Dylan Southard

Dylan Southard

Dylan Southard is a writer, dramaturg and producer with 15 years experience in the performing arts and interactive entertainment industries. He has developed new plays with theaters including Centerstage Baltimore, Center Theatre Group, The Geffen Playhouse, Boston Court Pasadena, Skylight Theatre, Native Voices at The Autry Museum, Casa 0101, and Theatre Dybbuk. For more than ten years he has served as...
Dylan Southard is a writer, dramaturg and producer with 15 years experience in the performing arts and interactive entertainment industries. He has developed new plays with theaters including Centerstage Baltimore, Center Theatre Group, The Geffen Playhouse, Boston Court Pasadena, Skylight Theatre, Native Voices at The Autry Museum, Casa 0101, and Theatre Dybbuk. For more than ten years he has served as resident dramaturg for the Robey Theatre Company, where he leads the Advanced Playwright's Lab, and he's served as production dramaturg on award-winning and world premiere productions such as Native Son (Antaeus Theatre), Wood Boy Dog Fish (Rogue Artists Ensemble) and Fatboy with Needtheater, where he previously served as co-Artistic Director. Dylan is also the founding creative director of VR Playhouse where he developed and designed 360° virtual reality experiences. His work in VR has been seen at SXSW, Sundance and the Tribeca Film Institute and he's collaborated with companies like Red Bull, Time Life, Jack in the Box, and Coach. He has written about immersive entertainment for Better Lemons, Howlround, VR Scout and American Theatre and has spoken at Youtube, USC, NextCon, Digital Hollywood and the Open Innovations Forum in Moscow.

Plays

  • Landers Down
    In the year 2154, three members of the United States Space Force crash land on an alien planet. Trapped inside their ship, they are surrounded by members of the planet's resident population; residents that have grown increasingly radicalized and violent in the face of Earth's efforts to colonize their home and strip it of resources. Now, the three humans must face down this threat, as well as reckon with their own culpability.
  • Anatomy
    Sean and Julia, college sweethearts now in their 20s and at the cusp of starting their lives together, are throwing a dinner party. Two more couples - old friends - will join them. But there are killers in this group, actual killers with plans on turning tonight's festivities into a grand culmination of their psychopathic tendencies. The innocent will be picked off, one by one, unless they figure out a way to turn the tables.
  • The Island Breeze Affair
    In a skewed version of our near future, the political problems that plague us remain. Threats against our safety are a routine occurrence. The ruling party works to ensure that loyalty and a potentially false sense of stability are maintained while the opposition is caught between diplomacy and a growing call for violent resistance. And recently, that call has been coming from a popular collective of hackers....
    In a skewed version of our near future, the political problems that plague us remain. Threats against our safety are a routine occurrence. The ruling party works to ensure that loyalty and a potentially false sense of stability are maintained while the opposition is caught between diplomacy and a growing call for violent resistance. And recently, that call has been coming from a popular collective of hackers. On the day that our story begins - the president's birthday - these hackers threaten their largest and most destructive act yet. And that night, just as a birthday celebration kicks off at the capitol building, they make good on the threat. The fuse has been lit for a second civil war.

    Jessica is an aide to a senator loyal to the president. John works for a branding and marketing agency consulting with those on the opposite side of the aisle. They're both at the party and so find themselves caught in the bizarre frenzy that immediately follows the release of the hacked information. Clashing forces descend on the building and close in around them. In desperate need of escape, the two twenty-somethings follow information that points them to a secret escape route. They scramble through the capitol's vaunted halls and corridors of power, dodging enemies unseen, unsure of who to trust, of what's fact and what's not. Before the night is out, they'll reckon with the constantly shifting lines that separate us and weigh their beliefs against the need for connection in an increasingly fractured world.