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Enid Brain
She/Her

Enid Brain

She/Her

Enid Brain is a multi-disciplinary artist, activist, and scholar based in NYC. As a theatre artist, her writing has been performed at the Tank, Walking Shadow Readers Theatre, Passaic Preparatory Academy, the New Masculinities Festival, the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, the Studio Theatre at Tierra Del Sol, the Art Garage, Dixon Place, Texas A&M University, Stay True Theatre, and Synecdoche Works. She was a 2020 finalist (for Something's Coming, co-written with J. Andrew Norris) for the Jewish Playwriting Contest from the Jewish Plays Project, won the Special Jury Prize, FMM Fellowship for Works in Heightened Language from Synecdoche Works, 2022. (for A Faerie Tale of New York). She contributed to the “Opposing Viewpoints” series from Greenhaven Publishing and co-authored a chapter (with Olivia Wood) on Wes Craven's slasher films as queer texts in the Critical Companions to West Craven from Lexington Books. As a filmmaker, Enid's work has been featured at festivals around the world including the OutSouth Queer Film Festival and the Queer Fear Film Festival. She won the 2023 Grand Jury Choice for Best Social Issues Film from the FFTG Awards for her short film "What Being a Woman Means to Me.” Enid is a grad student and adjunct professor at the City College of New York. 

Four actors hold another one in the air.
Essay

There’s No Such Thing as an Original Play

22 March 2022

In this rethinking of authorship in contemporary theatre, Enid Brain uses a collaborative definition of creativity to open up opportunities for theatre workers to advocate for pay equity.

Two women sitting across from each other being filmed in a living room.
Essay

Podcasts and Zooms and Plays, Oh My!

Creating Non-Theatre

10 January 2022

Enid Brain reflects on the unique process of creating and performing the new work Our Childhood Sucked and shares what the theatre community can learn from creating digital “non-theatre.”

Several actors as prisoners, civilians, doctors and nurses in Bertolt Brecht's Fear and Misery of the Third Reich.
Essay

Towards a Marxist Theatre

15 April 2021

Enid Brain argues that political theatre has largely been reduced to simply calling out the problems in society, effectively preaching to the choir, and believes that in order to save political theatre, it must be re-Marxed.

a person seated and blindfolded
Essay

Notes on Making Theatre in the Dark

15 October 2019

Enid Brain discusses the experience of creating a piece of theatre in the dark, the theory of “rasa,” the act of performance, and more.

two actors playing dress up in a kitchen
Essay

Towards a Queer Reclamation

4 February 2019

Enid Brain looks at how queer theatremakers can reclaim familiar genres and forms—like musicals and kitchen sink dramas—to create a mainstream queer theatrical culture.

A laptop with a play in progress typed on it.
Essay

In Defense of the Closet Drama

11 February 2026

Playwright Enid Brain explores the artistic and political potential of the closet drama as an alternative to restrictive new play development processes. 

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