Sheila Callaghan's plays have been produced and developed with Soho Rep, Playwright's Horizons, South Coast Repertory, Clubbed Thumb, The LARK, Actor's Theatre of Louisville, New Georges, The Flea, Woolly Mammoth, Boston Court, and Rattlestick Playwright's Theatre, among others. Sheila is the recipient of the Princess Grace Award for emerging artists, a Jerome Fellowship from the Playwright's Center in Minneapolis, a MacDowell Residency, a Cherry Lane Mentorship Fellowship, the Susan Smith Blackburn Award, and the prestigious Whiting Award. Her plays have been produced internationally in New Zealand, Australia, Norway, Germany, Portugal, and the Czech Republic. These include Scab, Crawl Fade to White, Crumble (Lay Me Down, Justin Timberlake), We Are Not These Hands, Dead City, Lascivious Something, Kate Crackernuts, That Pretty Pretty; Or, The Rape Play, Fever/Dream, Everything You Touch, Roadkill Confidential, Eleveda, and Women Laughing Alone With Salad. She is published with Playscripts.com and Samuel French, and several of her collected works are published with Counterpoint Press. She has taught playwriting at Columbia University, The University of Rochester, The College of New Jersey, Florida State University, and Spalding University. Sheila is an affiliated artist with Clubbed Thumb and a member of the Obie winning playwright's organization 13P. Sheila is also an alumni of New Dramatists. In 2010, Callaghan was profiled by Marie Claire as one of "18 Successful Women Who Are Changing the World." She was also named one of Variety magazine's "10 Screenwriters to Watch" of 2010.
"It's possible to get a little tipsy from Sheila Callaghan's heady language in Lascivious Something, . . . an intoxicating investigation into failed love and dashed activist aspirations [that] proves to be a charismatic blend of arrogance, wistful dissipation, and sensuality... " —Backstage
"Raunchy, savvy . . . the twisted, caffeinated world of the show imagines the collective unconscious of a culture where girls never stop going wild . . . [Callaghan] push(es) her audience's buttons with an aggressive treatment of some of the darker corners of the human psyche." —The New York Times [on That Pretty Pretty; or, the Rape Play]
"A submersion in the anarchy of ambivalence: variously a rant, a riff, a rumble—about our notions of naturalism, objectification, perversity, and beauty . . . There's sass and sarcasm in Callaghan's high-energy punk writing." —John Lahr, The New Yorker [on That Pretty Pretty; or, the Rape Play]
Selected Works
- Print Books
- Tripwire Harlot Press
- Print Books
- Playscripts