Theresa Rebeck Biography

Theresa Rebeck
At Writers Theatre:  The Scene

Theresa Rebeck is a widely produced playwright throughout the United States and abroad. New York productions of her work include Dead Accounts (Music Box Theatre); Seminar (Golden Theatre); Mauritius (Biltmore Theatre in a Manhattan Theater Club Production); The Scene, The Water’s Edge, Loose Knit, The Family of Mann and Spike Heels (Second Stage); Bad Dates, The Butterfly Collection and Our House (Playwrights Horizons); The Understudy (Laura Pels Theater in a Roundabout Theatre Company production); and View of the Dome (New York Theatre Workshop). Omnium Gatherum (co-written, finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2003) was featured at the Humana Festival, and had a commercial run at the Variety Arts Theatre. Her newest work, Poor Behavior premiered at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles in 2011. Dead Accounts, commissioned by the Cincinnati Playhouse, premiered January 2012. Seminar ran on Broadway.

All of Ms. Rebeck’s past produced plays are published by Smith and Kraus as Theresa Rebeck: Complete Plays, Volumes I, II III, and IVand in acting editions available from Samuel French or Playscripts. Ms. Rebeck’s other publications are Free Fire Zone, a book of comedic essays about writing and show business. She has written for American Theatre magazine and has had excerpts of her plays published in the Harvard Review. Ms. Rebeck’s first novel, Three Girls and Their Brother, was published by Random House/Shaye Areheart Books in April 2008. Her second novel, Twelve Rooms With A View, was published by Random House/Shaye Areheart Books in May of 2010. Both novels are available online and at booksellers everywhere.

In television, Ms. Rebeck has written for Dream On (HBO, FOX), Brooklyn Bridge (CBS), L.A. Law (NBC), American Dreamer (NBC), Maximum Bob (ABC), First Wave (Syfy, Space), and Third Watch (NBC). She was the creator of the NBC drama Smash.  She has been a writer/producer for Canterbury’s Law (FOX), Smith (CBS), Law and Order: Criminal Intent (NBC, USA, MyNetworkTV) and NYPD Blue (ABC). Her produced feature films include Harriet the Spy, Gossip, and the independent features Sunday on the Rocks andSeducing Charlie Barker, an adaptation of her play, The Scene. Awards include the Mystery Writer’s of America’s Edgar Award, the Writer’s Guild of America award for Episodic Drama, the Hispanic Images Imagen Award, and the Peabody, all for her work on NYPD Blue. She has won the National Theatre Conference Award (for The Family of Mann), and was awarded the William Inge New Voices Playwriting Award in 2003 for The Bells. Mauritius was originally produced at Boston’s Huntington Theatre, where it received the 2007 IRNE Award for Best New Play as well as the Elliot Norton Award. Other awards include the PEN/Laura Pels Foundation Award, the Athena Film Festival Award, an Alex Award, a Lilly Award and in 2011 she was named one of the "150 Fearless Women in the World" by Newsweek.

Ms. Rebeck is originally from Cincinnati and holds an M.F.A. in Playwrighting and a Ph.D. in Victorian Melodrama, both from Brandeis University. She is a proud board member of the Dramatists Guild, a Contributing Editor to the Harvard Review, an Associate Artist of the Roundabout Theatre Company, a Playwright Adviser and Board Member of the LARK and and has taught at Brandeis University and Columbia University. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two children.