Sam Chanse is the author of plays including What you are now, Trigger, Monument, or Four Sisters (A Sloth Play), Disturbance Specialist, The Opportunities of Extinction, Fruiting Bodies, The Other Instinct, Lydia’s Funeral Video, about that whole dying thing, and Asian American Jesus. Her work has been developed and/or produced with the La Jolla Playhouse, the Lark, Ars Nova, the Civilians, Ensemble Studio Theater/Sloan Project, NAATCO, The Public Theatre, Magic Theatre, Boston Court, New York Stage & Film, Engarde Arts, Ma-Yi Theater, Cherry Lane, Leviathan Lab, Broken Nose, 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 recent Lark Venturous Fellow, and a member of the Ma-Yi Writers Lab. She was recently a participant in New York Stage and Film’s inaugural NYSAF NEXUS project.
A past fellow at MacDowell, Cherry Lane, Sundance Theatre Institute, and Playwrights Realm , she has also received residencies and commissions from La Jolla Playhouse, NAATCO, 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 was a writer on three seasons of ABC’s The Good Doctor, and is a member of Dramatist Guild and WGA. MFA: Columbia University and NYU/Tisch GMTWP. She is currently developing a new musical, as a commission with La Jolla Playhouse, with artists MILCK and AG, and director Jess McLeod.
Photo credit: JMA photography.