Kristen Palmer
Affiliated Writer
East Haddam, CT
Kristen Palmer writes soulful comedies and levitating dramas with compassion and style. Her characters move through our world at speed and unruly GPS.
Biography

KRISTEN PALMER’s plays have been produced and presented in New York City, Los Angeles, Seattle, and elsewhere. These include, Things You Can Do, Once Upon A Bride There Was a Forest, Westward Mutations, Local Story, Departures, The Stray Dog, All the Girls Love Bobby Kennedy and The Heart In Your Chest. Her plays are published by Broadway Play Publishing, Original Works, and Stage Partners. She is an alumna of the Women’s Project Lab, Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab and has been a William Inge Playwright in Residence, Dakin Fellow at the Sewanee Playwright’s Conference, a Jerome Fellow at the Playwrights Center in Minneapolis and a Dramatist Guild Fellow. She is a New Georges associate artist, and spent her 20s making theater as a company member of Printer’s Devil Theatre in Seattle. 

 

She holds an MA from NYU’s Gallatin School where she worked with the Creative Arts Team and an MFA from Hunter College where she studied with Tina Howe and Mark Bly and won both the Zarkower and Goldberg Prizes. She has created theater and directed projects with youth in schools, prisons and community programs around the country. Currently she chairs the Theater program at the Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts Half-Day program, a nationally recognized public school of the arts.

Plays

Under investigation for allegations of sexual mis-conduct, David pays a visit to his former students, expectant parents, Jenna and Brian. The circumstances surrounding his need for a new position unfurl over drinks and dinner drawing the students and their teacher into a tangle of influence, artistic impulse and desire deeply wound through their present, pasts and futures.

Cast:
2M/1W

A re-imagining of the Persephone myth into the era of climate collapse.

Cast:
6-14 flexible casting

Successes

Kristen Palmer's, THINGS YOU CAN DO, will have its world-premiere, directed by Live Girls! founder and Artistic Director Meghan Arnette. The play was read as part of The Construction Zone 2015 series under the title The Melting Point, and was selected to be fully produced in ACTLab's 2016 season.