Heather Helinsky is a dramaturg that playwrights have recognized as “especially adept at freeing energies in unexpected ways. She encourages discovery.” She is based in Philadelphia and is the Literary Manager for Playwrights Foundation/Bay Area Playwrights Festival. In addition to her Literary Manager work at Playwrights Foundation, she dramaturged Stefani Kuo's FINAL BOARDING CALL in 2020 and Bay Area writer Elana Dykewomon's final creative work, HOW TO LET YOUR LOVER DIE in August 2022. She also works part-time as the Contest Dramaturg/Literary Manager for Jewish Plays Project. She now has seventeen years of experience as a professional dramaturg, specifically in the area of new play development and focused on advocating for historically marginalized writers. For LMDA: four years Executive Committee as VP of Freelance and one of original leaders of LMDA's Dramaturging the Phoenix project that began in April 2020 in response to the pandemic, and participated on the panel of small grants for dramaturgs in financial hardship. Currently VP of Membership.

As a freelancer, she works with playwrights and manages her own small consulting business developing new work throughout the year. She has read and evaluates scripts for Sundance Theatre Lab, O'Neill's Artistic Council, Great Plains Theatre Conference, Seven Devils, NNPN, and KCACTF and has worked on new plays in development on various festivals since 2010. Amongst the many writers she worked with at Great Plains, she responded to Sarah DeLappe's The Wolves in 2015. At PlayPenn in 2015, she was the dramaturg for J.T. Rogers OSLO. Nationally, her dramaturgical work has been seen at the American Repertory Theatre, Arizona Repertory Theatre, Best Medicine Rep, Borderlands Theatre Company, Denver Center Theatre Great Plains Theatre Conference, The Kennedy Center, The Lark, Miracle Theatre in Portland, Moscow Art Theatre’s American Studio, Omaha Community Playhouse, Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival, Philadelphia Theatre Company, Phoenix Theatre in Indianapolis, Pittsburgh Irish and Classical Theatre, Pittsburgh Public Theatre, Salt Lake Acting Company, Telluride Playwrights Festival, Woolly Mammoth and Venus Theatre Company. For Theatre Philadelphia, she served as a Barrymore Judge for two seasons, reviewing 60-80 productions a year.
She moves fluidly between classical dramaturgy and new play development; she has been the Literary Manager of the Pittsburgh Public and PICT Classic Theatre as well as part of the National New Play Network’s rolling world premiere of Caridad Svich’s Guapa. During her residency at PICT, she curated a summer Chekhov festival, including planning panels. During her time in Pittsburgh, she initiated a dramaturgical "Lunch & Learn" series at US Steel and public libraries. As an educator, she’s mentored emerging dramaturgs at KCACTF Regions 3, 4, 6, 5, 7, & 8 and was the National Dramaturgy Coordinator for KCACTF in ’12 & ‘13. Since 2016, she currently reads for Kennedy Center playwriting awards and has helped select the students for the Undergraduate Playwrights Workshop.
She has been a Visiting Professor of Dramaturgy at the University of Arizona (‘07/08), Carnegie Mellon School of Drama (‘12/’13), and adjunct work at Brooklyn College ('15) and Lesley University ('16 & '17) and a guest workshop with Yale dramaturgs in spring '19. She was the 2008 recipient of the Beatrice, Benjamin, and Richard Bader Fellowship for the Visual Art of Theatre at Houghton Library and also was a fellow in the NCI O'Neill Critics program in 2016. Her M.F.A. in Dramaturgy and Theatre Studies is from the American Repertory Theatre/Moscow Art Theatre Institute for Advanced Theatre Training at Harvard. Member of LMDA since 2006, and currently serves as LMDA VP of Membership.

New Play Dramaturgy

English, some Russian

Yes