Erik Champney is a writer, director, and Kennedy Center honoree. A proud native of Shreveport, Louisiana, he has also planted roots in Seattle, Singapore, and New York City. Inspired by his personal history, Erik is a steadfast advocate for LGBTQ+ artists with disabilities  

Erik’s professional career began at the age of 15 when he was commissioned to write a play by Isobel Rosenbloom for renowned children’s theatre Peter Pan Players. Since then, his work has been produced, developed, and celebrated across the United States and beyond. Throughout the decade of 2011-2021, he wrote 18 plays and received 42 productions, workshops, and readings. Erik’s acclaimed play, The Screens, is published by Left Coast Publishing in its Screaming Queens anthology and is available in paperback and on Kindle.

In 2021, Erik wrote and directed his first film, Tuesday, which has gone on to become an Official Selection of more than a dozen film festivals around the world. It is now streaming on WeShort, a partner of Sundance Film Festival and sponsored in part by Versace. Upcoming films: The Screens (2023) and Giallo (2024), both adapted from his stage plays.

Erik has enjoyed collaborations with remarkable people, including Alan Cumming, Christy Altomare, Garrett Clayton, Stephanie Styles, Misha Osherovich, Susannah Perkins, Marrick Smith, David Pittu, Mao Sun, Erich Bergen, Ethan Chia, and Sawyer Spielberg.

In his formative years, Erik was a member of Young Playwrights Inc., where he studied under Stephen Sondheim, John Weidman, and Wendy Wasserstein. Other notable influences have been Jim Sheridan, B. Mark Seabrooks, Leigh Silverman, and Craig Lucas. He received a B.A. in both Theatre and English from Centenary College of Louisiana followed by a M.F.A. in Dramatic Writing from NYU Tisch School of the Arts.