Meet the 2018-19 Commission Writer: Kirsten Childs

Kirsten is writing a show for us that is currently titled The Lucky Boy, an adaptation of The Brothers Grimm fairy tale “The Devil with the Three Golden Hairs.” We look forward to working with her this year, and showcasing the piece in a New York City concert on Saturday, January 12, 2019, and in a full reading at Penn State on Thursday, April 11, 2019. Mark your calendars!

Kirsten Childs is the award-winning writer of the musicals The Bubbly Black Girl Sheds Her Chameleon Skin, Miracle Brothers, Fly (with Rajiv Joseph and Bill Sherman), Funked Up Fairy Tales, and Bella: An American Tall Tale (directed by Robert O’Hara). Bella: An American Tall Tale received its world premiere in the 2016-2017 season at Dallas Theater Center, with a co-production at Playwrights Horizons, NYC. Bubbly Black Girl was recently produced at Theatre Royal Stratford East in the United Kingdom and at City Centers Encores! Off-Broadway. For her work Kirsten has received Obie, Kleban, Larson, Richard Rodgers, Audelco, and Gilman/Gonzalez-Falla awards, as well as Lortel and Drama Desk nominations. She’s currently working on a commissioned project for The New Group with writer/director Gordon Greenberg. Kirsten has written for Disney Theatricals, the American Songbook series at Lincoln Center, the New Electric Company, City Center Encores!, Works and Process @ Guggenheim Museum, and Premieres/Inner Voices under the producership of Paulette Haupt, artistic director of the O’Neill National Music Theater Conference. She’s an adjunct professor in NYU’s Graduate Musical Theater Writing Program, and a member of the Dramatists Guild Council.