Julie Jensen was recently commissioned by Kennedy Center’s Theatre for Young Audiences to adapt Kathryn Erskine’s novel MOCKINGBIRD, which premiered at Kennedy Center in January 2015. It was nominated for two Helen Hayes Awards for best production and best new play and is scheduled for six professional productions this season.
Her newest play, WINTER, inspired the story, “Robeck” by Margaret Pabst Battin, will be produced by Salt Lake Acting Company next fall.
Recent productions include CHRISTMAS WITH MISFITS at Plan-B Theatre in Salt Lake City; TWO-HEADED at the Rose Theatre, Bankside, London, and the Berkshire Theatre Festival; CHEAT at Pygmalion Theatre in Salt Lake City; SHE WAS MY BROTHER at Borderlands Theatre in Tucson and Plan-B Theatre in Salt Lake City. THE HARVEY GIRLS, commissioned by Penn State University and Dramatic Publishing, is published by Dramatic. Her play for young people ACROSS THE WIDE AND LONESOME PRAIRIE was recently produced by Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey and Coterie Theatre in Kansas City.
She is the recipient of the Kennedy Center Award for New American Plays for WHITE MONEY, the Joseph Jefferson Award for Best New Work for THE LOST VEGAS SERIES, and the LA Weekly Award for Best New Play for TWO-HEADED. She has received the McKnight National Playwriting Fellowship and the TCG/NEA Playwriting Residency for WAIT!, and a major grant from the Pew Charitable Trusts for DUST EATERS. She won the Mill Mountain Theatre Playwriting Competition three times for TENDER HOOKS, LAST LISTS OF MY MAD MOTHER and TWO-HEADED. Her play TWO-HEADED was included in the volume BEST PLAYS BY WOMEN, and she has twice been nominated by the American Theatre Critics Association for the Steinberg Award for the best new play produced outside of New York for LAST LISTS OF MY MAD MOTHER and DUST EATERS. She was twice a finalist for the PEN USA Award in Playwriting for TWO-HEADED and DUST EATERS, and her play, BILLION DOLLAR BABY, received the New American Plays Award from the Edgerton Foundation.
Her work has been produced in London, Hamburg and at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival as well as in the United States in New York and theatres nationwide. She has been commissioned by Mark Taper Forum, ASK Theatre Projects, Kennedy Center (twice), Actors Theatre of Louisville (twice), Salt Lake Acting Company (twice), Geva Theatre, Philadelphia Theatre Company, Penn State University, and Dramatic Publishing. Her work is published by Dramatic Publishing, Dramatists Play Service, Playscripts, Inc., and Smith and Kraus.
Jensen is a frequent speaker and workshop coordinator, conducting master classes for Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival and Kennedy Center’s Summer Playwriting Intensive. She also works regularly as a dramaturg for Native Voices Theatre, and teaches for Script, a summer screenwriting and playwriting intensive. Her playwriting book, PLAYWRITING: BRIEF AND BRILLIANT, is published by Smith and Kraus.
She is Resident Playwright at Salt Lake Acting Company, Regional Representative for the Dramatists Guild of America, an Affiliated Writer with the Playwrights’ Center in Minneapolis, and board member of the College of Fellows of the American Theatre.