“The writer operates at a peculiar crossroads where time and place and eternity somehow meet.”
-Flannery O’Connor
Jacqueline Goldfinger (she/they) began their career as an educator and dramaturg with a focus on education and new work. Their career evolved into Literary Management and Artistic Administration. As the Artistic Associate at La Jolla Playhouse, they supported the development of Jersey Boys, Dr. Zhivago, and Aaron Sorkin’s The Farnsworth Invention for Broadway.
Today, they are a playwright, librettist, and poet who works nationally and internationally on performative texts which interweave humor and heartbreak, speaking to our shared humanity while honoring the nuanced identities of each character.
During the 2022-23 academic year, they are a Visiting Professor, Head of MFA Dramaturgy, at Indiana University. In the spring of 2023, they will be the Guest Editor for the Journal of American Drama and Theatre.
They are an Affiliated Artist at the BMI Lehman Engel Workshop, New Georges, and the National New Play Network.
Their opera and choral libretti have been performed and broadcast around the world. Their new full length opera, Alice Tierney, with Composer Dr. Melissa Dunphy won the Opera America Discovery Grant and the Schlichting Commission. In 2023, it will world premiere at Oberlin Opera and Opera Columbus. They are currently commissioned to write Twa, a new opera, with Composer Justine F. Chen for Maryland Opera Studio, and are developing a new opera based on the classic novel and film Metropolis with Composer Luciana Perc thanks to the support of San Diego Opera/OperaAmerica.
Their opera and choral libretti have been produced at Decameron Opera Project, Resonance Works, San Diego Opera, La Jolla Playhouse’s Without Walls Festival, BBC Radio 3 (UK), Voces8 (UK), St. Martin in the Fields (UK), Mendelssohn Choruses all over the U.S., and others. The filmed version of their short opera, Letter to Our Children, won Best Music Video at the Paris Shorts Film Awards.
Their plays have won the Yale Drama Prize, Smith Prize, Generations Award, and Barrymore Award. Their plays have been on The Kilroy’s List. They’ve been a Finalist for the LAMBDA Literary Award, Henley Award, Woodward-Newman Award, and received a Special Citation from the McNally Award.
Their plays have been produced by The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Contemporary American Theatre Festival, Court Theatre (New Zealand), École nationale de théâtre (Canada), Perseverance Theatre, Hangar Theatre, Seattle Public Theatre, and others.
Their work has been developed at The National Theater (UK), New Georges, La Mama (Umbria & NYC),
OperaHack at San Diego Opera, Sewanee Writers Conference, McCarter Theatre, Disquiet (Portugal) and others.
Their work has been supported by Yaddo, National Endowment for the Arts, Millay Colony, Sloan Foundation, Orchard Project, Drama League, Granada Artist Residency, Independence Foundation Fellowship, among others.
Their plays and choral libretti have been published by Yale Press, Edition Peters, Concord Theatricals (formerly Samuel French), Playscripts, Stage Partners and others.
As a dramaturg, they have worked with La Jolla Playhouse, The Old Globe, Native Voices, PlayPenn, New Village Arts, and others. They also serve on the Board of the international dramaturgy association, LMDA, and was the Conference Chair in 2022.
As an educator, they have taught playwriting and dramaturgy at Temple University (graduate), Indiana University (graduate), University of Pennsylvania (undergraduate), Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center (National Theatre Institute), University of California, Davis (graduate), Dramatists Guild (Dramatists Guild Institute) and others. They were awarded a Special Citation for Teaching and Mentoring by LMDA (the Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas) in 2019.
Their academic writing includes two books, Playwriting with Purpose and Writing Adaptations and Translations for the Stage (co-written with Allison Horsley), published by Routledge. They have also written articles for “The Dramatist,” “Journal of Theory and Dramatic Criticism,” “August Wilson Journal,” TCG’s “Audience Revolution,” and others. They have moderated panels and interviews for Innovations in Socially Distant Performance at Princeton University, Kelly Writer’s House at University of Pennsylvania, LMDA International Conference, ATHE Conference, What’s Next in the Arts Symposium, AWP Conference, and others.
BA from Agnes Scott College
MFA from University of Southern California