Zayd Dohrn is a writer, professor, and director of the MFA in Writing for Screen + Stage in the Department of Radio/Television/Film.
He is creator, writer, and host of the original documentary podcast Mother Country Radicals, which recently won the Columbia-DuPont Journalism Award and the prize for Best Audio Storytelling at the Tribeca Film Festival.
Dohrn’s plays include The Profane (Playwrights Horizons), Outside People (The Vineyard/Naked Angels), Want (Steppenwolf First Look) and Reborning (The Public / Summer Play Festival). See published plays.
He is the recipient of a Gold Medal at the New York Festival Radio Awards, winner of the Horton Foote New American Play Prize, the Kennedy Center’s Jean Kennedy Smith Award, the Sky Cooper American Playwriting Prize, and Theatre Master’s Visionary Playwrights Award, and is currently writing films for Netflix and FilmNation and developing a television series for Peacock.
Zayd attended Brown University, received his MFA from NYU and was a Lila Acheson Wallace Fellow at Juilliard.
Education
- MFA, Dramatic Writing, Tisch School of the Arts, NYU (Dean’s Fellowship) Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwriting Fellowship, Juilliard
- M.Phil. Comparative Literature, Columbia (Marjorie Hope Nicolson Fellowship) MA, Creative Writing, Boston University
- BA, Literature/Political and Ethical Philosophy, Brown University
Awards and Honors
- Columbia-DuPont Journalism Award, 2024
- Gold Medal at the New York Festival Radio Awards, 2023
- Award for "Best Audio Storytelling" at Tribeca Film Festival, 2023
- Horton Foote New American Play Prize, 2016
- Clarence Simon Award for Outstanding Teaching and Mentoring, 2013
- Theatre Masters Visionary Playwright Award, 2009
- Lincoln Center Lecomte du Nouy Prize, 2008/2009
- Sky Cooper American Playwriting Prize, 2008
- Kennedy Center Jean Kennedy Smith Playwriting Award, 2008