User:HiredPen/Katherine Murphy

Katherine Murphy is a playwright, director and dramaturg. In the summer of 2012, her sideways retelling of the Oresteia from the women’s point of view, To Hades and Back (Again), premiered at Hunger Artists Theatre Company. Also that summer, Katherine’s Word of the Day was presented at the 20th Anniversary Last Frontier Theatre Conference and month-long artist residency at The Studio at Key West. In Key West, she began the work of turning her play Box Store Cowboys into the musical Weathered.

Produced by Bare Bones Theatre Company and First Seen at The Next Stage in San Francisco, Critics’ Choice Greater America premiered in 2002. Reviewer Anna Mantzaris, SF Gate, noted “Murphy’s script is at its best when the narrator steps out of character and spins metaphoric observations based on park rides that, at times, are sheer poetry.”

In the interim, she has had numerous readings in Los Angeles and San Francisco. As co-artistic director of First Seen in San Francisco and exAngelus in Los Angeles, she produced several readings, workshops, and full productions.

Other past theatrical endeavours have in included literary committee member (Berkeley Repertory Theatre and Magic Theatre), director (over a dozen plays and many more readings) and an assistant director (Guthrie Theatre, Pacific Shakespeare Company and Somar), dramaturg for several original plays.

She has studied theatre at San Francisco State University (MA), U.C., Irvine, (BA), The Siti Company (Suzuki/Viewpoints), and The Train Station (Suzuki/Viewpoints, Bio-Mechanics), and improvisation with a multitude of teachers and schools including Second City, Upright Citizens Brigade, Bay Area Theatresports, Impro, Keith Johnstone, and Jim Cranna.