Artist Bio

(Bio as of April 2013)

Alice Austen is a 2012 Hangar Theatre resident, a resident playwright at Chicago Dramatists and a member of Shanghai Low Theatricals. She is a past recipient of a residency from the Royal Court Theatre in London and a 2007 Jeff Award nominee (Best New Work) for Water. Her plays have been seen at theaters across the country and in Europe, including Victory Gardens Theater, Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Chicago Dramatists, Famous Door Theatre Company, Theatre503 (London), Route 66 Theatre Company, Salomee Speelt, Milwaukee Repertory Theater, Milwaukee Chamber Theatre, The Irish Theatre Company (Brussels), Stage Left Theatre, and The New Plays Festival. Her 2012 theatrical credits include a new translation and adaptation of La Musica by Marguerite Duras and Route 66 Theatre Company’s collaborative musical Next Stop. Ms. Austen has recently written two novels, The Geometry of Chance and 41. She was the first American to receive a fellowship to the European Court of Human Rights at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, and lived for a number of years in France, Brussels and the Czech Republic, where she helped effectuate Václav Havel’s transformation of the Czech Republic. Ms. Austen teaches playwriting at Chicago Dramatists and has been a guest artist/lecturer at Lawrence University, the Newberry Library (Chicago) and the University of Wisconsin (Milwaukee). She is a member of the Dramatists Guild.