writing & directing

I write and direct for film, television, and theater; and I direct on-camera content for socially conscious companies and organizations.

Erik Jensen and I are a multihyphenate husband and wife writing team who the New Yorker calls “the foremost practitioners of documentary theater in the US.” Together, we are authors of The Exonerated, a genre-defining play based on interviews we conducted with death row exonerees across the US (Lortel, Outer Critics Circle, Drama Desk, Ovation, Fringe First, Herald Angel Awards; NAACP Image Award nominee; awards from the  American Bar Association, The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, named “Best Play of the Year” by the New York Times). We adapted The Exonerated into an award-winning TV movie starring Danny Glover, Delroy Lindo and Susan Sarandon. In 2008, we traveled to Jordan on a grant from the Ford Foundation to interview Iraqi refugees for our documentary play Aftermath; I directed its Off-Broadway premiere at New York Theater Workshop (NYT Critics’ Pick, 2 Drama League noms) as well as its 2 year international tour. Our play How to Be a Rock Critic (based on the writings of Lester Bangs), played sold-out runs at the Kirk Douglas, Steppenwolf, South Coast Rep, ArtsEmerson and the Public Theater; Erik starred and I directed.  Our 2020 documentary play Coal Country, about West Virginia’s Upper Big Branch Mine Disaster, had a critically acclaimed world premiere at the Public Theater, with original music written and performed by Grammy-award winning musician Steve Earle (Edgerton New Play Award, 2 Drama Desk noms, Lortel Award nom, NYT Critics’ Pick).  When its run was cut short by COVID-19, we pivoted and wrote The Line, a documentary play based on firsthand interviews with NYC medical first responders at the height of the pandemic, starring Lorraine Toussaint, John Ortiz, and Nicholas Pinnock. Created in less than two months, THE LINE was a real-time response to the COVID-19 crisis as it unfolded, and was the second major national digital theater production during the pandemic. Also a NYT Critics’ Pick, The Line garnered rave reviews from coast to coast and was viewed by over 85,000 people in 50 countries. Coal Country reopened commercially at the Cherry Lane Theater in 2022 to massive critical acclaim, produced by the Public and Audible.

As TV/screenwriters, we currently have projects in development with David Simon/Blown Deadline, Levinson/Fontana, and Ed Burns (The Wire, Generation Kill). We wrote the pilot The Negotiator for Gaumont TV (EP Tom Fontana) and have written television for Fox TV Studios, 20th Century TV, Levinson/Fontana, Avenue Pictures, Sunswept, Virgin Produced, and Radical Media. Our first feature, Almost Home, based on my novel of the same name, was released by Vertical Entertainment in 2019 and our second scripted feature, How To Be A Rock Critic, is currently in development, with Cameron Crowe as Creative Consultant. We are in development with Meteor17 to direct a feature documentary about legendary rock engineer Eddie Kramer (Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones) in collaboration with the Hendrix estate, and in development for a feature documentary about the Upper Big Branch Mine Disaster, produced by Audrey Rosenberg (I Am Not Your Negro, HBO’s Katrina Babies) and executive produced by Steve Earle.

I’m a Professor of story structure in the Graduate Drama Division at the Juilliard School, and have taught in the NYU/Tisch Graduate Film Program, as well as guest taught in universities across the country. I love collaborating as a director with writers, changemakers, and performers, and I'm active as a theater director Off-Broadway and an on-camera content director for advocacy organizations, nonprofits and progressive candidates.