Larry Loebell

Larry Loebell is a Philadelphia playwright, dramaturg, screen-writer, film maker, and teacher. He has been an adjunct member of the Arcadia University Theater Department teaching playwriting, dramaturgy, and other theater courses since 2003. The world premiere of his play Girl Science was performed by Arcadia University Theater in 2012. His most recent plays include, The Love Song of Lonesome George (2016), WHAM BAM (2014-15) which was developed and workshopped in 2014 in Philadelphia by Brat Productions, and The Shanghai Kaddish (2012) which was developed at NJ Rep in Long Branch, New Jersey, at Azuka Theater in Philadelphia, and as part of the Id Theater development project Id-iots at Play in NYC. Among his produced work, House, Divided was nominated for a “Best New Play” Barrymore Award after its premiere production at InterAct Theater Company in 2008. His other produced full-length plays include La Tempestad, which premiered Off-Off Broadway at the OHIO THTR in New York in 2005, The Ballad of John Wesley Reed which premiered at Theater Catalyst in Philadelphia, in 2005, and Pride of the Lion, which premiered in Philadelphia in 2002. Published full lengths include La Tempestad in the anthology Playing With Canons: Explosive New Works from Literature by America’s Indie Playwrights, NYT Books, Girl Science, published by IndieTheaterNow, and Pride of the Lion, published by Playscripts.com. Published short plays in regular production include Angie and Arnie Sanguine, But Who’s Counting, and Just Before the War Between the Plates, all published by Playscripts.Com. Monologues and scenes from his plays have been published by Applause Books, Smith and Krauss Books, and Playscripts. He has been awarded four Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Fellowships in Playwriting, an EST/Sloan Science Foundation grant for his play Girl Science, and a new play commission for House, Divided from the National Council for Jewish Culture. As a film maker Larry has produced or directed several feature films, most recently Portrait Master (2016) and Dostoyevsky Man which premiered in the 2012 Philadelphia Fringe Festival, and also played at the Bryn Mawr Film Institute. He has written film documentaries on historical and scientific subjects, and has also written (and received Emmy recognition for his work on the children’s TV show Rugrats. He only wrote an episode in the show which was Incident in Aisle Seven with Lou Greenstein. He is the writer of a biographical play about Thomas Paine, which had its world première during Paine’s 272nd birthday celebration in 2009 in his home town of Thetford, England. Since 2006, he has written and seasonally revised Living News, a living-newspaper-style play which performs four times daily during the school year as part of the permanent exhibit at Philadelphia’s National Constitution Center. Larry was the literary manager of the Seven Devils Playwrights Festival between 2013 and 2015, and has been a dramaturg at the festival regularly since 2009. Prior to that, Larry was the Literary Manager and Dramaturg at InterAct Theater Company (1999-2005). He has also worked as a dramaturg for PlayPenn, at the Lark Playwright’s Week, and for numerous private clients. His book of short fiction, The Abundance League, will appear in 2016.