Jamie Pachino

JAMIE PACHINO is an award winning playwright, screenwriter and TV writer. Her plays have been seen in four countries, published and named the winner of the Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays production grant, the Laurie Foundation Theatre Visionary Award, Chicago’s Joseph Jefferson Award for Best New Work, the John Gassner Memorial Playwrighting Award, and the Francesca Primus Prize by the American Theatre Critics Association, among many others. Jamie’s plays have been produced and developed at Steppenwolf, Long Wharf, Hartford Stage, LCT3 (Lincoln Center), American Conservatory Theatre, Roundabout, Geva, San Jose Rep, Pasadena Playhouse, Northlight, Florida Stage, A Contemporary Theatre, the Women’s Playwright Conference in Athens, Greece, and many more. 

Jamie has written on the staffs of TV series for Amazon (SNEAKY PETE), AMC (HALT AND CATCH FIRE), NBC (CHICAGO PD, THE BRAVE), TNT (FRANKLIN & BASH) and USA (FAIRLY LEGAL). She has written features for DreamWorks, Disney, Lionsgate, Walden Media, Vanguard Films and teleplays for Amazon, Hallmark Hall of Fame, Lifetime, Up, and the Hallmark Channel. She is currently writing a pilot for Bad Robot Productions, and her most current screenplay MASTERPIECE has been optioned. 

Jamie has served on the faculties of Northwestern University (her alma mater), University of California Irvine, National Louis University, Columbia College and The Chicago Academy of the Arts. She is a proud member of the WGA, The Playwrights Center, Honor Roll, and the International Center for Women Playwrights, and is represented by Kaplan Stahler Agency, APA (theatre), Harden Curtis in London, and Cartel Entertainment. More at www.jamiepachino.com.

WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA
http://www.jamiepachino.com
TW: @jpachino

MORE ABOUT ME
I originally started out as a dancer and actress, doing musicals, and my college degree is in acting. (I’ve never taken a writing course. Maybe that’s not the thing to confess here. But.) My senior year of high school I went to New York to audition for colleges and my mom came with me. The night before the auditions, we scored last minute seats to Dreamgirls in the third row. At the end of the first act Jennifer Holiday literally stopped the show with “And I Am Telling You”. The audience was shouting and stomping so hard, the conductor raised his baton and stopped the orchestra— and the crowd went insane. What seemed like an eternity went by before the conductor brought his baton back down and the act finished—and I WEPT straight through intermission. Partly, it was because of the song (right?). Partly, it was because of the performance (unparalleled). Partly, it was because the music so exquisitely met the dramatic moment. But what I really metabolized in that moment was how badly I wanted to make someone in an audience feel as deeply as I did in that moment. To understand someone’s life, even one as different from mine as Effie’s. I wanted so much to be part of something onstage that made someone in the audience cry through intermission—or laugh out loud, or jump up and down— to feel, and understand someone else’s experience. As an artist—whether during my time as an actress or dancer, or now as a writer— that’s my goal. Finding the perfect turn of phrase, the breathtaking visual, or the innovative structure is the great fun of writing, but if I can’t make you feel, I haven’t finished the work. 

WHAT I'M WORKING ON
I've got a new play I'm percolating while I write a TV pilot for Bad Robot Productions.

KEYWORDS
​Jewish, Political, Satire, Race, Romance, Black Comedy, Female lead, Adaptation