CARY GITTER is the playwright-in-residence at Penguin Rep Theatre in Stony Point, New York. His plays include THE STEEL MAN (Penguin Rep); GENE & GILDA (George Street Playhouse, Penguin Rep); THE VIRTUOUS LIFE OF JOSEPH ANDREWS (Penguin Rep), adapted from the Henry Fielding novel; and THE SABBATH GIRL (off-Broadway, 59E59 Theaters; Penguin Rep; Invisible Theatre; Theatre Ariel; published by Stage Rights). His musicals include THE SABBATH GIRL (59E59, Penguin Rep) and HOW MY GRANDPARENTS FELL IN LOVE (New Jersey Repertory Company), both written with composer/co-lyricist Neil Berg.
His play HOW MY GRANDPARENTS FELL IN LOVE was a New York Times Critic’s Pick as part of the Ensemble Studio Theatre’s (EST’s) 36th Marathon of One-Act Plays. It was later recorded for the acclaimed podcast Playing on Air, as was his one-act THE ARMY DANCE. He has received commissions from the EST/Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Science & Technology Project, Penguin Rep, and West of 10th. He is an alumnus of EST’s Obie Award-winning Youngblood playwrights’ group.
His full-length plays have been developed by the Berkshire Playwrights Lab, the Chameleon Theatre Circle, the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, EST, the Jewish Ensemble Theatre, the Jewish Plays Project, the Levine Jewish Community Center, NJ Rep, NYU, Seven Angels Theatre, West of 10th, and Wordsmyth Theater Company. He is a three-time O’Neill semifinalist and a two-time Jewish Playwriting Contest finalist, and he has received NYU’s John Golden Playwriting Prize and honorable mentions for the New England Theatre Conference’s Aurand Harris Memorial Playwriting Award and the Kennedy Center’s Rosa Parks Playwriting Award.
His short plays have been presented by the Association for Theatre in Higher Education, the Big Funk Company (Paris, France), the Boston Center for the Arts, Caps Lock Theatre, Columbia University’s Center for Palestine Studies, EST, the Flea Theater, the inspiraTO Festival, the JCC Manhattan, JIB Productions, the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival, Mile Square Theatre, the Misfits Theatre Company, NJ Rep, NYU, Open Fist Theatre Company, Roustabout Theatre Troupe, the Samuel French Off Off Broadway Short Play Festival (two-time finalist), T. Schreiber Theatre, the Tank, Theatre Handmade (London, UK), Theatre Nova, Tipping Point Theatre, and others.
His dramatic work has been published in anthologies from Applause Books and Smith & Kraus. His fiction has appeared in Baphash Literary & Arts Quarterly, JewishFiction.net, the Jewish Literary Journal, and Newtown Literary. He has been an artist-in-residence at the James Stevenson Lost and Found Lab and at Tofte Lake Center, and he has participated in Theater Reconstruction Ensemble’s chemis|TRE workshop. He was also a finalist for the Arts Council of Rockland’s Literary Artist Award. He holds a BFA in dramatic writing and an MA in English and American literature from NYU.
Read Cary’s work on the New Play Exchange.