ALICE EVE COHEN
Author, Playwright, Solo Theatre Artist

Alice Eve Cohen is a playwright, solo theatre artist, and memoirist. Winner of the 10th Annual National Jewish Playwriting Contest in 2021 for Oklahoma Samovar and the 2019 Jane Chambers Feminist Playwriting Award for In the Cervix of Others, which will be a featured program selection of the 12th Women International Playwrights Conference, to be held in Montreal, Canada in June 2022. Winner of the 2021 Midwest Jewish Playwriting Contest and the 2021 Silicon Valley Jewish Playwriting Contest. Her first memoir, What I Thought I Knew (Viking/Penguin)— a darkly comic story about her unexpected pregnancy and the terrifying odyssey that ensued—won the Elle's Literary Grand Prix for Nonfiction, Oprah magazine's 25 Best Books of Summer, and Salon's Best Books of the Year. Her solo play adaptation of the book has been produced at the Kitchen Theatre, Minnesota Jewish Theatre Company, Jewish Repertory Theatre of Western NY, Cherry Lane Theatre, and other venues. Her memoir, The Year My Mother Came Back was published by Algonquin Books, and the audiobook (read by the author) was published by Highbridge/Recorded Books. What I Thought I Knew and Other Plays by Alice Eve Cohen was published by NoPassport Press, and her monologues will be published in two Applause Books anthologies (2020 and 2021.) Cohen has written for Nickelodeon, CTW, and CBS, and has toured her solo shows and plays to theatres, festivals and schools, nationally and internationally. Her handbook for parents about arts in education has been published in nine languages, and her writing has been published in print and online publications, including The New York Times and American Theatre magazine. Her children's novel was published by Simon & Schuster, and she is currently working on a YA novel. She has received fellowships and grants from the NYS Council on the Arts, the NEA,  VCCA  (Virginia Center for Creative Arts) and Voice & Vision's Envision Retreat. She has been writer-in-residence at University of Michigan, University of Arizona, Frank McCourt high school for writing and journalism, and at schools and universities around the country. Alice has a BA from Princeton University and an MFA from The New School. She is an MFA playwriting mentor at Augsburg University's Creative Writing MFA Program, and she teaches undergraduate playwriting and creative writing at The New School, where she received the 2020 Distinguished Teaching Award. Alice lives with her family in New York City.

(Here's the short version)
Alice Eve Cohen is a playwright, and solo theatre artist. Winner of the 2021 National Jewish Playwriting Contest for Oklahoma Samovar and the 2019 Jane Chambers Playwriting Award for In the Cervix of Others. Award-winning author of two memoirs, The Year My Mother Came Back (Algonquin) and What I Thought I Knew (Penguin)—winner of the Elle Magazine Literary Grand Prix for Nonfiction, Oprah magazine’s 25 Best Books of Summer, and Salon's Best Books of the Year. Cohen has written TV for Nickelodeon, CBS and CTW and has toured her solo plays internationally. She received a BA from Princeton and MFA in Creative Writing from The New School. She is an MFA playwriting mentor at Augsburg University's Creative Writing MFA Program, and teaches undergraduate playwriting and creative writing at The New School, where she received the 2020 Distinguished Teaching Award. Alice lives in New York City. 

(and here's the long version)
Alice Eve Cohen (www.AliceEveCohen.com) is an award-winning writer and solo theatre artist, whose work has been presented for over 200,000 people at theatres and festivals on four continents. Her full-length play,Oklahoma Samovar, winner of the 10th Annual Jewish Playwriging Contest in 2021, also won the 2021 Midwest Jewish Playwriting Contest and the 2021 Silicon Valley Jewish Playwriting Contest.  In the Cervix of Others won the 2019 Jane Chambers feminist Playwriting Award, and has been selected to be featured as a part of the official program of the 12th WOMEN PLAYWRIGHTS INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE in Montreal, Canada. Her first memoir, What I Thought I Knew (Viking/Penguin)— a darkly comic story about her unexpected pregnancy and the terrifying odyssey that ensued—won the Elle’s Literary Grand Prix for Nonfiction, Oprah Magazine’s 25 Best Books of Summer, and Salon's Best Books of the Year. Her stage adaptation of What I Thought I Knew premiered at the Cherry Lane Theatre, and was produced by The Kitchen Theatre. It was nominated for two Broadway World Awards and received an honorable mention from the Jane Chambers Playwriting Award, which called it “challenging, beautiful, and defiantly funny." Her solo play Thin Walls—“a little show, but with such a big, embracing heart”- The Guardian—was produced by The Kitchen Theatre, and has toured widely.

Cohen has written children’s television for Nickelodeon, Nick Junior, CTW, and CBS. Her second memoir, The Year My Mother Came Back, was published by Algonquin Books; the audiobook, read by the author, was published by Highbridge. What I Thought I Knew and Other Plays, a collection of four of Cohen’s solo plays, was published by NoPassport Press. Other publications include a children’s novel, The Tale of the Souvenir Shop (Simon & Schuster), and an excerpt from her play Philomela’s Tapestry, in Monologues by Women for Women (Heinemann), and an essay in an anthology of writers on the subject of Home. She is currently writing a novel.

