Aleta Barthell
Aleta Barthell is a playwright, screenwriter and teacher. Aleta recently received a grant from the William Male Foundation to write her first draft of MY OWN WILDERNESS at the Dorland Mountain Arts Colony.
In 2020, Aleta received funding from California Humanities to produce a project called SAVING STORIES: A Toolkit in the Age of Covid-19. The project paired individuals isolated in assisted and...
Aleta Barthell is a playwright, screenwriter and teacher. Aleta recently received a grant from the William Male Foundation to write her first draft of MY OWN WILDERNESS at the Dorland Mountain Arts Colony.
In 2020, Aleta received funding from California Humanities to produce a project called SAVING STORIES: A Toolkit in the Age of Covid-19. The project paired individuals isolated in assisted and skilled nursing facilities with San Diego dramatists who wrote dramatic monologues based on their lives that were shared with the community through New Village Arts Theatre's Virtual Arts Program.
Her play, WINDOW OF SHAME, was a finalist for the 2020-2021 National Playwrights Conference at the O’Neill Center. The same play was also a finalist for the 2016 HUMANITAS/CTG Playwriting Prize. Her play, NIGHT WITCHES: FLIGHT INTO FANTASY, was a part of the New Village Arts Theatre’s “2019 Final Draft Festival.”
Aleta is the founder of the unique youth theater education program, Kids Act, which served youth all over North County San Diego for over fifteen years. She was also a teaching artist with Playwrights Project—teaching playwriting at schools all over San Diego County.
Co-founder of a program at New Village Arts Theatre that features neurodiverse performers, Aleta has created several scripts to feature these performers and give them a chance to shine— THE LITTLE PRINCE, SECRET SUPERHEROES, THE GREAT SMELLY SLOBBERY SMALL TOOTH DOG, STELLALUNA and THE MECHANICALS.
Aleta holds a Bachelor in Science from Northwestern University (Evanston, IL) and has trained at British American Drama Academy (Oxford, England); and Shakespeare and Company (Lenox, MA). She studied playwriting and screenwriting at UCSD, Dramatists Guild Institute and the Kennedy Center Intensive.
Aleta is currently developing a television series about the 12th century queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine, for which she received a grant to study source material in Paris through the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Aleta serves as an Ambassador for the Dramatists Guild in San Diego.