About Rob Urbinati
Rob Urbinati is a freelance playwright, screenwriter, book author and theatre
director based in New York City. He was born in Framingham, Massachusetts of full
Italian heritage, and has a BA, and MA and a PhD.
Full-length plays include Miss Julie En Hollywood at Seattle's Northwest Actors Studio with Heidi Schreck; Hazelwood Jr. High at The New Group with Chloë Sevigny; The Queen Bees at Queens Theatre; Rebel Voices, an adaptation of Howard Zinn and Anthony Arnove's Voices of a People's History of the United States at Culture Project; Murder on West Moon Street, based on Oscar Wilde's novella at Prospect Theatre Company; UMW: University of Mostly Whites commissioned and produced by Linfield College; Death By Design, commissioned and produced by Houston Family Arts Center; Mama's Boy and Jane Austen's Lady Susan, at Good Theater in Maine; Our Boy at the Minnesota Fringe Festival; Zombie Holiday! at Stageworks, and Zombie Summer Holiday! at Seattle Central College. Hazelwood Jr. High, Murder on West Moon Street, Mama's Boy, Jane Austen's Lady Susan and Death By Design (as well as an alternate version with songs by Peter Mills) are published by Samuel French. Miss Julie En Hollywood is published by Next Stage Press. Short plays include Tempests at BIRD Festival in Japan, Blood Runs Cold at Theatre Breaking Through Barriers, and Cruel & Barbarous Treatment at Gloucester Stage Company. His plays have received over three hundred productions worldwide. His book, Play Readings: A Complete Guide for Theatre Practitioners (2015), is published by Focal Press/Routledge.
In New York, Rob Urbinati directed world premieres for the Culture Project, Lincoln Center Director's Lab, Abingdon Theatre, Greenwich Street Theatre, Connelly Theatre and Cherry Lane Theatre. Also in New York, Rob directed for The Public Theater, New York Musical Theatre Festival, Pearl Theatre, HERE Arts Center, and Classic Stage Company. Rob has directed at theatres, universities and colleges across the country. Three productions he directed, Lost, Syndrome and Border/Clash, and one that he wrote, Hazelwood Jr. High, were videotaped for the Billy Rose Theatre on Film and Tape Archive at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.
Rob is Director of New Play Development at Queens Theatre, where he curates New American Voices, (formerly Immigrant Voices Project) a play development program which promotes work by writers from underrepresented communities. IVP/NAV has presented over 150 readings, workshops, full productions and co-productions of new plays.
Since receiving a Directing Fellowship from The Drama League, he has served on their Nominating and Selection Committees, and is a member of the Drama League Directors Council. He wrote the Drama League Benefits honoring James Earl Jones, Bernadette Peters and David Hyde Pierce.
Urbinati received a certificate in Audio Description from the American Council of the Blind, and has provided Audio Description for various dance and theatre productions at Queens Theatre, Perelman Performing Arts Center and Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, videos for Dance/NYC, as well as the Broadway productions of Death of a Salesman, Ohio State Murders, Bob Fosse's Dancin', Peter Pan Goes Wrong, Gutenberg! The Musical, Harmony, The Wiz, The Notebook and The Great Gatsby.
Rob Urbinati is a member of the Dramatists Guild of America, and the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers.