Jessica Litwak
is a Playwright, Drama Therapist, Teacher, and Actor, Jessica Litwak has had an international presence as a theatre artist and teacher in Iraq, India, Lebanon, Egypt, Israel, and London as well as throughout the United States. She has been on the full- time theatre faculty of San Francisco State University and The Theatre Academy at Los Angeles City College, heading up the Voice Department at both schools. She has also taught, voice, at Stella Adler Academy and Marymount Manhattan College, she has taught acting and playwriting at Columbia and NYU. She taught in the graduate drama therapy program at Lesley University. Currently, she is directing The Moons Of Jupiter in Boulder, Colorado and is a professor in the Contemporary Performance MFA program at Naropa University.
Litwak’s work has been published by Applause Books, Smith and Krause, and The New York Times. Plays include: Emma Goldman: Love Anarchy and Other Affairs directed by Anne Bogart and produced by The Women’s Project and Productions, Bogart and she also collaborated on Between Wind, a play commissioned by The Music Theatre Group. A Pirate’s Lullaby, which won The Oregon Book Award, was produced in Portland, Oregon at Artists Rep. Theatre, Off Broadway at Rattlestick Theater and in Chicago at The Goodman Theatre. The Promised Land, commissioned by The National Federation of Jewish Culture, was produced in Budapest, Hungary. Secret Agents was produced in Hollywood at The Renberg Theatre, and Victory Dance was produced at the DR2 in New York and also in Los Angeles where it received a Garland Award and an Ovation Award. The Night It Rained was performed at HERE in NYC. Terrible Virtue was developed by The Lark and The Culture Project; GRIM was produced at TBG (The Barrow Group). Wider Than The Sky was developed at The Lark and at UCONN and Epic Theatre. The Snake and The Falcon and Nobody Is Sleeping (the last two parts of the Emma Goldman Trilogy) were developed by the Lark and produced by Serious Play!
As an actress, Litwak has appeared extensively in theatrical productions across the United States, a company member at The Guthrie Theatre and a member of The Actor’s Studio. She received a BFA in Acting from New York University’s Experimental Theatre Wing and an MFA in Playwriting from Columbia University. The Founder and Artistic Director of award winning theatre company New Generation Theatre Ensemble, (www.ngte.org) NGTE plays Postcards from Canterbury, The Great Journey Home, Verona High and War An American Dream written and directed by Litwak, have been produced in New York and Massachusetts
Litwak is registered drama therapist, and an activist and organizer. Litwak is on the steering committee of Theatre Without Borders, and co leads the Arts and Human Rights initiative for TWB, she is a trainer for Acting Together On The World Stage, a case consultant and co-leader of the Artists In Distress Services Committee for freeDimensional . She teaches courses in NYC and internationally in Theatre for Personal and Social Change, which combine rigorous theatre training with drama therapy and social justice work. She is a co-founder of The Dream Act Union (a collective of five women playwrights writing plays that deal with immigration), Artistic Director of the New Generation Theatre Ensemble (a theatre company and school for at risk youth) and The H.E.A.T. Collective (www.heatcollective.org) an organization dedicated to Healing, Education, Activism and Theatre. She is a PhD candidate at Antioch University in Arts and Social Change.
