David Johnston

David Johnston’s plays have been performed and read at the New Group, Moving Arts, the Neighborhood Playhouse, HB Playwrights Foundation, Symphony Space, and Ensemble Studio Theatre. New York productions with Blue Coyote Theater Group include Conversations on Russian Literature, a new adaptation of The Oresteia (Time Out Best of 2007); Busted Jesus Comix (GLAAD nominee 2005, London, Los Angeles, DC Cap Fringe); A Bush Carol, or George Dubya and the Xmas of Evil, and Effie Jean in Tahiti (both with music and lyrics by Stephen Speights). Regional credits include The George Place (Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater), directed by Gary Shrader. Plays with director Kevin Newbury include Candy and Dorothy (GLAAD winner 2006, Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater, Unexpected Stage), and The Eumenides. Publications include Saturday with Martin (Short Plays to Long Remember, TnT), The Eumenides (Playing With Canons, New York Theatre Experience, Inc.), Leaving Tangier (Samuel French), A Funeral Home in Brooklyn, and A Lesson (Smith & Kraus) and the upcoming A Number on the Roman Calendar (Applause Theatrebooks.) Upcoming projects include a film adaptation of his short play, Mothra is Waiting, originally produced in New York by Blue Coyote, and Last Things. Playwriting awards include Theater Oxford, Playwright Residency at the University of Cincinnati, a Berrilla Kerr Foundation Grant, the Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation, and the Arch & Bruce Brown Foundation. He was also a New Dramatists finalist. Mr. Johnston attended the College of William and Mary and Circle in the Square and is a member of Actors Equity, Dramatists Guild (publications committee), Charles Maryan’s Playwrights/Directors Workshop, BMI Librettist Workshop, Blue Coyote Theater Group, and a 2011-12 Resident Artist with American Lyric Theater’s Composer Librettist Development Program, where he wrote his first opera libretto, The Wedding Gift of Pirate Granny.