Seth Bockley

I’ve worked in theater my entire adult life. I started as a performer and still love and long for the truth of the moment.

I’ve recently branched into fiction, and screenwriting.

As a playwright, I’ve adapted for the stage fiction such as George Saunders’ story Jon, Roberto Bolaño’s megalithic novel 2666 (with Robert Falls for The Goodman Theater), and the stories of Washington Irving in Rip Van Winkle; or, Cut The Old Moon Into Stars. I’m currently adapting The Epic of Gilgamesh as a two-man music-theater project with TRIA Theatre (Toronto).

I write original plays: dramatic and multimedia work such as Wilderness, the musical February House (a collaboration with composer/songwriter Gabriel Kahane), and object-theater works like Laika’s Coffin and The Death And Life of Billy The Kid.

As a director, I have a reputation for visually compelling and imaginative interpretations of contemporary plays, and for guiding new play development and world premiere productions with rigor and care. I’m equally confident with the texts of German neo-expressionists like Marius von Mayenburg (The Ugly One) and Ewald Palmetshofer (hamlet is dead. no gravity) as with new American plays like Lauren Yee’s Samsara, Philip Dawkins’ Failure: A Love Story, Jason Grote’s 1001 and Civilization (all you can eat) and (with Devon de Mayo) The Twins Would Like To Say.  

Beyond theater, my creative work includes interdisciplinary projects such as More Perfect Places— a site-responsive play and installation about Midwestern Utopias, Charisma! with Minneapolis rock band Greycoats, “The Picture Book”, a community-based visual arts and storytelling spectacle in rural Donegal, Ireland; as well as video direction, event design, and onstage and on-Zoom emceeing.

Winner of two ‘Jeff’ awards for Best Adaptation (Jon and 2666) and a ‘Premio Metropolitano’ (Mexico City’s theater award), with a teaching practice at the University of Chicago, I’m rooted in the Midwest but branching everywhere.