Bess Wohl is a playwright and filmmaker. Her plays have been produced on and off Broadway, regionally, and internationally and her feature film debut, BABY RUBY, starring Noémie Merlant and Kit Harington, premiered at the 2022 Toronto Film Festival and was released by Magnolia Pictures. She also wrote for the Apple TV+ series, “Extrapolations,” created by Scott Z. Burns.
Her plays include GRAND HORIZONS (Tony Nominations for Best Play & Best Featured Actress, Outer Critics Circle Honor, Drama League Award nom); MAKE BELIEVE (NYTimes Critic Pick, Best of 2019, Outer Critics Circle Honor); CONTINUITY; SMALL MOUTH SOUNDS (John Gassner Outer Critics Circle Award, top ten lists in The New York Times, The New York Post, The Guardian); AMERICAN HERO; BARCELONA; TOUCHED; IN; CATS TALK BACK and the musical PRETTY FILTHY with composer/lyricist Michael Friedman and The Civilians (Lucille Lortel and Drama Desk nominations for Outstanding Musical).
Wohl’s plays have been produced or developed at theaters including Second Stage, Manhattan Theater Club, Ars Nova, The Williamstown Theatre Festival, Goodman Theater, The Geffen Playhouse, People’s Light and Theatre Company, The Contemporary American Theater Festival, Vineyard Arts Project, The Pittsburgh Public Theater, Northlight Theater, Ojai Playwright's Conference, the Cape Cod Theatre Project and PlayPenn. Awards and honors include the Sam Norkin special Drama Desk Award for “establishing herself as an important voice in New York theater,” multiple Outer Critics Circle honors, the Georgia Engell Comedy Playwriting Award from the Dramatists Guild, the Athena Award for her screenplay VIRGINIA, MacDowell Fellowships and inclusion on Hollywood’s Black List of Best Screenplays.
Wohl is an associate artist with The Civilians, an alumna of Ars Nova’s Play Group, and the recipient of new play commissions from Manhattan Theatre Club, Lincoln Center and Williamstown Theatre Festival. In her previous life as an actress, she appeared onstage in New York and regionally, and in numerous films and TV shows where she has given birth, solved crimes, committed crimes, been wrongly accused, and come back from the dead. She is a graduate of Harvard and the Yale School of Drama.