Kathleen Donnelly

Kathleen began her work in the theatre as an actress and after over twenty years of working with many theatre companies in the Pittsburgh area, as well as touring children’s theatre throughout western Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia, she now does most of her acting at the computer as a playwright and fiction writer.

She has written plays for both general and youth audiences. Her play A Restoration Comedy secured her a fellowship from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts.  She also won Indiana University of Pennsylvania's new play contest for In a Country Manor, for which she served as playwright-in-residence and received a full professional production of the script.

As an ensemble member of Pittsburgh’s The New Group Theater and The Acting Company of The Laurel Highlands Regional Theatre, she has had numerous short and full-length plays produced, including adaptations of Charles Dickens’ The Chimes and Dion Boucicault’s The Poor of New York.  Her plays have been featured at local ten-minute play festivals, and a series of plays she wrote about biodiversity tours to K-8 students throughout western Pennsylvania as part of The Carnegie Museum of Natural History's educational outreach program, Science on Stage.

Kathleen’s fiction has been published in the journal Philadelphia Stories, including their premier "Best of" anthology.  Of her many current fiction and playwriting projects, she is focusing on a middle grade novel, and the completion of a full-length play set in the 1940s of her hometown.

A graduate of Sarah Lawrence College, Kathleen is a teaching artist with the Pittsburgh Public Schools’ Creative and Performing Arts Middle/High School, where she teaches fiction and dramatic writing.