Mark Bly

In 2010, Bly received Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas (LMDA) Gotthold Ephraims Lessing Lifetime Achievement Award and, in 2019, the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival Medallion for Lifetime Excellence in Dramaturgy.

In 1992, Bly returned to the Yale School of Drama to teach playwriting and dramaturgy. As a teacher and author, he rejected narrow definitions of the dramaturg’s role in the theatre making process, arguing vigorously for dramaturgy as an active, open, and, most of all, deeply informed application of “The Questioning Spirit” to the creative process.

In addition to his teaching, Bly chaired the MFA Playwriting Program (1992-2004) at Yale and, from 1992 to 1997, co-chaired the Dramaturgy program. He was Board President for Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas (LMDA) from 2000 to 2005. With Artistic Director Gregg Henry, Bly co-founded in 2011 the international Kennedy Center Dramaturgy Intensive Workshop in conjunction with the National New Play Network Playwriting Workshop. He established and funded in 2014 the LMDA Bly Creative Capacity Grant/Fellowship Awards to support eighteen international projects that advanced the practice of dramaturgy in innovative ways across disciplines.

Following his tenure at the Guthrie, Bly dramaturged several American and world premieres of new plays, including, with Tony Award-winning director Dan Sullivan, the world premiere of Herb Gardner’s Conversations with My Father at Seattle Rep (1991) with Liz Diamond, the world premiere of Suzan-Lori Parks’ The America Play at Yale Rep (1994) and The Public Theater (1994), and with Molly Smith the world premiere of Sarah Ruhl’s trilogy Passion Play, a Cycle at Arena Stage, Washington, DC (2005). He served as Moisés Kaufman’s dramaturg on the East Coast (Arena Stage, 2007) and West Coast (La Jolla Playhouse, 2008) world premieres of Kaufman’s Beethoven inspired 33 Variations, as well as for Kaufman's Broadway production of the same play starring Jane Fonda and Zach Grenier (2009). For the Alley Theater in Houston, he dramaturged Tony Award-winning director Rebecca Taichman’s world premiere production of Rajiv Joseph's Gruesome Playground Injuries (2009).

In addition to editing and contributing to Yale Theater: American Production Dramaturgs (1986), a collection of interviews with the first generation of American dramaturgs, Bly assembled and edited two volumes of Production Notebooks: Theater in Process (1996, 2001) – the first set of dramaturgy case studies published in North America. Later Bly writings include New Dramaturgies: Strategies and Exercises for 21st Century Playwriting (2019), a book detailing techniques for teaching playwriting Bly created for his students at Yale.

Born in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Mark Bly attended University of Minnesota (BA, 1973), Boston College (MA, 1977), and the Yale School of Drama (MFA, 1980). As a Resident Dramaturg at the Guthrie Theater from 1981-1989, Bly worked on many noteworthy productions of classics, including Peer Gynt (1983, directed by Liviu Ciulei); the Gorky-Gershwin musical Hang on to Me (1984, directed by Peter Sellars); The Misanthrope (1987, directed by Garland Wright) and Leon & Lena (and Lenz) (1987, directed by JoAnne Akalaitis).

Mark Bly (born 1949) is an American dramaturg, educator, and author. After graduating from Yale’s Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism Program in 1980, Bly worked as a resident dramaturg – then, a relatively new position in the United States – for several of the country’s major regional theaters: the Guthrie, Yale Rep, Seattle Rep, Arena Stage, and the Alley. The first dramaturg to receive a Broadway dramaturgy credit for his collaboration with director Emily Mann on her play Execution of Justice (1986), Bly, in a career spanning four decades, worked as a production dramaturg with a series of major theater artists including Doug Hughes, Garland Wright, Emily Mann, and Moisés Kaufman, as well as on the world premieres of playwrights Suzan-Lori Parks, Sarah Ruhl, and Rajiv Joseph.