Lesley Announces Maine Scholars Program
The Maine Scholars program gives students prioritization by Maine employers as well as opportunities for financial aid and scholarship benefits.

To be an effective dramatist, I believe you must do three things:

  •  Know what your characters want
  •  Never make it too easy on your characters
  •  You, the dramatist, must love your characters, even the most despicable ones.

Writing a script, play or screenplay, is a journey, and as your teacher/mentor, I'll do my best to guide you in writing the script you want to write. At the same time, I'll be asking all the hard questions of the script. No doubt, my main focus will be on character, for the core of all drama is "character in action." "Character in action" applies to every script, from a high-concept action-adventure screenplay to an intimate two-person play.

An interview with Jami Brandli

Work

Full-length Plays

BLISS (or Emily Post is Dead!)
O: A Rhapsody in Divorce

Medusa’s Song
Technicolor Life
Through the Eye of a Needle
¡SOLDADERA!
Sisters Three
M-Theory
S.O.E.

Short plays have been produced at The Boston Theater Marathon, La Jolla Playhouse, Antaeus Theatre Company, The Source Festival, RADAR LA, Milwaukee Repertory, among other venues. My short works are published with TCG and Smith & Kraus.

TV and Screenplays in development with Gramercy Entertainment.

Production and Development

New Dramatists, New York Theatre Workshop, La Jolla Playhouse, The Road, Moxie Theatre, Moving Arts, REP Stage, HERE Arts Center, Great Plains Theatre Conference, Serenbe Playhouse, The Aurora Theatre Company, The Source Festival, CHALK REP, Promethean Theatre,  The Antaeus Company, Launch Pad, 2015 Women’s Voices Theater Festival, HotCity Theatre, WordBRIDGE, Ashland New Plays Festival, The Lark, Milwaukee Rep, Rogue Machine Theatre, Boston Theatre Marathon, Inkwell Theater Company, ATHE, among other venues.

Awards

The Kilroy’s “TOP 46” LIST, Finalist for 2016 PEN Drama Award, The Aurora Theater Company’s GAP Prize, John Gassner Memorial Playwriting Award, Holland New Voices Award, Los Angeles ARC Grant, WordBRIDGE Fellow, Ashland New Plays Festival, Elliot Norton Award, Serenbe Playhouse’s New Territories Fellow, Launch Pad Fellow, Jury-Prize Winner of HotCity Theatre’s GreenHouse Reading Series, ATHE Visiting Playwright, SAC/Massachusetts Cultural Council fellowship, Nomination for Kevin Kline Award for “Outstanding New Play”


Affiliations

The Robert Freedman Agency, Gramercy Entertainment, The Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival, Antaeus Playwrights Lab, The Playwrights’ Center, Moving Arts Theatre Company, MADlab, Loyola Marymount University, , Grub Street, Emerson College, The Dramatists Guild, AWP, ATHE

Education

M.F.A. Creative Writing, Emerson College
B.F.A. Writing, Literature and Publishing, Emerson College

Personal Website

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