Joe Calarco is a multi-award-winning director and playwright. He has served as Director of New Works at the Signature Theatre in Arlington, Virginia, and as Resident Playwright at Expanded Arts, Inc. He was a Joseph Papp Artist in Residence at Second Stage, is one of New York Theatre Workshop’s “usual suspects,” is a Drama League directing fellow, is an Associate Artist at Barrington Stage Company, and is a member of The Dramatists Guild. Joe’s current works include I Am Rafiq (w/ collaborators Mohamad Alrefai and Kholoud Sawaf), The Circus in Winter (book writer w/ composer/lyricist Ben Clark), A Rhythmic Me (stage musical and screenplay, w/ collaborators Jared Grimes and Mark Meadows), and Spring Break (second in Joe’s series of plays for teens which follows the same 19 students through a year of their lives which starts with the currently published Winter Break). Published Works: Shakespeare’s R&J (Broadway Licensing/Dramatists Play Service – Lucille Lortel Award winner, produced in the U.S., UK, Canada, Australia, South Africa, Belgium, Israel, Brazil, Peru, China, South Korea), Walter Cronkite is Dead (Broadway Licensing/Dramatists Play Service, Best Stage Monologues of 2013), In the Absence of Spring (Broadway Licensing/Playscripts – inaugural production of Second Stage’s New Plays Uptown series, Best Stage Scenes of 2004), two collections of plays for teens Signature in the Schools Volumes 1 & 2 (Concord Theatricals/Samuel French – include plays My Vacation in Paris, Salat, Civil Wars, Aftershock, Shakespeare, Will, Image is Everything, Revolution, Hero Worship, Veni Vidi Vici), plays for teens Winter Break and One Acts 17 and 18 (Broadway Licensing/Dramatists Play Service), short plays Just A Little Sniffle and Parting Gifts.
Produced Work: A Measure of Cruelty (Mosaic Theater – Carbonell Award “Best New Work nominee, Best Men’s Monologues of 2013), Separate Rooms (4615 Theater, Best Women’s Monologues of 2020), his adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Shakespeare Theater Company), The Mysteries of Harris Burdick (book writer w/ with comp. Chris Miller & lyr. Nathan Tysen – Mercury Musical Developments in London, Barrington Stage Company, William Finn’s Musical Theatre Lab), The Audience (The Transport Group – Drama Desk nominee), A Town Hall Meeting (curtain raiser for his production of Irwin Shaw’s Bury The Dead – The Transport Group), A Thousand and One Nights (Hangar Theatre), plays for teens 295N, Smile Lines, 12 Million Footsteps, and The Spoken Word (Signature Theatre), Isolated Incidents, Watershed, Waiting (Expanded Arts Inc.), Antigone Renewed (first workshop at National Theater in London), Golden Gate (book writer w/ comp./lyr. Richard Pearson Thomas – Second Stage, Lincoln Center), Ben Vereen, Reflecting (book writer – about the legendary performer’s life and career).
Photo Credit: Billy Bustamante