Olivia O’Connor
BFA DRAMATURGY, 2013
Since graduating from the School of Drama’s BFA Dramaturgy program in 2013, Olivia has had a varied and busy career as a dramaturg. She has served as the Literary Manager & Dramaturg at Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles since 2022, where she facilitates the Geffen’s Writers’ Room and has worked on projects such as The Inheritance, Every Brilliant Thing, and the upcoming production of Jake Brasch’s The Reservoir, which will have its world premiere in partnership with the Denver Center for the Performing Arts and the Alliance Theatre in 2025.
Olivia’s other creative development experience includes staff positions at Pittsburgh CLO (Manager of New Work Development), and Roundabout Theatre Company (Artistic Associate), as well as dramaturgy and selection committee work with the Ojai Playwrights Conference, City Theatre, Pittsburgh Public Theater, Bricolage Production Company, and the National Alliance for Musical Theatre.
Olivia found dramaturgy through playwriting, and she has continued to write plays and fiction outside of her institutional work. Her play Life-Changing Magic was a 2020 finalist for the Seven Devils Playwrights Conference and The Playwrights Realm Scratchpad Series and was featured in City Theatre Company’s Momentum Festival.
CMU taught me to ask expansive questions of both the text and my collaborators, to listen deeply, and to cultivate a dramaturgy practice that is creative, functional, and always rooted in story.
-Olivia O’Connor