patricia connelly

Patricia Connelly is an award-winning playwright and director, who has worked in the theater for several decades. In addition to playwriting and directing, Patricia has been a producer, stage manager, and teacher. Her most recent play, Heartland was produced by Pipeline Playwrights in 2022 at Joe’s Movement Emporium. Her play, Around the Snake Turn, was selected and presented as part of the Baltimore Playwrights’ Festival in 2023. Her play, Princess Margaret, was produced as part of the Women's Voices Theater Festival in Washington DC in 2015. Other produced plays include: The Penny or the Stone, (Robert Bone Memorial Playwriting Award); What Happens in This Town; All the Sins of My Past Life; Harriet; and, Night Sky. She has had short plays presented and produced in Capital Fringe Festivals, at the Kennedy Center’s Page to Stage festivals, at Metro Stage in Alexandria, VA, by PlayZoomers (online), at Keegan Theatre, and, internationally, as part of Short + Sweet (Australia). Patricia has a MA degree in Theater from the University of New Mexico and an MFA in Creative Writing (Playwriting) from Goddard College. She has participated in the Kennedy Center’s Playwriting Intensive; she is a member of the Dramatists Guild of America; she is a co-founder and Board Member of Pipeline Playwrights; and she is a proud member of Honor Roll Playwrights. When she is not writing plays or working in the theater, Patricia works as an attorney in DC and Maryland.

WEBSITE/SOCIAL MEDIA
Website: http://www.pipelineplaywrights.org
FB: https://www.facebook.com/patricia.connelly.79
X(TW): @PatriciaConnel7

MORE ABOUT ME:
I feel most like myself when I am in rehearsal. It doesn’t matter if I am there as a playwright, director, or producer — there’s nowhere else I’d rather be, but in the room. When my first play was produced years ago, the director told me not to come to rehearsals. I was young and grateful and had never worked in the theater before so I did what he told me. I didn’t go. I didn’t know better. I had always wanted to be a writer, but not a playwright. I wrote that first play, in a class, on a lark. When the play opened, we sold out and the production was a success, never mind that the director had changed my ending and cut whole sections. Friends and family liked it and congratulated me. “Holy cow!” I thought. “I guess I wrote that.” I felt pretty stupid, though, when my teacher came and said, “That’s not your play!” I realized then I had to get smart about the process. I also realized everything happens in rehearsal — the good, the bad, and the magic. As I began working more in the theater, I found I loved the rehearsal process. I lose myself in it; time is suspended and everything falls away but the play in front of me. I’ve hobbled into rehearsals sleepless, sick, and exhausted. I’ve descended into theater basements before the sun rises and emerged in total darkness. I’ve sat through days and days of tech, drank endless cups of coffee. It was late on one of those long tech days when another producer sat down next to me in the dark and said, “How are you doing?” “Good,” I said. I meant it. I had a profound realization at that moment. There was no place I’d rather be than sitting there in rehearsal.

WHAT I'M WORKING ON
My focus today is working on revisions to my play, Night Sky, which is scheduled to be produced at a theater in Northern VA, in the fall of 2024.

KEYWORDS
​Lesbian, Family, Political, Women, Nature, Equality, Satire, Movement, Music, Collaboration, Comedy, Buddhist, Irish-Catholic, Animals, Dogs, Outdoors