I write offbeat countercultural stories for smart, fun-loving audiences.
I’m an American playwright and screenwriter, currently based in Providence, RI, though I’ve lived all over the place. I grew up in a truly small town in Germany and studied visual arts before turning to writing. Because I grew up in an unconventional, anti-authoritarian, matriarchal family, with one foot in a US military community and the other in an insular German town, I often write about language, belonging, and national identity. My central characters are usually rebellious, messy, powerful women at odds with their intensely hierarchical worlds. I tend to sample from a broad range of styles and bend genres to tell contemporary stories in unexpected ways. My storytelling is punky, playful, and irreverent, but also sincere.
As a playwright, I’m driven by a deep curiosity about what the medium of live theater can do. I write primarily for the stage because I trust in the simple powers, and sensory pleasures, of artful truth telling and community gathering. They can bring us closer to ourselves and one another— and help overhaul our most delusional and damaging cultural scripts.
PRODUCED PLAYS
Montag (Soho Rep., Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe)
THUNDERBODIES (Soho Rep.)
Dionysus Was Such a Nice Man (The Wilma, FoolsFURY)
Laura and the Sea (Rivendell Theatre Ensemble)
CURRENT COMMISSIONS
New work under commission from Playwrights Horizons’ Soundstage and Theater Masters.
PRINTED + PUBLISHED MATTER
I KNOW WHAT’S BEST FOR YOU: STORIES ON REPRODUCTIVE FREEDOM, edited by Shelly Oria, is now available from McSweeney’s Press.
An Entirely Spontaneous One-Woman Improv Comedy Post-Show Performance for After Attending Dave Harris’ Tambo & Bones is up at 3Views (Issue Four).
Stage Directions for Approaching an O’Keefe is published in The Paris Review Winter Issue of 2020.
Montag, THUNDERBODIES, Supplements#3, and Supplements: Impossibilites are all published by Soho Rep. and available in their shop.
The 53rd State Occasional No. 2, edited by Will Arbery, is available here.
EDUCATION
MFA Yale School of Drama, with Paula Vogel and Jeanie O’Hare
BA Reed College, incl. coursework at Pacific Northwest College of Art
HS Interlochen Arts Academy
TEACHING
I’m currently a lecturer at MIT and will also be lecturing at Yale College this fall. I have additionally taught at Wesleyan University, Brown University, Connecticut College, University of The Arts, Macalester College, Salve Regina University, The Playwrights’ Center, and PlayPenn.
SELECTED PRESS
”brilliant and highbrow” (New York Magazine)
Montag featured on NYMag’s Approval Matrix!
”Tarker is an exuberant writer, all adrenaline and jangling rhythm” (The New Yorker)
"screamingly funny" (The New York Times)
The Soho Rep. production of THUNDERBODIES was included in The New York Times’ list of “Unforgettable Theater Moments of 2018.”
"staggeringly original" (The San Francisco Chronicle)
Podcast Interview (The Subtext, American Theatre Magazine)
Profile (The Philadelphia Inquirer)
Profile in German (Die Rheinpfalz)
Interview on Montag (TheaterMania)
Interview on language (Soho Rep.)
AFFILIATIONS + AWARDS
My plays have been developed at The Lark, The Vineyard, Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, The Wilma, Ars Nova, NYTW, Magic Theatre, Cutting Ball, the Playwrights’ Center, Theatre503 in London, and The O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, among other places. I’m the recipient of a Jerome Fellowship, The Vineyard’s Paula Vogel Playwriting Award, the Kennedy Center’s National Science Playwriting Award, Theater Masters’ Visionary Playwright Award, a PWCenter/NET Ensemble Collaboration Grant, and I’ve been featured twice on the Kilroys List. I’ve been a finalist for the L. Arnold Weissberger Award, the Princess Grace Award, and the Relentless Award, have held residencies at Tofte Lake Center and SPACE at Ryder Farm, and am a two-time MacDowell Colony fellow. I’m also an alum of Ars Nova Play Group, New Georges Jam, and a former Playwrights’ Center Core Writer.
FOR PROFESSIONAL INQUIRIES
Theater
Sam Barickman
CAA
sam.barickman@caa.com
German Language Theater, Translation
Antje Oegel + Uwe B. Carstensen
Carstensen & Oegel International Gmbh
oegel@cointernational.de
Film + TV
Britton Rizzio + Courtney Conwell
Curate
britton@thisiscurate.com, courtney@thisiscurate.com