Liz Engelman recently moved back to Minneapolis from Austin, TX, where she taught in the Playwriting/Directing Area at UT Austin. Liz is the founder and director of Tofte Lake Center at Norm’s Fish Camp, an interdisciplinary creative retreat center adjacent to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in Northern Minnesota. Liz has served as the Alumnae Relations Coordinator at Hedgebrook, a retreat for women writers on Whidbey Island, as Resident Dramaturg at Mixed Blood Theatre, as the Literary Director of the McCarter Theatre, the Director of New Play Development at ACT Theatre in Seattle, Washington, Literary Manager/Dramaturg at Seattle’s Intiman Theatre, and as Assistant Literary Manager at Actors Theatre of Louisville.
Liz has worked on the development of new plays across the country and abroad, including The Playwrights’ Center in Minneapolis, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, ASK Theatre Projects, New York Theatre Workshop, the O’Neill Playwrights Conference, South Coast Rep, Denver Center, and Florida Stage. She has directed new plays at The Illusion Theatre, Mixed Blood Theatre, The Playwrights’ Center in Minneapolis, and Carleton College. Liz has been a guest at Washington University in St. Louis, the University of Puget Sound, Cornish College of the Arts, and has taught playwriting at Freehold Studio Theatre Lab and The Playwrights’ Center.
Liz studied dramaturgy and new play development at Brown and Columbia Universities, where she received her BA and MFA in theatre and dramaturgy, respectively. Liz is the co-editor with Michael Bigelow Dixon of several collections of plays, and a book on playwriting exercises; two volumes of monologues with Tori Haring-Smith; and a collection of Hedgebrook plays with Christine Sumption. She has written articles published in Theatre Topics and Theatre Forum.
Liz has served as President, Board Chair and is a current Board Member of LMDA, Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas. She is on the board of the National New Play Network, and member of the National Theatre Conference, and is on the Advisory Board for Scriptworks in Austin, TX.
Expertise: New play dramaturgy, playwriting, directing…and paddleboarding.