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Ezra Brain

Ezra Brain

(they/them)

Ezra Brain is a genderqueer writer, theatre maker, teacher, and activist based in NYC. Their writing has been performed at the Tank, Literacy Theatre, Stop Pretending Theatre Project, Passaic Preparatory Academy, the New Masculinities Festival, the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Exquisite Corpse Company, and Dixon Place. Ezra’s essays and articles have been published by Left Voice, Truthout, Musical Theatre Today, Howlround, and Harper’s Bazaar. They are an award-winning teaching artist, a proud member of Ring of Keys and the Dramatists Guild, and is a founding ensemble member of Embodied Theatre Project.

Four actors hold another one in the air.
There’s No Such Thing as an Original Play
Essay

There’s No Such Thing as an Original Play

22 March 2022

In this rethinking of authorship in contemporary theatre, Ezra 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.
Podcasts and Zooms and Plays, Oh My!
Essay

Podcasts and Zooms and Plays, Oh My!

Creating Non-Theatre

10 January 2022

Ezra 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.
Towards a Marxist Theatre
Essay

Towards a Marxist Theatre

15 April 2021

Ezra 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
Notes on Making Theatre in the Dark
Essay

Notes on Making Theatre in the Dark

15 October 2019

Ezra 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
Towards a Queer Reclamation
Essay

Towards a Queer Reclamation

4 February 2019

Ezra 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.