Her plays include: What I Thought I Knew, Thin Walls, Oklahoma Samovar, Hannah and the Hollow Challah, Philomela’s Tapestry, Without Heroes, Jessica’s Cervix, The Play that Knows What You Want, The Parrot, The Balinese Frog Prince, Book of Truth, Book of Lies, Goliath on 74th Street vs. the Woman Who Loved Vegetables, The Owl Was a Baker’s Daughter, The Animator. Her works have been presented by many venues, including Dance Theatre Workshop, Cherry Lane Theatre, New York Theatre Workshop’s “Just Add Water” and “O Solo Mio” Festivals, The New Georges, The Kitchen Theatre, HERE Arts Center, 78th Street Theatre Lab, The Women’s Project & Productions, Theatre for the New City, La Mama, Franklin Furnace, Bayview Women’s Prison, Albuquerque’s KiMo Theatre, Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center, Hudson Opera House, Manhattan Punch Line, Proctors Theatre, National Foundation for Jewish Culture, Syracuse Civic Center, Artscape, Philadelphia Women’s Theatre Festival, LA Women’s Theatre Festival, Barnard College, Princeton University, Dartmouth College, University of Michigan, University of Baltimore, Fordham, Purchase College, Smithsonian Institution’s Discovery Theatre, Annenberg Center, Rochester Museum, American Museum of Natural History, Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Galway Theatre Festival, Jerusalem’s Theatre Bama, Trinidad’s Astor Theatre, and Oslo Theatre Festival, among others.

Cohen received two fellowships in playwriting and literature from the NY State Council on the Arts, and was awarded project support for her plays from the NEA, NYSCA, ASCAP, Ms. Foundation, Meet the Composer, and Poets and Writers. She was honored with the Jane Chambers Honorable Mention for feminist plays, a Dance Theatre Workshop First Night Award, two Broadway World nominations, and a special Emmy Award citation. She has enjoyed arts residencies at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and the Voice & Vision Theatre’s Envision Retreat. She is a member of the Dramatists Guild and the Authors Guild, and a New York Theatre Workshop “Usual Suspect.”

As a teaching artist, she has led performance and writing workshops, for children and adults, at schools in all five boroughs of New York City, in sixty New Orleans elementary schools, and nationwide. Her writing about arts in education has been published in nine languages, and she has been a writer-in-residence at the University of Michigan and at the Frank McCourt High School for Writing and Journalism.

Cohen fell in love with theatre in college, where she studied with members of the original Open Theatre and co-founded a Jewish theatre company with fellow students. When she graduated, she performed in and music directed Joseph Chaikin’s seminal production of The Dybbuk at The Public Theatre, and acted in and wrote music for several productions of The Talking Band. Cohen was a member of the band, Music for Homemade Instruments (a composer’s collective that makes instruments from found objects) and she composed scores for many plays and films. With Anne Hammel, she co-founded Practical Cats Theatre, which produced thirty experimental performance works combining theatre, dance, music, and film.

Cohen has a BA in Anthropology and Theatre from Princeton University and an MFA from The New School. She is an MFA playwriting mentor at the Augsburg University MFA Creative Writing Program, and a professor of creative writing, playwriting and solo theatre at The New School, where she received the 2020 Distinguished Teaching Award. Alice lives with her family in NYC.

Memoir

The Year My Mother Came Back (Algonquin Books, 2015) "A wry, magical memoir about the transcendent power of mother-daughter love."—Elle magazine

What I Thought I Knew (Viking, Penguin Books, 2009) Oprah O 25 Best Books of Summer; Elle Literary Grand Prize for nonfiction; Salon Year's Best Books.

Theatre

What I Thought I Knew and Other Plays by Alice Eve Cohen (NoPassport Press, 2016) Four plays: Thin Walls, Jessica's Cervix, The Play the Knows What You Want, What I Thought I Knew

Monologues in anthologies by Applause Theatre Books, 2020, 2021; Heinemann press, 1995

Fiction

The Tale of the Souvenir Shop, children's novel (1997, Simon & Schuster; 1998 Folio Books)

Lydia Once Removed (YA novel in progress)

Hotel Limbo (play-in-progress) 2023

Days of Awe (2020)

An Unexpected Life (2020)*

Oklahoma Samovar (revised, 2020)

In the Cervix of Others (2019)

Mrs. Satan & The Nasty Woman (2017, revised 2019)

Fault Line (2015)

What I Thought I Knew (2013)*

Hannah and the Hollow Challah (2008)

Oklahoma Samovar (2007, revised 2020)

Thin Walls (2002)*

Philomela's Tapestry (1998)

Jessica's Cervix (1993)*

The Parrot (1993)

The Play that Knows What You Want (1992)*

Book of Truth, Book of Lies (1990)*

Goliath on 74th Street vs. the Woman Who Loved Vegetables (1989)*

The Owl Was a Baker's Daughter (1988)*

Lady Monsong, Mr. Monsoon (1987)

Three Golden Hairs (1985)*

Without Heroes (1984)

The Balinese Frog Prince (1983)*

Patricia's Birthday (1980) co-created with Anne Hammel

The Animator (1979)*

The Spanish Lesson (1979)*

The Minotaur (1979)*

The Giant and Puppet Show (1977)*

Separation in Four Parts (1977) co-created with Anne Hammel

The Transformation from Plant to Horse (1977) co-created with Anne Hammel

The Scholar and the Thief (1976)