Samuel D. Hunter

Samuel D. Hunter’s (Playwright) plays include The Whale (Drama Desk Award, Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Play, GLAAD Media Award, Drama League and Outer Critics Circle nominations for Best Play) and A Bright New Boise (Obie Award, Drama Desk nomination for Best Play), and his newest plays include The Few, A Great Wilderness, Rest, and Pocatello.  He is the recipient of a 2014 MacArthur “Genius Grant” Fellowship, a 2012 Whiting Writers Award, the 2013 Otis Guernsey New Voices Award, the 2011 Sky Cooper Prize, and the 2008 PONY/Lark Fellowship.  His plays have been produced in New York at Playwrights Horizons, Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, Clubbed Thumb and Page 73, and around the country at such theaters as Seattle Rep, Victory Gardens, South Coast Rep, Williamstown Theater Festival, The Old Globe, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, Denver Center Theatre Company, Marin Theater Company, and elsewhere.  His work has been developed at the O’Neill Playwrights Conference, the Ojai Playwrights Conference, Seven Devils, and PlayPenn.  A published anthology of his work, including The Whale and A Bright New Boise, is available from TCG books.  He is a member of New Dramatists, an Ensemble Playwright at Victory Gardens, a member of Partial Comfort Productions, and was a 2013 Resident Playwright at Arena Stage. A native of northern Idaho, Sam lives in NYC. He holds degrees in playwriting from NYU, The Iowa Playwrights Workshop, and Juilliard.

Photo by Zack DeZon

• “RIVETING. An impassioned and arresting clash of minds and emotions. I was glued to the stage. Hensley’s performance is equally dynamic and horrifying.”

  — Rex Reed, NY Observer

• “VIBRANT AND PROVOCATIVE. Hunter explores his material with sharp-eared skill and sensitivity. McCallum's production handles Hunter's text with clarity and devotion, getting uniformly strong performances from his five-person cast.”

  — Michael Feingold, Village Voice | Read Full Article

• “EXTRAORDINARY. As he did in his breakthrough play A Bright New Boise, Hunter has constructed an outsize, gothic scenario in tender miniature, ”

  — Scott Brown, NY Magazine | Read Full Article

• “WONDERFUL. Shuler Hensley gives a startlingly poignant performance. Under Davis McCallum’s sensitive direction, you feel as if you’ve met real people, made of flesh and blood.”

  — Elisabeth Vincentelli, New York Post | Read Full Article

• “AN AFFECTING NEW DRAMA. There may be no more startling image on a New York stage right now than the one greeting audiences at Playwrights Horizons when the lights go up on The Whale. ”

  — Charles Isherwood, NY Times

• “COMPELLING, FUNNY, AND UNEXPECTEDLY IMPACTFUL. Tony and Olivier Award winner Shuler Hensley is remarkably affecting job as 600-pound Charlie. Directed by Davis McCallum with no holds barred.”

  — Jennifer Farrar, AP | Read Full Article

• “FOUR STARS. A deeply affecting and piercingly amusing play by Samuel D. Hunter. Davis McCallum’s production leaves an emotional wallop in its wake.”

  — Joe Dziemianowicz, Daily News | Read Full Article

• “CRITIC'S PICK. FOUR STARS. Sharp and funny. Hensley is harrowingly good, endowing Charlie with wit and dignity.”

  — David Cote, Time Out NY | Read Full Article

• “Samuel D. Hunter is a highly promising writer worthy of Playwrights Horizons’ typically excellent attention.”

  — Michael Sommers, NJ Newsroom