Polly K. Carl, Ph.D.
Producing Artistic Director

As the artistic and strategic head of The Playwrights’ Center, one of the nation’s most revered playwriting hubs, Polly Carl oversees a quarter-million-dollar fellowship and residency program and produces the renowned annual PlayLabs Festival. In the past year she has supported the development of new plays by Lonnie Carter, Jordan Harrison, Kira Obolensky, and Karen Zacarias. In 2005 and 2006 she traveled to the Tokyo International Arts Festival to launch an American-Japanese playwright exchange with festival director Sachio Ichimura. Carl commissions and develops new work including, most recently, plays from Ruth Margraff, Kathleen Tolan, Mac Wellman, and Craig Lucas, whose Small Tragedy won the 2004 Obie for Best American Play. While at the Center, she has collaborated on numerous plays with Twin Cities theater companies including the Guthrie Theater and The Children’s Theatre Company as well as many national companies including New York’s Lark Play Development Center and (currently) D.C.-area Signature Theatre. Carl was an integral part of The Playwrights’ Center’s $1.1 million capital campaign completed in 2001. Her Ph.D. in Comparative Studies in Discourse and Society with an emphasis on Text Analysis is from the University of Minnesota, where she also teaches.