Heather Helinsky

Freelance dramaturg based in Philadelphia, as well as the new Literary Manager for Playwrights Foundation since October 2019. Heather Helinsky is a dramaturg that playwrights have recognized as “especially adept at freeing energies in unexpected ways. She encourages discovery.”
Nationally, her dramaturgical work has been seen at the Accessible Theatre in Boston, American Repertory Theatre, the Apothetae, Arizona Repertory Theatre, the Athena Project, Borderlands Theatre Company, Denver Center for the Performing Arts, Great Plains Theatre Conference, The Kennedy Center, The Lark, Miracle Theatre in Portland, Moscow Art Theatre’s American Studio, Omaha Community Playhouse, Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival, Philadelphia Theatre Company, Phoenix Theatre in Indianapolis, Pittsburgh Irish and...

Freelance dramaturg based in Philadelphia, as well as the new Literary Manager for Playwrights Foundation since October 2019. Heather Helinsky is a dramaturg that playwrights have recognized as “especially adept at freeing energies in unexpected ways. She encourages discovery.”
Nationally, her dramaturgical work has been seen at the Accessible Theatre in Boston, American Repertory Theatre, the Apothetae, Arizona Repertory Theatre, the Athena Project, Borderlands Theatre Company, Denver Center for the Performing Arts, Great Plains Theatre Conference, The Kennedy Center, The Lark, Miracle Theatre in Portland, Moscow Art Theatre’s American Studio, Omaha Community Playhouse, Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival, Philadelphia Theatre Company, Phoenix Theatre in Indianapolis, Pittsburgh Irish and Classical Theatre, Pittsburgh Public Theatre, Plan-B Theatre in Salt Lake City, Plays and Players of Philadelphia, Telluride Playwrights Festival, Venus Theatre Company, and Woolly Mammoth. In addition to BAPF, she is also a script reader for The O’Neill, PlayPenn, GPTC, Jewish Plays Project, Seven Devils, Sundance Theatre Lab and Playwrights Realm, reading 250-300 new scripts per season. As a freelance dramaturg, she works consistently with a wide-range of writers and aesthetics, and will travel to support them through readings and workshops. She moves fluidly between classical dramaturgy and new play development; she has been the Literary Manager of the Pittsburgh Public and PICT Classic Theatre, publishes articles for PA Shakespeare Festival's "The Quill". Recently, she's been an advocate for plays by women, working this season with primarily female artistic teams at the Denver Center, Venus Theatre, James Madison University, Lee University, and 6NewPlays in San Francisco.
As an educator, she’s a teaching artist for KCACTF, mentoring emerging dramaturgs at KCACTF Regions 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and has been involved with KCACTF Nationals since '12. She's also worked directly with producer Gregg Henry to interview student playwrights for the Kennedy Center's Undergraduate Playwrights' Workshop since its inception. Other Kennedy Center related projects include working with the VSA high school playwrights and dramaturging Andrew Heinrich's play THE FLOOD at NNPN's MFA Workshop at the Kennedy Center in summer 2017.
She has been a Visiting Professor of Dramaturgy at the University of Arizona (‘07/08), Carnegie Mellon School of Drama (‘12/’13), and an adjunct at Brooklyn College '15 and Lesley University '15-16, guest artist for Yale's 1st & 2nd year dramaturgs in Spring 2019.
Her M.F.A. in Dramaturgy and Theatre Studies is from the American Repertory Theatre/Moscow Art Theatre Institute for Advanced Theatre Training at Harvard. Member of LMDA since 2006, board member as VP of Freelance for LMDA since 2018.
www.helinskydramaturgy.com

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