Brooke Berman is an award-winning playwright, screenwriter and memoirist whose work has been produced and published across the US. Originally trained as an actor and solo performer in the experimental theater, Brooke began performing her own work on the Lower East Side of Manhattan before receiving formal training in playwriting from the Juilliard School. Her play Hunting and Gathering, which premiered at Primary Stages, directed by Leigh Silverman, was named one of the Ten Best of 2008 by New York magazine
As a filmmaker, Brooke wrote and directed Uggs for Gaza, based on a short story by Gordon Haber. Uggs premiered at the Aspen International ShortsFest where it won an Audience Special Recognition Award. All Saints Day, a short film she wrote, which was directed by Will Frears, won Best Narrative Short at the Savannah Film Festival and played at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2008. She adapted her play Smashing for Natalie Portman and has written features for The Mark Gordon Company, Vox Films, Red Crown, and Fugitive Films.
Brooke’s memoir, No Place Like Home, published by Random House, was released in June, 2010 and named “Highbrow/Brilliant” by New York magazine’s Approval Matrix. The book made Elle.com’s “Top Ten Summer Reads,” LA magazine’s summer reading roundup and the EW piece “If You Like GIRLS, You’ll Love …”
Plays include: 1300 Lafayette East, Hunting and Gathering (Primary Stages, Theater 7 Chicago); Smashing (The Play Company, The Eugene O’Neill Theater Center); Until We Find Each Other (Steppenwolf, The Eugene O’Neill Theater Center); The Triple Happiness (Second Stage, The Playwrights Center, ASK, the Hourglass Group, The Royal Court Theatre), Sam and Lucy (SPF), A Perfect Couple (WET, Naked Angels, Arielle Tepper Productions), Out of the Water (Red Stitch Theatre, Melbourne, Australia; Cape Cod Theater Project), Casual Encounters (New Dramatists Creativity Fund, Rising Phoenix Rep), The Liddy Plays (Crashbox Theater), Dancing with a Devil (Humana Festival), and others. Her plays have been produced and developed across the US at theaters including: Soho Rep, Williamstown Theater Festival, Naked Angels, MCC, New Dramatists, New Georges, The Womens Project, The Humana Festival, and The Bay Area Playwrights Foundation. In the UK, her work has been developed at The Royal Court Theatre, The National Theatre Studio, and Pentabus. Her plays are published by Broadway Play Publishing, Playscripts, Backstage Books, and Smith & Kraus.
Brooke is the recipient of a Berilla Kerr Award, a Helen Merrill Award, two Francesca Primus Awards, two LeCompte du Nuoy awards and a commissioning grant from the National Foundation for Jewish Culture. She completed a seven-year residency at New Dramatists, where she served on the Board of Directors and developed countless plays. She has received support for her work from MacDowell and the Corporation of Yaddo and commissions from Arielle Tepper Productions and CTC in Minneapolis.
Brooke attended Barnard College and is a graduate of The Juilliard School.
