kate mcleod

(UPDATED: 3/6/2024) Kate McLeod is a playwright, lyricist, librettist author, and former journalist. Kate's seriocomic plays lean into the absurd but are never trivial. Her plays have been performed throughout the northeast around the U.S., in London and Sri Lanka. Recently, her work has been performed at New Jersey Rep, New York Theater Winterfest, The Flea, The Secret Theatre, United Solo and Emerging Artists Theatre. She produced The First and Possibly Only Bacon Theatre Festival in New York City where One Weird Trick—Bacon, a five-minute opera written by McLeod with composer Rob Hartmann debuted and can be viewed on YouTube. She uses her knowledge and skills to assist at-risk girls in telling their story and has coached TED speakers to arrive at a talk that tells their story in an emotional and personal way. As a reporter Kate has worked at leading magazines covering health, automotive and travel. Her reporter skills inform her writing as a playwright. Currently, Kate is writing a musical with composer, Megan Cavallari. They are working toward a reading in 2024 with further development in 2025-26. In New York City, Kate has worked with The Lark, Ensemble Studio Theatre, America-In-Play,The Flea, Irish American Writers and Artists and Artists Without Walls. She became a member of the Kennedy Center Playwriting Intensive in June 2019 and continues to attend annually. She contributed to a two-week intensive led by Heather Christian at the Ancram Opera House in Ancram, NY and attended Steve Earle’s Songwriting Camp in Big Indian, NY. She has had playwriting residencies at Jentel in Sheridan, WY and Ledig House in Ghent, NY. She is on the membership committee of The League of Professional Theater Women and serves on the board The Overseas Press Club Foundation which awards 19 scholarship/internships to early career journalists who want to report international stories. A scholarships, for which she raised all funds, is named after her late husband, Jerry Flint. 

WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA:
FB: Kate McLeod
Threads: girldriverusa
IG: girldriverusa

MORE ABOUT ME:
The question why do you keep doing theater is a poignant one at this time. Wasn't it always though? I remember telling my father--we were upstairs standing in the hall together--that I wanted to be an actress. I was five. I went on to receive an MFA at Catholic University and continued with my acting. Then I had the dream that changed everything. There was the story about four men in a halfway house in Troy, NY. I had read it in The Times but in my dream it was onstage. I saw everything that happened except I did not how it ended. I wrote the play. I wrote the ending. I expanded the dream. I went deep into character. And that was it. I was working as a journalist as well. Then, four years ago, I told myself I'd written all the stories I wanted to write, covering my beat. I want to bring stories to the stage and create a big life for them. For me, the theater has always been the place where I can do that. What do I do when I'm not writing? I'm thinking about writing. I'm a good collaborator. I try my best to be with people who are smarter, funnier, better in many ways than I am. So far, so good. But what does that say about me?? Don't give up on me. In fact, never surrender, never give up.

WHAT I'M WORKING ON:
I Heart My Car, The Musical; a new play, a disruption--possibly immersive experience about Veterans returning.

KEYWORDS:
Equality, mystery, political, people of color, climate, environment, immersive/site specific, musical, period, historical, family.