Rob Urbinati (born August 12, 1952) is a freelance playwright, screenwriter, book author and theater director based in New York City. He is the Director of New Play Development at Queens Theatre.
Background and education
Rob Urbinati was born in Framingham, Massachusetts and currently resides in New York City.Courtney Kochuba, "I Interview Playwrights Part 786: Rob Urbinati", Breaking Character Magazine, September 18, 2015 He completed a BAat the University of Massachusetts, an MA at the University of Nebraska Omaha and a PhD (theatre arts) at the University of Oregon College of Arts and Sciences."In celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Department of Theatre Arts – and in anticipation of their alumni reunion this fall – we share some notable successes of former theater students.", CAScade, Spring 2009
Career overview
Plays written by Rob Urbinati include an adaptation of August Strindberg's 1888 play Miss Julie, Miss Julie in Hollywood (1993), produced in Seattle at Northwest Actors Studio in 1994, starring Heidi Schreck; Hazelwood Jr. High (1996), about the Murder of Shanda Sharer, which premiered at The New Group and starred Chloë Sevigny; Cruel and Barbarous Treatment (1999) based on the 1939 Mary McCarthy short story, at Gloucester Stage Company;Anne Marie-Donahue, "Deft staging keeps bite in 3 stories", Boston Globe, June 9, 2000 Karaoke Night at the Suicide Shack (2002)Michael Bracken, "Killing Them Softly, Newsday, April 25, 2003 and The Queen Bees (formerly named Shangri-La) (2006) at Queens Theatre;BWW News Desk, 'qt to premiere New musical THE QUEEN BEES" BroadwayWorld, April 16, 2015 Rebel Voices (2006), an adaptation of Howard Zinn and Anthony Arnove's Voices of a People's History of the United States at Culture Project with a rotating cast including Staceyann Chin, Steve Earle, Danny Glover, Lenelle Moïse, Rich Robinson, Lili Taylor, and Wallace Shawn;Marilyn Stasio, "Rebel Voices", Variety November 18, 2007 Murder on West Moon Street (2006) which was based on Lord Arthur Savile's Crime, an Oscar Wilde short storyGinia Bellafante, "Lord Arthur Learns About Love and Death and the Importance of Being Insouciant", The New York Times, May 1, 2007 and Cole Porter’s Nymph Errant (2001)Michael Sommers, "Cole Porter's rarely-done 1933 musical arrives in a trim package", New Jersey Newsroom, July 14, 2012Olivia Jane Smith, "Olivia Jane Smith on "Nymph Errant" as presented by Prospect Theater Company" New York Theatre Review, July 20, 2012 produced by the Prospect Theatre Company; UMW: University of Mostly Whites (2012) commissioned and produced by Linfield College;"UMW makes world premiere on Linfield stage", Linfield News, March 5, 2013 Death By Design (2010) written in a mash-up of styles of Noël Coward and Agatha Christie, commissioned and produced by Houston Family Arts Center;Jim Tommaney, "Delightful By Design: Rob Urbinati's Vivid Murder Mystery Death By Design at HFAC", Houston Press, September 22, 2011 Mama's Boy (2013), based on the lives of Marguerite Oswald and Lee Harvey Oswald, which premiered at Good Theater in Maine (2015).April Boyle, "Theater Review: Mama's Boy an intriguing play about Oswald family" Portland Press Herald, November 3, 2015 Our Boy (2017) which premiered at the Minnesota Fringe Festival.Hee Han, "Our Boy the struggle on sex crimes", High Plains Reader, August 2, 2017 Zombie Holiday! which premiered at Stageworks in Texas in 2022, and Zombie Summer Holiday! which premiered at Seattle Central College in 2023.
Jane Austen's Lady Susan premiered at the Good Theatre in Portland, Maine in 2021. Hazelwood Jr. High, Murder on West Moon Street, Mama's Boy and Death By Design (as well as an alternate version with songs by Peter Mills) and Jane Austen's Lady Susan are published by Samuel French. Cole Porter’s Nymph Errantis published by Broadway Licensing. His plays have received over three hundred productions worldwide.
Urbinati's adaptation of William March and Maxwell Anderson’s The Bad Seed was presented in 2019 as a benefit reading for The New Group, directed by Cynthia Nixon, featuring John Cameron Mitchell, Ebony Marshall-Oliver, Joel Perez, Taylor Schilling, T. Ryder Smith, Wallace Shawn and Fred Weller.
His book, Play Readings: A Complete Guide for Theatre Practitioners (2015) is published by Focal Press/Routledge, who also published his article, Virtual Play Readings: A Model for Theatre Practitioners.
