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Ian Thal

Washington, DC-based playwright and theater critic; once upon a time based in Boston. Semi-finalist for Dramatists' Guild Foundation National Fellowship 2023-24. Semi-finalist for Jewish Play Project's 12th Annual Jewish Playwrighting Contest. Come back soon and he'll be a semi-finalist for something else!

Plays: New Play Exchange

Theater Criticism: Washington City Paper (current), Previously: The Arts Fuse, DC Theater Arts.

Ian Thal is a playwright who relocated back to his hometown of Washington, DC after living much of his adult life in the Boston area where he had been a performer, journalist, and theater critic. He was a semi-finalist for the 2023-24 Dramatists Guild Foundation National Fellowship.

Ian writes theater criticism for Washington City Paper and has also written for DC Theater Arts. When he lived in Boston, he had been a theater critic and Senior Contributor to The Arts Fuse.

As a performer, Ian was founding member of Cosmic Spelunker Theater, a mime, poetry, and performance art troupe, as well as the commedia dell'arte troupe, Teatro Delle Maschere. He has also performed extensively with i Sebastiani and Bread & Puppet Theater. Ian also taught mime, commedia dell'arte, and puppetry to young people in the Boston area, for which he received a commendation from the Massachusetts Senate in 2018.

In 2012, Ian traveled to Kosovo as a guest of the Writers' Union of Kosovo, after some of his poems were translated into Albanian and included in a bilingual anthology, The Sounds of Wind: New American Lyrics

Ian holds a BA in philosophy from SUNY Purchase, and an MA in philosophy from Boston College.