Ken Urban is a playwright, screenwriter and musician. He leads the band Occurrence who recently released the album Slow Violence (worked on at MacDowell in 2022) with Archie & Fox Records. Urban also teaches dramatic writing at MIT. His awards include an EST/Alfred P. Sloan Science & Technology Project Commission, a Weissberger Playwriting Award, a NYFA Fellowship, and a Dramatist Guild Fellowship. He is a resident playwright at New Dramatists and affiliated writer at the Playwrights’ Center. His plays are published by Dramatists Play Service.
His stage plays include A Guide For The Homesick (Huntington Theatre Company, Trafalgar Studios in the West End), The Remains (Studio Theatre), Sense of An Ending (59E59 Theatres, London’s Theatre503), Nibbler (The Amoralists and Rattlestick Playwrights Theater), The Correspondent(Rattlestick Playwrights Theater), The Awake (59E59 Theatres, First Floor Theater), and The Happy Sad (The Public Theatre/Summer Play Festival). Ken wrote the screenplay for the feature-film adaptation of The Happy Sad, directed by Rodney Evans, whom he met at MacDowell. His audio play Vapor Trail was selected for the 2022 Tribeca Festival’s Audio Storytelling series and released as part of Playwrights Horizons’ Sound Stage.
During his 2008 MacDowell Fellowship, Urban completed drafts of two new plays, The Awake and The Correspondent, and revised The Private Lives of Eskimos for its Chicago opening at Stage Left. During his 2009 residency, he revised Sense of an Ending and completed the screenplay for The Happy Sad.
In 2022, he wrote two new plays, Cath Carroll and The Conquered, and revised three scripts: the stage plays The Moderate and The Tenure Itch, and a feature-length screenplay The Cleaner. Cath Carroll is the first recipient of the Aaron Thomann New Play Commission from Kane Repertory Theatre, and is currently in development with Fault Line Theatre in New York. The Conquered won the 2024 Blue Ink Playwriting Award given by Chicago’s American Blues Theater
At MacDowell in 2023, Urban completed revisions on The Moderate, Danger and Opportunity, and The Tenure Itch in preparation for upcoming workshops and productions. He also revised his short screenplay Salvation, which was recently optioned by Tepui Media and starts shooting in 2025. He also finalized mixes for Occurrence’s upcoming releases and locked picture on the film of the band’s recent dance theater collaboration with MIT and choreographer/director Dan Safer. During residency, he returned briefly to NYC to receive the 2023 A IS FOR Playwriting Award for Cath Carroll.
