Interview with Shannon Deep

Rachel and Ned sit down with If Found, Please Call's playwright Shannon Deep and discuss her play, her process and deliberative theater.

Shannon Deep - Playwright

Shannon is a professional writer and dramaturg in New York City. Partnering with the Roundabout Theatre Company’s Education Department, she acted as a dramaturg and co-writer for PROSPECT HIGH: BROOKLYN, a semi-finalist at the 2015 National Playwrights Conference at the Eugene O’Neill Center and published by Smith & Kraus. Conceived by a Fox Foundation Fellowship recipient and a team of urban high school students, the play brings their lived experiences to the stage with an honesty rarely seen in theater for young audiences. PROSPECT HIGH: BROOKLYN had rolling world premiers at 23 high schools across the U.S. and one in London in 2016, culminating in its New York premiere in the Roundabout's Underground blackbox theater.

Deep has served as dramaturg/script supervisor for Kathy Najimy’s one-woman show in development, LIFT UP YOUR SKIRT, and is currently working in the same capacity for Yuval Boim and Darren Katz’s SEXCURITY, a one-man movement-based show premiering at the Cleveland Public in March 2016. She has worked as a dramaturg on new and evolving work with such theater makers as The Representatives and Rady & Bloom Collective Playmaking, and is a script reader for the Roundabout.

As a playwright, librettist, and lyricist, her work has been showcased in readings, festivals, and cabarets (Identity Theater Company, The Triad, Scotch’n’Soda Theatre), and she can be heard with her writing partner, composer Scott Wasserman, on their weekly comedy songwriting podcast, Song Salad, available on iTunes.

In conjunction with the Southwestern Pennsylvania Center for Deliberative Democracy, she developed Deliberative Theater, a method of policy discussion and community polling that combined scholar Jim Fishkin’s principles of Deliberative Democracy with theatrical performances. Two Deliberative Theater events, both written and organized by Deep, were held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, including one televised (live and rebroadcast) event in conjunction with WQED Studios, PopCity Media, and the League of Women Voters.

She holds her Bachelors in Humanities and Arts in Drama and Creative Writing from Carnegie Mellon University, and went on to earn her masters in Arts Management from the Heinz College at Carnegie Mellon a year later.