ARTIST STATEMENT

How do we exist when the structures we inherit have not been built to respect us? I’m wondering if we can apply an ethos of nonviolence to storytelling. How would that change things? 

I’ve been making theater that makes space for me and for my community, work that interrupts the desire for obsessive consumption. How can the work I make provide another kind of space than a need for satisfaction?

BIO

Sylvan Oswald is an interdisciplinary artist originally from Philadelphia who creates plays, texts, publications, and video. His work uses metatheatricality and formal irreverence to explore queer and trans identity. Recent projects include the theatrical essay Trainers (Gate Theatre, London) and the performance text High Winds, based on the book of the same name he co-authored with graphic designer Jessica Fleischmann (X Artists' Books). Sylvan’s lo-fi semi-improvised web series Outtakes starring Becca Blackwell and Zuzanna Szadkowski is hosted at weareopentv.com. His plays and collaborations include A Kind of Weather (Diversionary Theatre, San Diego), Sun Ra (Joe’s Pub, Jerome Travel and Study Grant, Soho Rep Writer-Director Lab), Profanity (Undermain Theater, Dallas; Soho Rep Dorothy Strelsin Fellowship), Nightlands (New Georges), Pony (About Face Theater, Chicago), and Vendetta Chrome (Clubbed Thumb). Honors include a 2019 Guggenheim Fellowship, a Rosati Fellowship from Duke University Libraries, the Thom Thomas award from The Dramatists Guild, a Jerome Fellowship, and residencies at Sundance/Ucross, Macdowell Colony, and Yaddo. Sylvan is an alum of CTG's Writers' Workshop, an affiliated artist at Clubbed Thumb and an alum of New Dramatists. 

Contact

To contact Sylvan and to receive the very occasional update about his projects, please use the form below. 

To request a script or to inquire about theatrical rights please contact Rachel Viola at UTA, violar@unitedtalent.com.