Laura Maria Censabella

Laura Maria Censabella is a playwright, screenwriter and television writer. Her Ensemble Studio Theatre and Alfred P. Sloan commissioned play Paradise (2018 IRNE Winner Best New Play; 2018 Elliot Norton Nomination Outstanding New Script) premiered at Underground Railway/Central Square Theater in Boston and was subsequently co-produced by Luna Stage and Passage Theatre. In 2019 it was produced by Viola Davis and Julius Tennon at Los Angeles?s Odyssey Theatre, and after a sold-out run, was moved to The Matrix Theatre. Most recently she wrote the screenplay of Paradise for American Oasis Productions. She has received a new Ensemble Studio Theatre/Alfred P. Sloan commission to write a play about the groundbreaking work in animal cognition of Harvard scientist Dr. Irene Pepperberg of Alex & Me fame. Her play Carla Cooks The War won the $10,000 Saroyan/Paul Playwriting Prize for Human Rights, and her plays and musicals have also been produced or workshopped by The Philadelphia Festival Theatre for New Plays, The Women's Project & Productions, Gulfshore Playhouse, Northlight Theatre, The Working Theatre, Portland Stage, Urban Stages Outreach, m2 productions, Interact Theatre in L.A., the Belmont Italian American Playhouse (which commissioned her play Some Girls), the Pacific Resident Theatre, The Festival of Faith and Writing at Calvin College, and Ensemble Studio Theatre, where she is a member and runs the professional Playwrights Unit, among others. Ms. Censabella has been awarded three grants from the New York Foundation for the Arts: two in playwriting for Abandoned in Queens and Carla Cooks The War (a/k/a Three Italian Women), and The Geri Ashur Award in Screenwriting for her original screenplay Truly Mary. Truly Mary was subsequently developed at The New Harmony Project with director Angelo Pizzo and producer Michael London. She has also been a two-time participant in the O'Neill Playwrights Conference for Abandoned in Queens and Jazz Wives Jazz Lives and has received writing fellowships from Yaddo, SPACE on Ryder Farm, ArtLab, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, The New Harmony Project, Brush Creek Foundation, and the O?Neill under Jim Houghton. Her plays have been published in The Best American Short Plays 2012-2013 (Applause Books), IndependentPlaywrights.com, Connotation Press, Poems & Plays, and The St. Petersburg Review. Ms. Censabella's teaching experience includes the New School for Drama (current, Distinguished University-Wide Teaching Award), Sarah Lawrence College, the Actors Studio Drama School, Columbia University's School of the Arts, Columbia College's Undergraduate Writing Program, City University's MFA Writing Program, The Sewanee Writers' Conference, and Summer Literary Seminars in St. Petersburg, Russia as well as teaching throughout the NYC public schools as an artist-in-residence for Poets in Public Service, BACA and the Lincoln Center Institute. She has written the short film adaptation Physics for HBO's Women: Breaking the Rules series, and for two years she wrote for daytime serial television, winning two Emmy Awards. Her half-hour independent film Last Call (directed by Robert Bailey and starring Jude Ciccolella and Dana Dewes) was an official selection in many festivals throughout the world, including the Avignon Film Festival, the Other Venice Film Festival, the Sedona International Film Festival, Anthology Film Archives? New Works Series, and the Breckenridge Film Festival where it won the Best Short Drama Award. It is released by Cinequest on a compilation DVD entitled Second Sight: Cinequest Favorite Short Films, Volume II and is available on Netflix (search: Second Sight, Vol. 2). She is a member of the Dramatists Guild, the Writers Guild of America, East, and the League of Professional Theatre Women. She received a B.A. in Philosophy from Yale University.