Marcus Scott is a New York City-based playwright, musical writer, opera librettist, and journalist. He has contributed to Time Out New York, American Theatre Magazine, Architectural Digest, The Brooklyn Rail, Elle, Essence, Out, Uptown, Trace, Hello Beautiful, Madame Noire and Playbill, among other publications. Follow Marcus on Instagram.
MARCUS SCOTT is a playwright, musical theatre writer & journalist. Full-length works: TUMBLEWEED (finalist: 2017 BAPF & the 2017 Festival of New American Plays at Austin Playhouse; semifinalist: 2022 O’Neill NPC, 2022 Blue Ink Playwriting Award & 2017 New Dramatists Princess Grace Award in Playwriting Fellowship; long-listed: 2023 Austin Film Festival Playwriting Competition - 2nd Rounder), SIBLING RIVALRIES (finalist: Normal Ave’s NAPseries, 2021 Seven Devils Playwrights Conference & 2021 ATHE-KCACTF Judith Royer Excellence In Playwriting Award; semi-finalist: 2022 Lanford Wilson New American Play Festival, 2021 Blue Ink Playwriting Award & 2021 New Dramatists Princess Grace Award in Playwriting Fellowship; long-listed: 2020 Theatre503 International Playwriting Award), THERE GOES THE NEIGHBORHOOD (finalist: 2023 New Dramatists Princess Grace Award in Playwriting Fellowship, 2023 Blue Ink Playwriting Award, the 2019 Bushwick Starr Reading Series; semifinalist: 2023 BAPF) & CHERRY BOMB (recipient: 2017 Drama League First Stage Artist-In-Residence, 2017 New York Theatre Barn's New Works Series; 2017 finalist for the Yale Institute for Music Theatre). Heartbeat Opera commissioned Scott to adapt Beethoven’s FIDELIO (Co-writer; Met Live Arts at the MET Museum, Mondavi Center at UC Davis, Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts, The Broad Stage, Rutgers Presbyterian Church, Baruch Performing Arts Center; NYTimes Critics’ Pick ★★★★ and scored “Highbrow and brilliant” by New York Magazine's Approval Matrix)). His one-act SUNDOWN TOWN is published in Obsidian: Literature and Arts of the African Diaspora: Issue: 48.1.
His work has developed or presented at Concord Theatricals/Sam French OOB Short Play Festival, Queens Theatre (New American Voices series), The Fire This Time Festival, Zoetic Stage (Finstrom Festival Of New Work), Dixon Place, Feinstein's/54 Below, Abingdon Theatre Company, Downtown Urban Arts Festival, Classical Theatre of Harlem, Across A Crowded Room at Lincoln Center Performing Arts Library (NYPL), Musical Theater Factory's 4x15 Series, Space on Ryder Farm, Theatre West, New Circle Theatre Company, MicroTheater Miami, Columbia College Chicago, among others.
Scott is the recipient of the WTP Rosalind Ayres-Williams Memorial Scholarship (2022-2024) and is a member of the Art House Productions INKubator Play Lab (2023-2024). Other residencies and retreats: The CRY HAVOC Company's inaugural PlayList writers group (2023), The inaugural Personal Pizza Party Writers' Kitchen cohort (2023), The 2022 Valdez Theatre Conference, The Road Theatre Company's Under Construction 3 Playwrights Group (2022), Mojoaa Performing Arts Company's Southern Black Playwrights Lab (Cohort 2; 2022), Works & Process LaunchPAD “Process as Destination” Residency at the Guggenheim (2022), Prospect Musical Theater Lab (2021), María Irene Fornés Playwriting Workshop (2021), JACK Governor's Island Artist Residency (2021), Catwalk Artist Residency (2021), The Center at West Park Virtual Performance Residency (2020-2021), Gingold Theatre Group Speaker's Corner Writer (2020-2022), Liberation Theatre Company's Playwriting Residency Fellowship (2018), Athena Theatre Company's Athena Writes Playwriting Fellowship (2018-2019), the inaugural LIT Council at the Tank (2018-2019), Fresh Ground Pepper Artist-In-Residence BRB Retreat (2017), One Co. Writers' Residency at Little Farm (2017) and Goodspeed Opera House Retreat (2013). Scott is Scott is a finalist for the 2024-2025 Dramatists Guild Foundation National Fellows Program, 2022 Many Voices Fellowship finalist with Playwrights’ Center, a 2021 NYSAF Founders’ Award finalist and a 2021 Doric Wilson Independent Playwright Award semi-finalist, as well as a four-time National Black Theatre I AM SOUL Playwrights Residency finalist and a four-time top finalist for The Civilians R&D Group. His articles appeared in Architectural Digest, Time Out New York, American Theatre Magazine, Playbill, Elle, Out, Essence, The Brooklyn Rail, among others. BFA: State University College at Buffalo, MFA: NYU Tisch.
