Sheila Callaghan Writer
Sheila Callaghan (born 1973) is a New York City-based playwright and screenwriter who emerged from the RAT (Regional Alternative Theater) movement of the 1990s. Her work is considered to be part of the downtown theater (or "experimental") scene, and is known for its unusual use of language and narrative structure. Callaghan's writing has been described as "comically engaging, subversively penetrating", "whimsically eloquent", "unique and completely contemporary", and "downright weird". The New York Times has said Callaghan "writes with a world-weary tone and has a poet's gift for economical description," and the Philadelphia Weekly has called Callaghan a "provocative playwright" with a "national following" who "creates work that's realistic and unpredictable, dark and funny, reassuring and disturbing."She has been profiled by American Theater Magazine, Time Out New York, Theatermania, and The Village Voice, and she occasionally contributes articles to the theatre section of The Brooklyn Rail.She is a member of the Obie award winning playwrights' collective 13P and the Tony award winning playwrights' organization New Dramatists.Callaghan is also the recipient of several writing honors, including The Princess Grace Award, The LA Weekly Theater Award, The Jerome Fellowship from the Playwright's Center, The Chesley Prize for Lesbian Playwriting, a MacDowell Colony Fellowship, a grant from The New York Foundation for The Arts, and an NYSCA grant. In 2007 her play Dead City won a Special Commendation Award for the prestigious Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. She is also a 2007 recipient of the Whiting Writers Award.Callaghan has taught playwriting and English at the University of Rochester, The College of New Jersey, Spalding University, Brooklyn College, LaGuardia Community College, and Florida State University.She was also the author of a (now defunct) blog popular within the theatre community, which dealt with her life as a writer in New York City. She is married to composer Sophocles Papavasilopoulos, with whom she has a son.
