F. J. Hartland holds an MFA in Playwriting from Carnegie-Mellon University where he was a Shubert Fellow and the winner of the Bud Yorkin Playwriting Award, He made his New York City playwriting debut at the age of 23 when the Ensemble Studio Theatre workshopped his play A Piano Player With Sad Brown Eyes. Twice, he was the winner of the Samuel French OOB Short Play Festival. Other NYC venues where his work has been seen include: Emerging Artists Theatre, GayFestNYC, the 13th Street Theatre, Lovecreek Productions, Quaigh Theatre, and Lincoln Center Library Theatre. In 2019, F.J.’s short play Tina was named Best Play in the Equity Library Theatre’s Summer Short Play Festival. His ten-minute play What the Puck? Was a finalist for the Heideman Award at the Actors Theatre of Louisville.
Samuel French (now Concord), United Stages, Original Works, Next Stage Press, and The Louisville Review have published his plays.
He is the recipient of a Playwriting Fellowship from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. His full-length play Games of the Mind won Throughline Theatre’s New Play Competition in Pittsburgh. Another play Waiting for Fair was chosen for the inaugural season of Pittsburgh Playhouse/Point Park University’s Virtual New Play Festival. F.J. has made a record-setting eighteen appearances in the Pittsburgh New Works Festival, winning Best Play four times. Other Pittsburgh venues where his work has been produced include: Duquesne University, Bricolage, South Park Theatre, Future Ten, Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre, First Night Pittsburgh, Cup-A-Jo, Pyramid Productions to name a few.
In addition to being a playwright, F.J. is an experienced stage director (with more than 100 productions to his credit) and a professional actor (Actors Equity Association member since 1991).