Chelsea Marcantel
Chelsea Marcantel is an LA-based writer, director, and collaborator. Reared by Cajuns in southwest Louisiana, Chelsea has lived and worked among the peoples of the Midwest, Appalachia, the Mid-Atlantic, and now the West Coast. In 2016, she completed a Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwrights Fellowship at The Juilliard School. Her plays, which have been produced across the US and Canada, include Airness (2018 M. Elizabeth Osborn New Play Award), Everything is Wonderful, Tiny Houses (2018 Roe Green Award), Ladyish, Devour, and the online theatrical experience Citizen Detective (NY Times Critic’s Pick).
Chelsea has been entrusted with teaching young minds at Virginia Intermont College and Emory & Henry College, and loved every minute of it. As a writer, she is extremely interested in humans as small-group primates, and what happens when the rules and value systems of our chosen groups cease to serve us. She reads a lot of books, watches a lot of documentaries, and listens to a lot of podcasts. Chelsea is an enthusiastic member of The Writers Guild of America and The Dramatists Guild, and runs with a kick-ass group of activists called The Kilroys.
Chelsea’s current theatrical projects include the new plays Vanishing Act commissioned by the Geffen Playhouse, Lake Erie Oubliette commissioned by Cleveland Play House, and The Upstairs Department, which will have its world premiere at Signature Theatre DC in 2022. She is also working on (at last count) five commercial musical projects, as well as writing the book for the original musical The Monster, commissioned by Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, for which she won a 2021 Richard Rodgers Award for Musical Theatre.
Special Skills: stalking celebrity chefs, making killer playlists, taking artsy photos of her dog, defending the oxford comma, and overestimating her own proficiency with yoga.
Chelsea has been entrusted with teaching young minds at Virginia Intermont College and Emory & Henry College, and loved every minute of it. As a writer, she is extremely interested in humans as small-group primates, and what happens when the rules and value systems of our chosen groups cease to serve us. She reads a lot of books, watches a lot of documentaries, and listens to a lot of podcasts. Chelsea is an enthusiastic member of The Writers Guild of America and The Dramatists Guild, and runs with a kick-ass group of activists called The Kilroys.
Chelsea’s current theatrical projects include the new plays Vanishing Act commissioned by the Geffen Playhouse, Lake Erie Oubliette commissioned by Cleveland Play House, and The Upstairs Department, which will have its world premiere at Signature Theatre DC in 2022. She is also working on (at last count) five commercial musical projects, as well as writing the book for the original musical The Monster, commissioned by Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, for which she won a 2021 Richard Rodgers Award for Musical Theatre.
Special Skills: stalking celebrity chefs, making killer playlists, taking artsy photos of her dog, defending the oxford comma, and overestimating her own proficiency with yoga.
