta Chrome, and Painful Adventures; and Philadelphia plays: Plutonics, Two Spent Swimmers, Desmond..., and Goat Songs. Recent collaborations include text for puppet-theater artist Dan Hurlin’s Disfarmer at St. Ann’s Warehouse in 2009, and Zoetrope, a music-theater work in progress with composer/director Alec Duffy and designer Mimi Lien. Sylvan is a resident playwright at New Dramatists, a Six Points Fellow for 2010-2012 and the Dorothy B. Strelsin Playwriting Fellow at Soho Rep for 2010-2011. He is the recipient of a Jerome Fellowship from The Playwrights' Center in Minneapolis, a Thurber House Playwriting Fellowship from The Ohio State University, and fellowships from The MacDowell Colony, Millay Colony for the Arts, and the Dramatists Guild. Sylvan’s plays have been produced by About Face Theatre, Clubbed Thumb, and New Georges. His work has been workshopped or developed with The Foundry Theatre, Hangar Theatre, McCarter Theatre, New York Theatre Workshop, Portland Center Stage, Soho Rep’s Writer/Director Lab, and Page 73 Production’s I73 Writing Group, among others. Sylvan created Play A Journal of Plays with Jordan Harrison and currently teaches playwriting at Barnard College, Mount Holyoke, and at Purchase College/SUNY.