Jacqueline Goldfinger

Jacqueline Goldfinger (she/they) began their career as a teaching artist, dramaturg, and literary manager. As the Artistic Associate at La Jolla Playhouse, they helped develop Dr. Zhivago and Aaron Sorkin’s The Farnsworth Invention for Broadway.

Today, they are a writer who works nationally and internationally on performative texts which interweave humor and heartbreak, speaking to our shared humanity while honoring the nuanced identities of each character.

Their plays have won the Yale Drama Prize, Smith Prize, Generations Award, Barrymore Award, and others. Their plays have been produced by The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Contemporary American Theatre Festival, Court Theatre (New Zealand), École nationale de théâtre (Canada), Vortex Rep, Urbanite Theatre, Perseverance Theatre, Hangar Theatre, Seattle Public Theatre, among others.

They won an Opera America Discovery Award with Composer Melissa Dunphy. Their opera and choral work has been produced at Opera Columbus, Resonance Works, San Diego Opera/La Jolla Playhouse’s Without Walls Festival, BBC Radio 3 (UK), Voces8 (UK), and others. The filmed version of their short opera, Letter to Our Children, with Composer Justine F. Chen won Best Music Video at the Paris Shorts Film Awards and has been screened at film festivals around the world.

Their work has been developed at The National Theater (UK), New Georges, La Mama (Umbria & NYC), Sewanee Writers Conference, McCarter Theatre, Disquiet (Portugal) and others.

Their work has been supported by Yaddo, National Endowment for the Arts, Millay Colony, Sloan Foundation, Orchard Project, Drama League, among others.

Their plays and libretti have been published by Yale Press, Edition Peters, TRWPlays, Concord Theatricals, Stage Partners and others.

As a dramaturg, they have worked with La Jolla Playhouse, The Old Globe, Native Voices, PlayPenn, New Village Arts, Arden Theatre, Philadelphia Theatre Company, and others.

As an educator, they have taught playwriting and dramaturgy at University of California, Davis (graduate), University of Pennsylvania (undergraduate), and others. Their academic writing includes two books, Playwriting with Purpose and Writing Adaptations and Translations for the Stage (co-written with Allison Horsley), published by Routledge. Their third book, on revising text for performance, will be published in 2025 by Routledge. They were the Guest Editor for the 2023 spring issue of the “Journal of American Drama and Theatre.”

BA Agnes Scott College. MFA University of Southern California