Bob Bartlett

Bob Bartlett, Associate Professor of Theatre, teaches playwriting, screenwriting, and dramatic literature and theory in the Department of Fine and Performing Arts. His plays include A BOY ON A BED; A HOME BY THE SEA; SIGHTED, a futuristic retelling of HG Wells' short story THE COUNTRY OF THE BLIND; LÝKOS ÁNTHRŌPOS, an exploration of lycanthropy recently produced in the woods of Central Maryland; UNION, a new play about Walt Whitman's years living and loving in Washington, DC, during the Civil War; THE REGULAR (2022 O'Neill Finalist; 2020 Seven Devils Playwrights Conference); E2, an adaptation of Christopher Marlowe's EDWARD II which recently premiered at Maryland's Rep Stage; THE ORBIT OF MERCURY (2017 O'Neill Finalist); SWIMMING WITH WHALES (1st Stage - six 2019 Helen Hayes Award nominations); HAPPINESS (AND OTHER REASONS TO DIE) (The Welders); THE ACCIDENT BEAR (The Avenue Laundromat); FALWELL (Active Cultures); KUCHU UGANDA (DC Queer Theatre Festival); KANSAS (First Draft); and FINDING FAUCI (Transformation Theatre). His play BAREBACK INK, a queer reimaging of the Ganymede myth, recently had a run at NYC's Hard Sparks, directed by Obie-winner David Drake. Recently, Bartlett has been producing his own site-specific work: his play THE ACCIDENT BEAR had a successful run in the Avenue Laundromat in Downtown Annapolis; during the first year of covid, he staged his play THREE STRANGERS SITTING AROUND A BACKYARD FIREPIT AT TWO IN THE MORNING LISTENING TO BRUCE SPINGSTEEN'S NEBRASKA in his backyard; he recently staged his horror play, LÝKOS ÁNTHRŌPOS, in a wooded clearing in central Maryland; his romcom LOVE AND VINYL ran throughout the summer of 2023 at KA-CHUNK!! Records in downtown Annapolis; and he wrote the covid-inspired, twelve-episode DUCK HARBOR with EM Lewis for 1st Stage in Tysons which aired in 2021. Bartlett won the 2021 USM Board of Regents Faculty Award in Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity, and is recent past chair of The National Playwriting Program (NPP) of KCACTF (Region 2), a two-time recipient of the Individual Artists Award in Playwriting from the Maryland State Arts Council, an affiliated artist with the National New Play Network, and a member of The Dramatists Guild of America. He is a founding member of The Welders, a DC-based, producing playwrights collective who were recognized with the 2016 John Aniello Award for Emerging Theater Company by theatreWashington's Helen Hayes Awards.