Samuel D. Hunter grew up in Moscow, Idaho and lives in New York City. His full-length plays include The Whale (Drama Desk Award, Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Play, GLAAD Media Award, Drama League and Outer Critics Circle nominations for Best Play), A Case for the Existence of God (New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best Play, Hull-Warriner Award), A Bright New Boise (Obie Award, Drama Desk nomination for Best Play), Greater Clements (Drama Desk nomination for Best Play, Outer Critics Circle Honoree), Lewiston/Clarkston (Drama Desk nomination for Best Play), The Few, A Great Wilderness, Rest, Pocatello, The Healing, and The Harvest, among others. The film version of The Whale, directed by Darren Aronofsky and starring Brendan Fraser, was nominated for the 2023 BAFTA Award for Best Adapted Screenplay and received three 2023 Oscar Nominations. He was also a writer and producer on all four seasons of FX’s "Baskets." He is the recipient of a 2014 MacArthur “Genius Grant” Fellowship and an honorary doctorate from the University of Idaho. His work has been produced Off Broadway in New York City by Lincoln Center Theatre, Playwrights Horizons, LCT3, Signature Theatre, Page 73 Productions, Clubbed Thumb, and Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre. Elsewhere, his work has been produced by Theatre Royal Bath, Dallas Theatre Center, Seattle Rep, Denver Center for the Performing Arts, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, South Coast Rep, and Victory Gardens, among others. Two published anthologies of his work are available from TCG Books, and a third is forthcoming. He is a member of New Dramatists and a current Resident Playwright at the Signature Theatre in New York City. He holds degrees in playwriting from NYU, The Iowa Playwrights Workshop, and Juilliard.
“ . . . compassionate, gently hued drama about lonely lives . . . [written] with unusual insight into, and empathy for, people whose lives have settled into sad stasis, or strategic withdrawal . . . Mr. Hunter’s keenly observed dialogue is particularly rewarding to actors.” —Charles Isherwood, The New York Times [on The Few]
"Beautifully devastating . . . The Whale manages to be about so very much at once: writing, parenting, teaching, religion, body image, overeating, the price paid by gay couples born in the wrong state or just a few years too soon. But, most of all, The Whale is a remarkably eloquent exploration of the way the need for honesty overwhelms us when we sense that our time is short." —Chris Jones, Chicago Tribune
"A dark, droll and ultimately explosive work . . . Funny, compassionate and disturbing all at once, Hunter's quintessentially American scenario portrays an individual trapped in an emotional and cultural wasteland, his life configured by uncaring impersonal forces, his spirit hobbled by unnamed guilt." —Deborah Klugman, LA Weekly [on A Bright New Boise]
Selected Works
- Print Books
- Samuel French (Pre-Publication Manuscript)
- Print Books
- Samuel French (Acting Edition)
