Biography:

Allyson Currin is the author of over thirty plays and musicals, including the recent world premiere of SOONER/LATER at Cincinnati Playhouse, a play which was also recently produced at Mosaic Theater of DC, and was an O’Neill Semi-Finalist in 2016.  Other plays include THE SILVER BELLES (commissioned and premiered by Tony Award-winning Signature Theatre, published by Broadway Licensing), BARBIE DREAM HOUSE (2020 Semi-Finalist at The O’Neill), HIGH SCHOOL ALIEN (Cincinnati Playhouse), THE INTERIOR CASTLE (national tour with “musica aperta”), CAESAR AND DADA (WSC Avant Bard), HERCULES IN RUSSIA (Doorway Arts Ensemble), TREADWELL: BRIGHT AND DARK (The American Century Theatre), UNLEASHED! (The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts), THE DANCING PRINCESSES (Imagination Stage), BENCHED (Pinky Swear Productions), LOVE AND WHISKEY (Equity Workshop), CHURCH OF THE OPEN MIND* and THE SUBJECT (Charter Theatre), LEARNING CURVES (Washington Shakespeare Company), AMSTEL IN TEL AVIV* and DANCING WITH OURSELVES (Source Theatre Company).  *She has twice been nominated for the Helen Hayes’ Charles D. MacArthur Award for Outstanding New Play, and has been Playwright-in-Residence with First Draft at Charter Theatre and Theatre J’s “Locally Grown” Initiative, as well as a Playwright Observer at The Eugene O’Neill Center.  She is a founding member of The Welders, a DC-based Playwrights Collective, which produced her new play, THE CAROLINA LAYAWAY GRAIL, as its inaugural production in 2014.  The Welders won the Helen Hayes Awards’ John Aniello Award for Outstanding Emerging Theatre Company in 2017.

As an actor, Currin has appeared on such DC-area stages as Signature Theatre, Olney Theatre Center, Arena Stage, Studio Theatre, Washington Stage Guild, Washington Shakespeare Company, Everyman Theatre, Rep Stage, and others, in addition to her work in television and film.  She spent six years as the Vice Chair, then Chair, of the National Playwriting Program for The Kennedy Center’s American College Theatre Festival (Region 2), and is the recipient of The Kennedy Center’s Gold Medallion Award for excellence in teaching.  She spent three years as the DC Rep for The Dramatists Guild, and is a member of Actors Equity Association and SAG-AFTRA.  She has taught in the Theatre and Dance Program at The George Washington University for over twenty years, and has also taught Playwriting at St. Mary’s College of Maryland and Goucher College.