Sharyn Rothstein

Playwright

Sharyn Rothstein is an award-winning playwright and television writer. Her newest play Bad Books is a National New Play Network Rolling World Premiere play and winner of the David Goldman Prize for New American Plays. Bad Books was first produced by Florida Studio Theatre (Sarasota), Round House Theatre (Bethesda, Maryland), Williamston Theatre (Michigan), and Curious Theatre Company (Denver, Colorado) and will be produced at other theaters across America this year.

Sharyn’s Helen Hayes Award-nominated musical adaptation of the beloved film “Hester Street,” with music and lyrics by Joel Waggoner, was produced at Washington, D.C.’s Theater J in spring 2024. Her play By The Water was first produced by Manhattan Theater Club and Ars Nova and was the recipient of the American Theater Critic’s Association Francesca Primus Prize. Her plays have also been produced at Williamstown Theatre Festival, Arena Stage, McCarter Theatre Center, Ensemble Studio Theater, as well as Raven Theater and Northlight Theater in Chicago. Her audio drama “Deep Fake” is available on Audible.

Sharyn is currently a writer and co-executive producer on CBS’s new show “Einstein.” She has also written for “Suits LA,” the spin-off of the hit legal drama “Suits,” for which she wrote and produced for five seasons. Sharyn was a writer and co-executive producer on AMC’s “Orphan Black: Echoes,” and has developed shows for Apple, AMC and Bravo.

Sharyn holds an MFA in dramatic writing from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, and a master’s degree in public health from Hunter College. She teaches television writing at NYU and Columbia University. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband, two kids, two cats and a mountain of laundry.

Oliver Butler

Director

Oliver Butler is a theatre director who grew up in New England and is now based in Brooklyn, New York. He directed the critically acclaimed Broadway premiere of Heidi Schreck’s What the Constitution Means to Me (Best Play Tony Award Nomination, Obie Award Winner, Lucille Lortel Award Nomination, Drama League Award Nomination, Outer Critics Circle Award Nomination, Drama Desk Award Nomination; Finalist for the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Drama), a film version is now streaming on Amazon Prime.

He directed the off-Broadway premiere of A Knock on the Roof by Khawla Ibraheem at New York Theatre Workshop, following a sold-out world premiere at the Edinburgh Fringe where it won five major awards including a Fringe First from The Scotsman. The production was nominated for Outstanding Solo Show at the Lucille Lortel Awards and Outstanding Solo Performance at the Outer Critics Circle Awards and subsequently transferred to the Royal Court Theatre in London.

Other recent directing credits include the world premiere of Hester Street in Washington, D.C.; the off-Broadway premiere of A Bright New Boise by Samuel D. Hunter at Signature Theatre Company; the world premiere of Tornado Tastes Like Aluminum Sting by Harmon Dot Aut; the NYC premiere of Will Eno’s GNIT at Theatre for a New Audience; the world premiere of Will Eno’s The Plot at Yale Repertory Theatre; the world premiere of Jordan Harrison’s The Amateurs at Vineyard Theatre; the West Coast premiere of Will Eno’s Thom Pain (based on nothing) starring Rainn Wilson at The Geffen Playhouse; and the return of Thom Pain (based on nothing) to New York starring Michael C. Hall at Signature Theatre Company.

Additional career highlights include Itamar Moses’s The Whistleblower at Denver Center; Christopher Shinn’s An Opening in Time at Hartford Stage; Daniel Goldfarb’s Legacy at Williamstown Theatre Festival; the world premiere of Timeshare by Lally Katz at The Malthouse in Melbourne; and the world premiere of Will Eno’s The Open House (OBIE Award for Direction; Lortel Award, Best Play) at Signature Theatre Company.

He is a co-founder and co-artistic director of The Debate Society, with whom he has directed 10 premieres over 15 years, including The Light Years (Playwrights Horizons), Jacuzzi (Ars Nova), and Blood Play (Bushwick Starr). He is a Sundance Institute Fellow and a Bill Foeller Fellow (Williamstown). He’s a long-distance hiker who recently completed the Camino de Santiago (500 miles), hiked 500 miles on the Appalachian Trail, and adventured near the Arctic Circle in Hornstrandir Nature Reserve, known as “The Iceland of Iceland.”