Meridith Friedman (Playwright) was born in Madison, Wisconsin, and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii. She currently resides in Manhattan. She received her BA from Connecticut College, and her MFA in Writing for the Stage & Screen from Northwestern University. Her play The Firestorm recently concluded a National New Play Network (NNPN) Rolling World Premiere, receiving productions at Kitchen Dog Theater in Dallas, Stage Left Theatre in Chicago, Chicago’s Theatre on the Lake (Stage Left remount), and LOCAL Theatre Company in Boulder. Meridith was the NNPN Playwright-in-Residence at Curious for their 2010-2011 season, a 2012-2013 Dramatist Guild Fellow, and the recipient of a 2013-2014 Downstage Left Playwriting Residency at Stage Left Theatre. In addition to the theaters above, her work has been developed and workshopped at The Kennedy Center, Chicago Dramatists, The Johnny Mercer Writers Colony at Goodspeed Musicals, Florida Repertory Theatre, The Ashland New Play Festival, Orlando Shakespeare Theater, Florida Studio Theatre, the NNPN National New Play Showcase, New Repertory Theatre, The Lark, Actor’s Express, The Greenhouse Theatre Center, The Samuel French OOB Short Play Festival, The American Southwest Theatre Company at NMSU, and the Abbey Theatre in Orlando. Meridith was a Visiting Assistant Professor of Drama at Kenyon College during the 2011-2012 academic year, and taught screenwriting to undergraduates while completing her graduate work at Northwestern University. She has also taught playwriting to talented high school and middle school dramatists at Interlochen Center for the Arts and Curious Theatre Company. She recently completed the book for the musical, THE 30TH YEAR, which was part of the inaugural New Musical Discovery Series in Orlando. She is currently writing the book for a new musical about art theft, and developing an original television pilot about the Supreme Court.