Alan Berks is the author of full-length plays, one-acts, short plays, and monologues that have been seen in Minneapolis, St. Paul, Chicago, San Francisco, Phoenix, Albuquerque, Indianapolis, and New York. He has often worked in unconventional venues (bars, art galleries), with unconventional structures (non-linear, alternate universes), and atypical processes (writing specifically for certain actors, working directly with ensemble theater companies). Most recently, as a member of Minnesota’s Workhaus Collective, he created The Great Divide about an encounter between a Republican politician and a liberal blogger. With Alan Berks & Company, he also adapted and directed a new version of Luigi Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author set on a reality television show set. Other past productions include Goats (nominated for a 2006 New York Innovative Theatre Award);Everywhere Signs Fall and Almost Exactly Like Us (Gremlin Theatre); Music Lovers (Workhaus Collective); and Ringtone and How to Cheat (Alan Berks & Company). Other awards include: Minnesota State Arts Board, Runner-Up, Star Tribune’s Best Playwright in Minnesota 2013, MacDowell Colony Fellow, and Jerome Fellow. From 2004-2007, he co-founded and co-produced Thirst Theater a unique artistic and community-building event in Minnesota that brought more than thirty professional playwrights into close collaboration with over 100 union actors to create new, adventurous theater at accessible site-specific locations around the Twin Cities. In October 2008, he co-created MinnesotaPlaylist.com, Minnesota's only trade publication for the performing arts. From 2010 to 2014, he was the Director of Communications at Pillsbury House Theatre where he helped raise the theater’s annual attendance more than 150%. He recently became the co-Artistic Director of Wonderlust Productions, an ensemble/community-based company in Minneapolis.