Bio

Edith Freni has written a lot. Her plays has been staged, read and read staged at venues such as The Williamstown Theatre Festival, The Ensemble Studio Theater, PS 122, Theatre Row, Center Stage New York, The Lark Theatre, The Producer’s Club, The Present Company Theatorium, The Tank, The Brick Theatre, The Kraine Theatre, Collective Unconscious, Clemente Soto Velez Cultural Center, Manhattan Theatre Source, The Trilogy Annex Theatre, The Rita and Burton Goldberg Theater at NYU, and Calvin College in Grand Rapids, MI. In Spring 2007, her play MOMMA was presented at PS 122 as part of the Best of the Boroughts Festival (Dir: Alexis Poledouris); THINGS RANK was produced by the Department of Dramatic Writing at NYU (Dir: Miriam Weiner); and MY DOG HEART was produced in EST's Annual Marathon of One Act Plays, (Dir: John Gould Rubin, Assoc. Artistic. Director. LAByrinth Theatre Co). In June/July 2007, Edith was in residence at the Williamstown Theatre Festival developing HELP YOURSELF, a new play about the self help industry for the LeapFrog company with frequent collaborator Moritz von Stuelpnagel.

Edith is a long-standing member of Youngblood, EST's resident playwrights unit. Her play WATERBORN (Dir: Brian Roff) was produced in March 2004 as part of Thicker Than Water IV and is published by Dramatists Play Service. Her full length, THE WORKAROUND received a workshop production on the EST mainstage in early March 2005. A selection of her monologues can be found in Hot Blooded, New Monologues from the Members of Youngblood (Playscripts, Inc.) as well as in  The Best Women's Stage Monologues 2006 (Smith & Kraus). She was a participant in the Lark Theatre Company's playwrights workshop; was nominated for the 2003 Seattle Rep Women’s Playwrights Workshop; highlighted as part of Showbusiness Weekly’s 2002 Discovery Series, featured in the Tisch School of the Arts Department of Dramatic Writing Alumni Reading Series in the Spring 2004 and was a finalist for the 2005 Seven Devils Playwrights Conference.

Photos: Carrie Gravenson

She is a proud and active member of Partial Comfort Productions and for them co-created and co-executive produced the original Battle of the Bards. PCP produced her play BABY GIRL in March 2006 and has been instrumental in the development of a number of her other plays. They will present the world premier of her play KIDSTUFF, directed by Erica Gould, at Theatre Row in September 2008. Edith also co-founded The 24Seven Lab, a developmental workshop for playwrights and actors. Now in its fifth  season, the 24Seven Lab has already developed a dozen new plays by graduates and attendees of the NYU, Columbia, Brown, Yale and Actor’s Studio MFA playwriting programs, as well as the Julliard School’s  Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwrights Program, and members of the MCC Playwrights Coalition, Youngblood and PCP.

As an actor, Edith has studied at NYU, the William Esper Studio and with David Deblinger and John Gould Rubin of the LAByrinth Theatre Company. She performs when people are nice enough to let her. Edith is a native New Yorker, a displaced upper West-sider, and a Yankee fan. She attended Fiorello H. Laguardia High School as an art major after being rejected by the drama department. She received both her BFA and MFA in Dramatic Writing from the Tisch School of the Arts Department of Dramatic Writing, NYU. In Fall 2006, she was awarded a Rita & Burton Goldberg Playwriting Fellowship and is the recipient of the Harry Kondoleon Graduate Playwriting Award. She figure skated for 12 years, fought in the NYC amateur circuit with Coach Lee Shabaka's  Team Freeform Women’s Boxing Club and is trying desperately to improve her strength, balance and flexibility with lots of Bikram yoga. Edith throws wicked dinner parties and will cater your private events if you want her to. She once cooked an entire pig's head and has pictures to prove it.

Photo: Shraddha Borawake

Production Resume

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