Edgar Chisholm

Playwright · Director · Producer

Bloomfield, NJ · edgar.chisholm@gmail.com · edgarchisholm.com · New Play Exchange

Playwright whose work has been produced in New York, Ireland, and across the United States since 1996, and whose play The Long Dance is an assigned text in the theatre curriculum at Ohio State University. Winner of the New York AUDELCO Award, the Eileen Heckart Drama for Seniors international competition, and the Segora International Writing Competition. Founder of Fractl Theatre, a modular dramaturgy in which the arrangement of self-contained scenes — rather than their text — determines whether a work plays as tragedy, prophecy, or love story. The method comes directly from seven years as a software developer at Bell Labs, where he worked on UNIX System V Release 3 and on modular, recursive systems.

In Curriculum & Collections

Ohio State University

The Long Dance is an assigned manuscript playtext in Theatre 675.01, “Crones, Curmudgeons, and Living Treasures: Theatre and Aging” — 5 credits, undergraduate/graduate, Autumn 2005, Dr. Alan Woods.

Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee Theatre Research Institute

The Long Dance is held in the Senior Drama Collection, having entered as a finalist of the Eileen Heckart Drama for Seniors competition — 470 entries from writers worldwide.

Awards & Honors

Selected Productions

The Savage Queen

Playwright & Director · Off-Broadway, New York (2019)

Winner, AUDELCO Award for Best Sound; nominated, Best Costumes. Best of Broadway Bound Theatre Festival (2022). Selected reading, National Black Theatre Festival (2015). Developmental staged reading, Polaris North (2011).

Without Love

Eleven presentations · 1996 – 2022

National Black Theatre, Harlem (1996) · BACA Downtown, Brooklyn Heights (1996) · Rochdale Village Community Theater, Queens (1996) · National Black Theatre Festival, Winston-Salem NC (1997) · Harlem Summer Arts Festival (1997) · Erin Hall, Columbia University (1997) · Theatre on the Green, Cheraw SC (1997) · Actor's Loft, NYC (1997) · Sugarhill Dinner Theatre, Brooklyn · Mary B. Burch Theatre, Essex County College, Newark (1998) · Voices of Truth Theatre Festival, Powerstories Theatre, Tampa (2022).

Miss Julie

Adaptation of Strindberg · August Strindberg Repertory Theatre, Gene Frankel Theatre, New York (2014)

“Edgar Chisholm's adaptation adds a racial dynamic to the already apparent class struggle, raising the stakes for all characters… no longer just a story about gender and class, but also the conflict in intraracial and interracial relationships.” — hep.beat.zine

Bringin' Back Jesus (The Omega Project)

HERE Theatre, Off-Off-Broadway (1999) · New 42nd Street Theatre, Off-Broadway (1999)

Developed at the Lincoln Center Directors Lab Bible Project.

Bridge of Honor

ClareMorris Drama Festival, Ireland (2017)

Polaris North: workshop production (2000), staged reading (2010).

The Long Dance

2002 – 2010

Polaris North workshop (2002) · American Globe Theatre & Turnip Theatre festival (2002): Producers’ Choice; Best Actress, Diane Martella · Stella Adler Theatre, Los Angeles (2003) · Around the Block reading (2010) · Polaris North staged reading (2010).

Jailhouse Jock

1996 – 1999

Brokers Entertainment Complex, East Orange NJ (1996) · Mary B. Burch Theatre, Newark (1998) · Inglewood Playhouse, California (1999).

Apron Strings: The Ties That Bind (My Apron's My Flag)

Hip-hop one-act · AMT Theater, New York (2024)

Multiple Me

Theatre Row, New York

One-woman, one-puppet play starring Angelique Monet.

Unfinished Work

Presented at the Association for Jewish Theatre Conference as an Identity Play (2010). New Life Productions, Columbia SC, reading (2011).

Having Our Say

Director · Off-Broadway, New York

Holiday Diary

Radio production for WBAI-FM, produced by David Wright. Workshop, Lincoln Center Directors Lab. NFCB Silver Reel Award winner.

Work has also been presented at the Met Theatre (Los Angeles), Juneteenth Festival Theatre of Louisville, and the Lincoln Center Directors Lab (New York).

Fractl Theatre

Wheel of Life

An ongoing modular cycle

Fractl Theatre treats a play as a governed set of self-contained modules linked by recurring images and phrases that evolve at each appearance, so that reordering the modules changes what an audience knows at any moment, and therefore what the play means. The same unaltered text plays as tragedy in one arrangement and as prophecy in another.

Publication

Screenwriting & Film

Affiliations

Education & Training

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