Positions
Biography
Jonathan Dorf is best known for his plays for teens, which include 4 A.M., After Math, Thank You for Flushing My Head in the Toilet and other rarely used expressions, High School (non) Musical, Harry’s Hotter at Twilight, and Rumors of Polar Bears. Over 500 productions of his work have taken place throughout the United States and Canada, as well as in Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia and New Zealand. His more than 25 published plays make their homes at Playscripts, Eldridge, Brooklyn Publishers, Heuer, Original Works and YouthPLAYS, and he was California Thespians’ inaugural honoree for Visiting California Playwrights, which saw a mainstage showcase of his work at the state festival. A long-time resident playwright for City Theater Company (Wilmington, DE), his work has been staged by Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey, Mill Mountain Theatre, Moving Arts, Sidewalk Studio Theatre, the Walnut Street Theatre, Ensemble Studio Theatre – LA and Coachella Valley Repertory. Resident playwriting expert for scriptwriting software company Final Draft and The Writers Store (author of Playwriting101.com, Google’s top-ranked playwriting site for many years, and playwriting instructor at Writers University), Mr. Dorf is the co-chair of the Alliance of Los Angeles Playwrights and the former managing director of the Philadelphia Dramatists Center. He has served as Visiting Associate Professor in the MFA playwriting and children’s literature programs at Hollins University, and as the United States cultural envoy to Barbados. Author of playwriting textbook Young Playwrights 101, he has been a guest artist at dozens of schools and festivals from Alabama to Singapore, and his articles about playwriting have been featured in The Dramatist, The Writer and numerous online sources. He is a member of the Dramatists Guild of America, and has been an Ovation voter since 2005. He holds a BA in Dramatic Writing and Literature from Harvard University and an MFA in Playwriting from UCLA.