Ken Urban (born June 20, 1974) is an American playwright, screenwriter, and musician based in New York. Urban is a resident playwright at New Dramatists and an affiliated writer at the Playwrights' Center. He is a senior lecturer of Theater Arts and the Director of Dramatic Writing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Previously he has taught writing at Harvard University, Princeton University, Tufts University, and Davidson College. Urban's play The Happy Sad, had its first production at the Summer Play Festival at The Public Theater He adapted the play into a screenplay, and in 2013, it was released as a feature film directed by Rodney Evans.

Background

Urban attended Bucknell University, and graduated magna cum laude in English in 1996. He earned a Master's and Ph.D. in English Literature from Rutgers University in 2006. After receiving his doctorate, Urban taught at Harvard University for 8 years, and has since held teaching positions at Princeton University and Tufts University, focusing on instruction related to playwriting, screenwriting, academic writing, and dramatic literature. Urban is currently a senior lecturer and Director of Dramatic Writing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and has been since 2017. There, he founded the annual Playwright's Lab, a play festival featuring student-written plays read by local professional actors. Urban has a portfolio that includes over ten plays, and has had plays both Off-Broadway and on London's West End. Further included in his portfolio are screenplays and albums and songs from the band Occurrence —which Urban is the lead member of.

Plays

Produced plays

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Plays in progress

According to Urban's website, he has the following plays in progress.

TV and film

Pilots

Feature films

Short films

Music

Urban is a co-founder of the band Occurrence, which also features vocalists Cat Hollyer and Johnny Hager.

Occurence (band)

Albums

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Singles

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Awards and honors

Awards

Residencies