Eric Schmiedl

I am a native of Cleveland, Ohio, and a graduate of Kent State University and the University of Hawai’i. As a theatre artist I am inspired by the intersection of cultures and stories. I have worked with theatres including the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, the Cleveland Play House, the Alabama Shakespeare Festival, Cleveland Public Theatre, Karamu House, the Idaho Shakespeare Festival, the Oregon Children’s Theatre, the Honolulu Theatre for Youth, the Lantern Theatre, and Great Lakes Theater. 

 

I have partnered with community organizations like the Cleveland Treatment Center to foster performing arts experiences in underserved communities.

 

I am the recipient of a grant from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, a Creative Workforce Fellowship, an Aurand Harris Fellowship, and a Sloan Foundation Commission.  My plays have been awarded three Edgerton Foundation New American Play Awards. My play My Hemisphere, a partnership with my wife and storyteller Adaora Nzelibe Schmiedl, was a National Playwrights Conference finalist at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center in 2020 and 2021. In 2023 I embarked on a collaboration with internationally acclaimed director Liesbeth Coltof, the 10CHILDREN program, and the Cleveland Play House to create a new theatre piece based on the experiences of children in three Cleveland neighborhoods. I also began a 2023 tour of the innovative poetry/theatre piece What We Learned While Alone; Global Voices Speak to the Pandemic which premiered at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C. In February 2024 he directed the staged workshop of David Owen Michaels exciting new musical, Infamous, that explores the final days of Abraham Lincoln’s life from various perspectives.

 

As an educator and mentor I have taught playwriting and theatre history at theatres, colleges, and universities including Kent State University, Spalding University, Cleveland State University, Case Western Reserve University and Baldwin Wallace University.

I am also a proud member of Dobama Theatre’s Playwright’s Gym and of the Cleveland-based folk group The Welcome Table.