Bio

Photo credit: Laurie Moore Skillings

Mark Evan Chimsky, librettist/lyricist

 

Mark Evan Chimsky is a playwright and award-winning poet who is dedicated to exploring themes of marginalization, intersectionality, and social justice that will resonate with all audiences.

He first fell in love with William Shakespeare when cast as a page boy at nine years old in Hamlet at Edgecliff Theater, a local (Cincinnati, Ohio) repertory theater company. Three weeks of listening to the language at rehearsals and having the director explain the action and nuances of the play was magical for him.

In 2013 Mark began writing for the theatre. He has created original musicals, including The Pledge, which received a staged reading in May 2019 at the Forbes Center for the Performing Arts in Harrisonburg, Virginia.as part of James Madison University’s Madison New Works Lab, and J. and Dot, which tied for Best Play in the Equity Library Theater’s Summer 2020 Virtual Play Festival.

In April 2021, the Boston Conservatory at Berklee produced Mark’s short musical Albert as part of the Boston Theater Marathon XXIII: Special Zoom Edition. In April 2022, Albert was given a staged reading by the Left Coast Theatre Co. in San Francisco as part of Queerstory: Forgotten Figures from Queer History. As a play, Albert will be given a full production in LCTC’s Queerstory in August 2023.

As a playwright, Mark is the author of the short play Getting Juliet, which was named a semi-finalist by the Maine Playwrights Festival 2022 and given a reading in May 2022. Also, Mark’s five-minute play, Meeting Fingerman, was selected for the Seventh Annual 5-Minute Play Festival, and was presented in La Jolla, California in June 2022. Mark’s short play, The Agency, was chosen for Stage Q’s inaugural CapitalQ New Play Festival and was presented as part of Pride weekend in June 2022 in Madison, Wisconsin.

Most recently, Mark’s short play Meeting Fingerman was chosen as a semi-finalist in the Maine Playwrights Festival and was given a reading in April 2023.

In his publishing career, Mark has edited a number of best-selling books, including Johnny Cash’s memoir, Cash.

Mark was editorial director of Harper San Francisco; director of trade paperbacks at Little, Brown; and editor-in-chief of the trade paperback division at Macmillan.

In addition, he has taught at New York University in New York and he currently teaches at Emerson College in Boston.

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