Matthew Freeman

Alumni Playwright

2014 -- 2021

Matthew Freeman is a Brooklyn-based playwright and director. He is a MacDowell Colony Fellow and a current resident playwright at New Dramatists.

In New York City, he has been produced at The Brick Theater, HERE Arts Center, House of Yes, FPAC/The Assemblage in Boston, St. Mark's Church, Dixon Place, Access Theater, East 4th Street Theater, The Metropolitan Playhouse, Manhattan Theatre Source, The New Ohio, and 80WSE Gallery. His audio work has been a part of the HearNow Festival and Atlanta Fringe Radio.

His plays and monologues have been published by Samuel French, Applause, Smith & Kraus, NYTE, and Playscripts. Plays include The Conversation, A Long Trip By Sea, The Hollow, That Which Isn't, Bluebeard, When is a Clock, The Listeners (Nominee: Best Production - Performance Art: New York Innovative Theatre Awards 2015), and Why We Left Brooklyn.

As a director, Freeman has staged his evening of short plays The Hollow (Brick Theater 2018), The Zebra Shirt of Lonely Children by Matthew Trumbull at the NY International Fringe Festival 2012 (Encore Series; Award, Overall Excellence in Solo Performance) and the Minnesota Fringe Festival 2013, his adaptation of the mystery plays, Genesis, with Handcart Ensemble.

Freeman is a graduate of Emerson College.

He lives with Brooklyn, NY with his wife, Pam.

Along with Kyle Ancowitz, Freeman is Artistic Director of Theater Accident.

ND Activity

Composer-Librettist Studio
Composer-Librettist Studio
Our annual Composer-Librettist Studio focuses simultaneously on music-theatre development and the principles of collaboration, teaming five writers with five composers and five performers to develop brand-new works of musical theatre. At the end of the Studio, each playwright has worked with each composer and 25 new music-theatre pieces have been created by the group.
Creativity Fund
Creativity Fund
The Creativity Fund blends the flexibility of a one-day play reading with the intensive focus of a two-week workshop, providing ten to fifteen playwrights per year the opportunity to program three to five day workshops on an ad hoc basis. Creativity Fund workshops are structured according to each writer's needs at any stage of development and are funded through a lead grant from the Andew W. Mellon Foundation.
Writers' Executive Committee
Writers' Executive Committee
The Writers' Executive Committee is a voluntary grouping of resident playwrights who meet throughout the year to discuss and make decisions concerning the work of New Dramatists and to help guide the organization.

Download PDF Bio

See all of Matthew Freeman’s Buzz

Playwright Buzz

June 30, 2016

Matthew Freeman's THAT WHICH ISN'T opens at the Brick Theater August 11th

Seeking neutral ground, Helen and James drive out of the city to an open field on a moonlit evening. From sunset to sunrise, they confront their past together and attempt to forge a possible future. Years later, Helen and Marcus meet for dinner in Los Angeles to discover if shared history constitutes common ground. In two spare acts, That Which Isn't explores the limits of forgiveness and the way we remember those we've left behind.

August 11-20th, 2016 - The Brick Theater
Information: http://www.theateraccident.org/that-which-isnt

January 28, 2015

Matt Freeman's THE LISTENERS opens February 4th

Matt Freeman's new play The Listeners opens on February 4th at The Brick Theater in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

The Listeners is surreal drama about ritual as a ward against the unknown. The Listeners casts the audience in the role of "the listeners" themselves, observing them through one-way mirrors and peep holes in the walls of the four-sided set.

Details at www.bricktheater.com.