L M Feldman is a queer, feminist, GNC playwright who writes theatrically audacious, physically kinetic, ensemble-driven plays that are both epic & intimate—usually about outsiders, often about searchers, always about the human connection. She writes plays that shift the prism, that quest & grapple. Plays about the women and queers she finds in the shadows & footnotes & margins of history. Plays wrestling with voice & agency, opportunity & access, history & its wake. Plays that explode space & time & dramaturgical form. Plays that seek to create a truly COMMUNAL & TRANSCENDENT experience – for those both onstage and off.

So far, her plays include: S P A C E (EST/Sloan commission, Playwrights’ Center, Drama League, Fresh Ground Pepper, Sue Winge Award); THRIVE, OR WHAT YOU WILL [AN EPIC] (American Shakespeare Center, Kitchen Dog New Works Festival, New Georges Audrey Residency, Page 73 Residency, InterAct Core Playwrights); ANOTHER KIND OF SILENCE (Colorado New Play Festival, FEWW Prize Honorable Mention, Magic Theatre Play Festival, Sewanee Writers’ Conference, PlayPenn Conference, Playwrights Realm Fellowship); SCRIBE, OR THE SISTERS MILTON, OR ELEGY FOR THE UNWRITTEN (Playwrights’ Center, Emerson Stage, Georgetown University, Northwoods Ramah Theatre commission); THE EGG-LAYERS (Jane Chambers Honorable Mention, New Georges/Barnard College co-commission); GRACE, OR THE ART OF CLIMBING (Denver Center, Brown Paper Box Co., Art House Productions, Nice People Theatre, ATCA/Steinberg New Play Award Nomination, Barrymore Nomination); A PEOPLE [A MOSAIC PLAY] (Methuen Drama, Global Jewish Voices, Terrence McNally Award Finalist, Orbiter 3, YiddishFest, Jewish Plays Project, Tofte Lake Center); and a TYA stage adaptation of the poem-novel TROPICAL SECRETS: HOLOCAUST REFUGEES IN CUBA by Margarita Engle (Children’s Theatre of Charlotte, Kindness Project commission).

Some of her ensemble-devised works include GUMSHOE (New Paradise Labs + the Free Library of Philadelphia + the Rosenbach Museum); WAR OF THE WORLDS: PHILADELPHIA (Swim Pony + Drexel University); AND IF YOU LOSE YOUR WAY, OR A FOOD ODYSSEY (The Invisible Dog, New York Innovative Theatre Award Nomination); LADY M (Philadelphia Live Arts Festival); and the circus-theater show TINDER & ASH (SummerStage NYC, Orchard Project Residency, TOHU Residency).

L and her work have been nominated for the Herb Alpert Award, Wendy Wasserstein Prize, Barrie & Bernice Stavis Playwright Award, Doric Wilson Independent Playwright Award, and twice for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. Her work was also a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for LGBTQ Drama, the Jane Chambers Award, and the FEWW Prize. She couldn't be more grateful for the validation each of these has offered.

L is also ongoingly thankful to have been a fellow at MacDowell, the Playwrights Realm, New Georges, InterAct Theatre, and the Dramatists Guild; a winner of Shakespeare’s New Contemporaries; a member of Orbiter 3 (Philadelphia’s producing-playwrights collective); an alum of both the Yale School of Drama (MFA in playwriting) and the New England Center for Circus Arts (major in duo trapeze, minor in handbalancing); a thought partner with the 2022-2023 Artistic Caucus (Baltimore Center Stage, Woolly Mammoth, Long Wharf, & St. Louis Rep); and a current Core Writer with the Playwrights’ Center (2021-2024).

As a contemporary circus artist, L performed duo trapeze at festivals around the world. She continues to teach & dramaturg for circus artists around the country. She is passionate about theater that MOVES, and circus that DELVES. 

L has lived in seven cities and is currently based in Philadelphia, where she writes, devises, dramaturgs, advocates, teaches (all over the place), and handstands (also all over the place). She’s writing a new play about circus, healing, and middle-age athletes.

Instagram @elemfeld