Biography
Bess Wohl's works include Small Mouth Sounds (recognized in top ten lists by The New York Times, The Guardian, New York Post, among others, and currently touring nationally), American Hero, Barcelona (nominated for multiple Ovation Awards), Touched, In, Cats Talk Back, and Pretty Filthy, created in collaboration with Michael Friedman and The Civilians (earning Lucille Lortel and Drama Desk nominations for Outstanding Musical). Her latest play, Continuity, was recently developed at Chicago's Goodman Theater during the New Stages festival.
In addition to theater, she writes for film and television. Her film Irreplaceable You premiered on Netflix in February 2018, starring Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Christopher Walken, Kate McKinnon, and Steve Coogan. She received an Athena Award for her original screenplay Virginia, and her screenplay IN was featured on Hollywood's Black List of top scripts. She has developed original TV projects for HBO, ABC, USA, FOX, and others.
Her plays have been produced or developed at theaters across New York and nationwide, including Second Stage, Manhattan Theatre Club, Ars Nova, The Williamstown Theatre Festival, The Geffen Playhouse, Goodman Theater, People's Light and Theatre Company, The Contemporary American Theater Festival, Vineyard Arts Project, The Pioneer Theatre, Pittsburgh Public Theater, Northlight Theatre, TheaterWorks New Works Festival, Ojai Playwrights Conference, Cape Cod Theatre Project, PlayPenn, and the New York International Fringe Festival (where she won the Award for Best Overall Production).
In 2015, Bess received the Sam Norkin special Drama Desk Award for establishing herself as a significant voice in New York theater. Her honors also include the John Gassner Outer Critics Circle Award. She currently holds new play commissions from Lincoln Center, Manhattan Theater Club, Second Stage, The Williamstown Theatre Festival, and Hartford Stage. She is a MacDowell fellow, an associate artist with the New York-based investigative theater company The Civilians, and a graduate of Ars Nova's Play Group.
Before her writing career, Bess acted onstage in New York and regional theaters, as well as in numerous films and TV shows, portraying characters who have given birth, solved crimes, committed crimes, been wrongly accused, and even returned from the dead.
She graduated from Harvard University and the Yale School of Drama.
