Visiting Artists

Merri Biechler | Playwright

Merri Biechler received her MFA in playwriting from Ohio University. Her plays have been read, workshopped, and produced around the country including New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago. Plays include Bombs, Babes and Bingo (Semi-finalist, P73 Playwriting Fellowship; Finalist, Clubbed Thumb Theater Biennial commission); Occupation (Finalist, Perishable Theatre’s International Women’s Playwriting Festival); Real Girls Can't Win! (Nominee, Stavis Playwriting Award); Dolley Madison and the Secret History Club (Kennedy Center/White House Historical Association commission); and The Bathtub Play (Winner, Jane Chambers Student Playwriting Award). She worked at ABC Television for three years writing scripts and treatments for their Movie-of-the-Week division.

Her play Confessions of a Reluctant Caregiver chronicles her experience as caregiver to her father and mother, both of whom died of cancer. The play was a finalist for the Princess Grace Award, the winner of the Jane Chambers Student Playwriting Award, a finalist in the Kendeda Graduate Playwriting Competition, and a participant in the WordBRIDGE Playwrights Laboratory. Merri has worked the last four years with palliative care physician Tracy Marx, D.O., to create the Confessions of a Reluctant Caregiver Palliative Educational Program which uses a reading of the play, together with facilitated feedback, to teach nursing and medical students about end-of-life care. The Program has received over $40,000 in grants, included ongoing support from the American Cancer Society to use the play for educational outreach. Students and audiences have seen readings and performances in NYC, Atlanta, New Orleans, Jacksonville, Indiana, and throughout Ohio. Merri is also involved in programs using plays about diabetes, nurse burnout, and sickle cell disease as teaching tools for students and as community outreach.

Merri attended the Professional Actor Training Program at North Carolina School of the Arts, and studied acting with Sanford Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse and at his private home on the island of Bequia, West Indies. She was a founding member the Edge Theater with fellow North Carolina classmates Peter Hedges, Mary-Louise Parker and Joe Mantello, and acted in more than a dozen new plays with the company. Other NY theater credits include Tony ‘n Tina’s Wedding (Off-Broadway), and Pathological Venus (EST). Her film and TV credits include: He Said, She Said; The Thing Called Love; Trailerpark; E.R.; Judging Amy; and Murphy Brown. Merri is a member of Actors Equity Association, Screen Actors Guild, Writers Guild of America, and the once glorious and now defunct Circle Rep Lab.