E.M. Lewis

E.M. Lewis

E.M. Lewis

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E. M. Lewis is an award-winning playwright, teacher, lyricist, and opera librettist. Her work has been produced around the world, and published by Samuel French. She received the Steinberg Award for HOW THE LIGHT GETS IN and SONG OF EXTINCTION and the Primus Prize for HEADS from the American Theatre Critics Association, the Ted Schmitt Award from the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle for outstanding writing of a world premiere play, a Hodder Fellowship from Princeton University, a playwriting fellowship from the New Jersey State Arts Commission, the 2016 Oregon Literary Fellowship in Drama, and an Edgerton Award for her epic Antarctic play MAGELLANICA that was produced at Artists Repertory Theatre in 2018 and released as a five-part audio podcast in 2020. Other plays by Lewis include: APPLE SEASON (National New Play Network rolling world premiere, locally at 21ten Theatre), THE GUN SHOW (more than fifty productions across the country; Edinburgh Fringe), TRUE STORY (locally at Artists Repertory Theatre), DOROTHY’S DICTIONARY (soon to be available in print from Concord Theatricals), YOU CAN SEE ALL THE STARS (a play for college students commissioned by the Kennedy Center), and STRANGE BIRDS (finalist for the Lanford Wilson New American Play Festival, workshop production at UC Santa Barbara). SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE CASE OF THE FALLEN GIANT, a new opera commissioned by American Lyric Theater that Lewis wrote with composer Evan Meier, premiered at Opera Modesto in 2024.

Lewis is now working on a big new play called THE FRANKENSTEIN PROJECT, which had a workshop production at Florida Atlantic University in spring 2025, and will be part of Boston Court Pasadena’s New Works Festival in May 2026. Lewis is currently playwright-in-residence at Artists Repertory Theatre through the Mellon Foundation’s National Playwright Residency Program. She is a proud member of LineStorm Playwrights, Opera America, and the Dramatists Guild, and co-founder of ARTwrite and ARTsong. She lives on her family’s small farm in the Willamette Valley.