Draft:Aaron Mark

Aaron Mark (born January 19, 1987) is a playwright, director, television writer, and showrunner best known for creating The Horror of Dolores Roach for Amazon Prime Video and Blumhouse Television, based on the Gimlet Media podcast he wrote and directed.

Early life
Mark is a native of Texas and is Jewish.

Theatre
On March 31, 2013, Mark's one-person horror play, Another Medea, premiered at the Duplex Cabaret Theatre in New York City. The play starred Tony Award nominee Tom Hewitt, and was remounted beginning October 19, 2013 by All For One Theater at the Cherry Lane Theatre, and again beginning January 14, 2015 at The Wild Project. Mark and Hewitt again remounted Another Medea at the Provincetown Theatre beginning October 20, 2023, 10 years after its New York premiere.

On September 30, 2015, Mark's second one-person horror play, Empanada Loca, premiered at the Bank Street Theatre in New York City. The play, inspired by the legend of Sweeney Todd, starred two-time Tony Award nominee Daphne Rubin-Vega and was produced by LAByrinth Theatre Company. The production was nominated for 3 Drama Desk Awards and was later released as an audio play. On August 12, 2017, Mark and Rubin-Vega presented a one-night-only staging of Empanada Loca at The Other Palace in London.

Mark's third one-person horror play, Squeamish, premiered on October 6, 2017 at Theatre Row. The play starred two-time Tony Award nominee Alison Fraser and was produced by All For One Theater. An audio recording of Squeamish was released on May 4, 2020.

Mark's two-person play, Deer, premiered on March 9, 2017 at Stage West Theatre in Fort Worth, Texas. Under the title Cervus, Deer received its international premiere by Lumik Teatro in Italy in 2019.

Mark's fourth one-person horror play, Innocence, starring Lea DeLaria, was developed by New York Theatre Workshop in 2017.

Mark directed Ben Rimalower's solo plays Patti Issues and Bad With Money, as well as productions of The Mystery of Irma Vep and Deathtrap for Berkshire Theatre Group, and Hedwig and the Angry Inch for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS.

Audio
On October 17, 2018, Gimlet Media released the 8-episode first season of The Horror of Dolores Roach, a scripted podcast based on Mark's play, Empanada Loca, and informed by his time living in Washington Heights. Mark wrote and directed all episodes of the podcast, which starred Daphne Rubin-Vega, Bobby Cannavale, Kita Updike, John Douglas Thompson, Richard Kind, Vanessa Williams, Michael Urie, Margaret Cho, David Zayas, Abigail Spencer, and Lillias White.

The 5-episode second season of The Horror of Dolores Roach was released by Gimlet on October 16, 2019. Again written and directed by Mark, Rubin-Vega was joined this time by Lea DeLaria, Everett Quinton, Donnell Rawlings, Amy Ryan, Ilana Levine, and Josh Hamilton.

On May 20, 2021, Mark's audio thriller, The Vanishing Negative, starring Tony Award winner Betty Buckley, was released by Audible.

Television
On May 6, 2020, it was reported that Amazon Prime Video was developing The Horror of Dolores Roach for television with Blumhouse Television, and that Mark would write the series pilot and had entered a First-Look deal with Blumhouse Productions. Amazon announced it had picked up the series on February 3, 2022, with Justina Machado in the role of Dolores Roach and Mark serving as executive producer and co-showrunner. Other executive producers would include Jason Blum and Gloria Calderón Kellett.

The first 3 episodes of the series premiered on June 15, 2023 at the Tribeca Film Festival. The 8-episode first season was released on July 7, 2023, during the Writers Guild of America strike, and starred, alongside Machado, Alejandro Hernandez, K. Todd Freeman, Kita Updike, Marc Maron, Judy Reyes, Jean Yoon, Jeffery Self, Jessica Pimentel, and Cyndi Lauper. Lauper's original song, "Oh, Dolores," co-written with Ben Hopkins, was released on July 7, 2023 to coincide with the series premiere.

On November 21, 2023, it was reported that Amazon had cancelled the series after one season.