Artistic Statement

I’m a queer writer from working-class Massachusetts. I write serious comedies. I deeply believe that comedy is a sly, delightful way to tell the truths we don’t always want to hear. I write about people that tend to be overlooked—shy political groupies, queer civil rights pioneers, murderess elderly women, twenty-year-old working-class gestational surrogate mothers, gender non-conformists, and overlooked heroes. I’m drawn to the outliers, exploring people who try to answer the question: Why am I here on this Earth at this specific time in history? The questions I always ask myself are: What is the value of one good yet/and incredibly flawed person? Where do we find hope in a world where that feels hopeless?

Also:

I am a Daytime Emmy Award and WGA Award-winning writer for television, film, and theatre (plays and musicals).

I am a Groundlings Sunday Show alum.

I played Cindy Brady in a tour of the “Real Life Brady Bunch, Directed by Joey Soloway.

“The bite-size offerings from “Playing on Air” in particular highlight how much ground a play can cover in just a few minutes. A production like Patricia Cotter’s “Wild and Precious Life” (which takes its title from a Mary Oliver poem) works like a sonnet: the truncated form demands an economy of language and swift turns like the final volta in the poem.” – Maya Phillips, “The New York Times”, January 2021

Patricia Cotter

Artistic Statement

I’m a queer writer from working-class Massachusetts. I write serious comedies. I deeply believe that comedy is a sly, delightful way to tell the truths we don’t always want to hear. I write about people that tend to be overlooked—shy political groupies, queer civil rights pioneers, murderess elderly women, twenty-year-old working-class gestational surrogate mothers, gender non-conformists, and overlooked heroes. I’m drawn to the outliers, exploring people who try to answer the question: Why am I here on this Earth at this specific time in history? The questions I always ask myself are: What is the value of one good yet/and incredibly flawed person? Where do we find hope in a world where that feels hopeless?

Also:

I am a Daytime Emmy Award and WGA Award-winning writer for television, film, and theatre (plays and musicals).

I am a Groundlings Sunday Show alum.

I played Cindy Brady in a tour of the “Real Life Brady Bunch, Directed by Joey Soloway.

“The bite-size offerings from “Playing on Air” in particular highlight how much ground a play can cover in just a few minutes. A production like Patricia Cotter’s “Wild and Precious Life” (which takes its title from a Mary Oliver poem) works like a sonnet: the truncated form demands an economy of language and swift turns like the final volta in the poem.” – Maya Phillips, “The New York Times”, January 2021