Barbara Lhota is an award-winning playwright and screenwriter who has written over 200 plays and has had more than 60 productions. She received her MFA from Brandeis University for dramatic writing where she also taught the undergraduate playwriting course. Recent productions include: Girl Found (2018) - Idle Muse Theatre Company, The Invisible Scarlet O’Neil (2017), 180 Degree Rule (Co-written with M.E.H. Lewis 2016) - Babes With Blades Theater Company, and Phantom Pain – Organic Theatre Company (2017). Her plays have been produced in Chicago, Boston, New York and throughout the country. She has worked with Artistic Home, American Blues Theater Company, Bailiwick, Chicago Dramatists, Circle Theatre, Otherworld, Polarity, Prop Theater, Pride Films and Plays, Something Marvelous, Stage Left Theatre, Studio Theatre (Florida), 20% Theatre Company, The Raven, and Women’s Theatre Alliance. Her work is published with Smith & Kraus, Meriwether Publishing, Pioneer Press and Performer’s Stuff.
Barbara is a member of The Dramatist Guild and the International Women's Centre Playwright. She is emeritus member of Babes With Blades Theatre Company.
She was awarded the Harold and Mimi Steinberg Award for Playwriting for Hanging By a Thread at Brandeis University. Her full-length screenplay, The Long Shot, was optioned by Elizabeth Klaviter, a staff writer and associate producer on the hit T.V. show Private Practice.
Her collaboration with Maureen Aitken on the screenplay adaption of Aitken's short story, Squeak, from her collection, The Patron Saint of Lost Girls recently won the Best Dark Comedy Short Award from the Nevada Short Film Festival. Squeak was officially selected for The International Los Angeles Film Festival, Oregon Film Festival, and Best Script Awards.
Barbara's plays Strangers and Romance are published in Women Playwrights: The Best Plays of 2001. Strangers and Romance, Barbara’s most frequently produced plays, have received a number of awards which include the American College Theater Festival Award, and The Love Creek Theater Co. Samuel French One-Act Contest Finalist. Her plays have been produced at a large variety of theaters in Boston, New York, Denver, and many others.
Barbara is the co-author on a 4-book collection of 20 minute plays which is part of the Smith and Kraus Forensics Series. She also has two monologues from Romance which are included in The Best Male Monologues of 2001 edited by D.L Lepidus. Additionally, she has two monologues in 221 one-minute monologues for women edited by John Capecci and Irene Ziegler Aston and approximately 50 male and female monologues included in the Audition Arsenal Series edited by Janet B. Milstein.
Barbara has worked on a number of short films in the last few years. She worked with freelance director Mark Lynall and collaborator Janet B. Milstein on a short film called Blindsided, Columbia College film professor, Carter Martin, on a film version of her play Strangers. She also recently worked with Matt Wechsler of Hourglass Films, co-writing with Janet B. Milstein, the short script Power Singles, which went on to win awards for best director and was nominated for best screenplay.
OTHER RECOGNITION
EDUCATION
PUBLISHED WORK
Barbara is a member of The Dramatist Guild and the International Women's Centre Playwright. She is emeritus member of Babes With Blades Theatre Company.
She was awarded the Harold and Mimi Steinberg Award for Playwriting for Hanging By a Thread at Brandeis University. Her full-length screenplay, The Long Shot, was optioned by Elizabeth Klaviter, a staff writer and associate producer on the hit T.V. show Private Practice.
Her collaboration with Maureen Aitken on the screenplay adaption of Aitken's short story, Squeak, from her collection, The Patron Saint of Lost Girls recently won the Best Dark Comedy Short Award from the Nevada Short Film Festival. Squeak was officially selected for The International Los Angeles Film Festival, Oregon Film Festival, and Best Script Awards.
Barbara's plays Strangers and Romance are published in Women Playwrights: The Best Plays of 2001. Strangers and Romance, Barbara’s most frequently produced plays, have received a number of awards which include the American College Theater Festival Award, and The Love Creek Theater Co. Samuel French One-Act Contest Finalist. Her plays have been produced at a large variety of theaters in Boston, New York, Denver, and many others.
Barbara is the co-author on a 4-book collection of 20 minute plays which is part of the Smith and Kraus Forensics Series. She also has two monologues from Romance which are included in The Best Male Monologues of 2001 edited by D.L Lepidus. Additionally, she has two monologues in 221 one-minute monologues for women edited by John Capecci and Irene Ziegler Aston and approximately 50 male and female monologues included in the Audition Arsenal Series edited by Janet B. Milstein.
Barbara has worked on a number of short films in the last few years. She worked with freelance director Mark Lynall and collaborator Janet B. Milstein on a short film called Blindsided, Columbia College film professor, Carter Martin, on a film version of her play Strangers. She also recently worked with Matt Wechsler of Hourglass Films, co-writing with Janet B. Milstein, the short script Power Singles, which went on to win awards for best director and was nominated for best screenplay.
OTHER RECOGNITION
- Echo - Finalists Shakespeare's Sister (Top 40 out of 950 plays)
- Girl Found - 2015 Winner Polarity Ensemble Theatre's Dionysos Cup, Semi-Finalist Strange Sun Greenhouse Project, Produced with Idle Muse Theatre Company
- Semi-finalist - 2013 Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights Conference for Echo
- 2013 The Athena Project - Denver for Echo
- 2011 Women’s Work, Pride Films and Plays forThe Double
- Mimi and Harold Steinberg for Hanging by a Thread
- Honorable American College Theater Festival for Strangers
- 2011 Semi-finalist American Firehouse Theatre for Echo
- Finalist, Love Creek Theater Co. Samuel French One-Act Contest for Romance
- Winner, Babes With Blades' 2nd annual playwriting competition, Joining Sword and Pen, for Los Desaparecidos (The Vanished)
EDUCATION
- M.F.A. in Dramatic Writing, Brandeis University
- B.F.A. in Theater Arts, Wayne State University
- Continuing Classes at Chicago Dramatists
- Eric Tarloff Screenwriting
PUBLISHED WORK
- Strangers and Romance are published in a book edited by D.L. Lepidus entitled Women Playwrights: The Best Plays of 2001, Smith and Kraus
- Her monologues are included in Young Women’s Monologues from Contemporary Plays, Meriwether Publishing
- Two monologues from Romance are included in The Best Male Monologues of 2001 edited by D.L Lepidus, Smith and Kraus
- Co-authored with Janet Milstein, Forensics Series Volume 1: Duo Practice & Competition: Thirty-five 8-10 Minute Original Comedic Plays, Smith and Kraus
- Co-authored with Janet Milstein, Forensics Series Volume 2: Duo Practice & Performance: Thirty-five 8-10 Minute Original Dramatic Plays, Smith and Kraus
- Co-authored with Ira Brodsky, Forensics Series Volume 3: Duo Practice and Competition: Thirty-five 8-10 Minute Original Comedic Plays for Two Females, Smith and Kraus
- Co-authored with Ira Brodsky, Forensics Series Volume 4: Duo Practice and Competition: Thirty-five 8-10 Minute Original Dramatic Plays for Two Females, Smith and Kraus
