Bob Bartlett is a playwright, director, dramaturg, and producer who recently retired from 30+ years of teaching college theatre who specializes in dramatic writing (playwriting, screenwriting), dramatic literature, theatre history and theory, and more. He coaches dramatic writing and theatre production.
About the Artist
Bob Bartlett is a playwright, director, and dramaturg whose plays include five new full lengths, WRITING IN DINERS, LOVE AND VINYL, MEDIOCRE WHITE MEN, A BOY ON A BED, and MARY SHELLEY’S MONSTERS; UNION, a sometimes fiction chronicling Walt Whitman’s years living and loving in Washington, DC during the Civil War; E2, a contemporary reimagining of Marlowe's Edward II, which premiered last season at Maryland's Rep Stage; SWIMMING WITH WHALES (1st Stage; O'Neill Finalist; Seven Devils Playwrights Conference); HAPPINESS (AND OTHER REASONS TO DIE) (The Welders); THE ACCIDENT BEAR (The Avenue Laundromat); THE REGULAR (O'Neill Finalist; Seven Devils Playwrights Conference; Everyman Theatre); THE ORBIT OF MERCURY (O'Neill Finalist); BAREBACK INK, a queer reimagining of the Ganymede myth, which recently had runs at the Capital and Edinburgh Fringe Festivals and NYC's Hard Sparks. Recently, Bartlett has been producing his own site-specific work: his play THE ACCIDENT BEAR had a successful run in the Avenue Laundromat in Downtown Annapolis; during the first year of covid, he staged his play THREE STRANGERS SITTING AROUND A BACKYARD FIREPIT AT TWO IN THE MORNING LISTENING TO BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN'S NEBRASKA in his backyard; he recently staged his horror play, LÝKOS ÁNTHRŌPOS, in a wooded clearing in the middle of the woods on a farm in Maryland and at historic Congressional Cemetery in Washington, DC; his romcom LOVE AND VINYL premiered in the summer of 2023 at KA-CHUNK!! Records in downtown Annapolis before playing across the country; he wrote the covid-inspired, twelve-episode DUCK HARBOR with EM Lewis for 1st Stage in Tysons which aired in 2021; and MARY SHELLEY’S MONSTERS recently closed a sold-out run in the historic chapel at Congressional Cemetery. His new play, THE LIVING DEAD, a response to George Romero's zombie classic, NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, premieres this fall in Washington, DC. Bartlett is an affiliated artist with the National New Play Network, a company dramaturge for the Seven Devils Playwrights Conference (2024-26), and a member of The Dramatists Guild of America. He lives in Central Maryland in an old farmhouse and is a founding member of The Welders, a Washington, DC-based, producing playwrights collective who were recognized with the John Aniello Award by theatreWashington's Helen Hayes Awards. He earned the MFA in Playwriting at Catholic University of America, and is retired theatre professor who taught dramatic literature, theatre history and theory, playwriting, and screenwriting. He is the recipient of the 2022 University System of Maryland Board of Regents Award for Excellence in Research, Scholarship, or Creative Activity. (bob-bartlett.com)Bob Bartlett website Bob Bartlett's Website Bob Bartlett website Bob Bartlett at the National New Play Network