In New York, Urbinati directed the world premieres Staceyann Chin’s Border/Clash for the Culture Project;Ernio Hernandez, "Jamaican Journeys to New Life in New York in Border/Clash Opens Off Broadway June 16", Playbill, June 16, 2005 Eric Bogosian’s Griller for the Lincoln Center Director's Lab; James Armstrong's Foggy Bottom, Jan Buttram's The President and Her Mistress and Al Letson’s Summer in Sanctuary at the Abingdon; Kirk Bromley's Syndrome at the Greenwich Street Theatre,Neil Genzlinger, "THEATER REVIEW; Inside View of Tourette's as a Lifelong Companion"The New York Times, January 25, 2002 Bromley and Jessica Grace Wing's Lost at the Connelly Theatre;Jesse McKinley, "Premiere Draws A Crowd, And Tears, For Absent Composer", The New York Times, August 11, 2003 and Anne DeSalvo's Mamma Roma at Cherry Lane Theatre."Mamma Roma"
Also in New York, Urbinati directed Villa Diodati for the New York Musical Theatre Festival, (and at York Theatre Company),BWW News Desk, "Villa Diodati To Be Presented at 45th Street Theatre as Part of NYMF", BroadwayWorld, September 3, 2008 Angel Street at Pearl Theatre Company;D. J. R. Bruckner, "THEATER REVIEW; Sending Up Gaslight of '44 (With Emphasis on 'Gas')", The New York Times, April 30, 1999Elyse Sommer, "A CurtainUp Review: Angel Street", CurtainUp. Retrieved August 4, 2019 365 Days/365 Plays at The Public Theater; Springtime at HERE Arts Center, The Man with the Flower in His Mouth at Classic Stage Company, and Minstrel Show, or the Lynching of William Brown at Connelly Theatre, and then in Nebraska, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Colorado.Naomi Siegel, "Transfixed With a Horror, a Play Doesn't Flinch", The New York Times, October 14, 2007
Urbinati has directed at universities and colleges across the country including Concordia College in Minnesota, Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania, Doane College in Nebraska, LaGuardia Community College in New York City, Clark University in Massachusetts, University of Oregon, University of Nebraska Omaha and New York University, where he directed Jeff Whitty’s Suicide Weather.
In Nebraska, he directed for Lied Center for Performing Arts, The Rose Theatre, Nebraska Shakespeare Festival, Nebraska Repertory Theatre, and Blue Barn Theatre, where his adaptation of Toxic Avenger: the Musical premiered.Jane Palmer, "Hilarious adult fare Avenger makes debut", Omaha World-Herald, July 10, 2004Jeff Korbelik, "Blue Barn giving a stage life to Toxic Avenger", Lincoln Journal Star, July 22, 2004
Urbinati is Director of New Play Development at Queens Theatre, where he curates New American Voices (formerly Immigrant Voices Project), a new play program which develops plays by writers who represent the diverse demographic of New York City. IVP/NAV has presented readings, workshops, full productions and co-productions of new work by over eighty writers including, Mashuq Mushtaq Deen, Kristoffer Diaz, Rajiv Joseph, Qui Nguyen, Heather Raffo, Saviana Stănescu, Caridad Svich, Cori Thomas and Lauren Yee. At Queens Theatre, Urbinati has directed many plays including Marry Me A Little, Angel Street, Master Class, and To Kill A Mockingbird.
Since receiving a Directing Fellowship from The Drama League, he has served on their Nominating Committee and various Selection Committees. For The Drama League, he directed William Inge's The Boy in the Basement, the world premieres of Tom Grady's Global Village and Max Sparber's The Older Gentleman and Cruelties. He wrote the Drama League Benefits honoring James Earl Jones, Bernadette Peters, and David Hyde Pierce and beginning Fall 2020, became an Inaugural Member of the Drama League's Directors Council.
In March 2009, on the International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade to mark the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade, the United Nations, in association with the Culture Project, presented Breaking the Silence, Beating the Drum to which Urbinati contributed material. It was performed in the United Nations General Assembly Hall and directed by Kenny Leon, with Nile Rodgers as musical director, featuring Akon, The Blind Boys of Alabama, Izaline Calister, CCH Pounder, Toumani Diabate, Gilberto Gil, Salif Keita, Danny Glover, Whoopi Goldberg, Bill T. Jones, Ky-Mani Marley, Phylicia Rashad, and Stew.
Urbinati trained, and received a certificate in Audio Description from the Audio Description Project for the American Council of the Blind, and has provided Audio Description for the Broadway productions of Death of a salesman, Ohio State Murders, Bob Fosse's Dancin', Peter Pan Goes Wrong, Gutenberg! The Musical!, Harmony, and for various theatre and dance productions at Queens Theatre, Dance/NYC and Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.
Urbinati has been a guest on many podcasts including Matt Baume's Sewers of Paris, and Kyle Marshall's Putting It Together. He was recently a panelist on "The 'Heart' of Audio Description" as part of The Society of Voice Arts and Sciences' "That's Voiceover Career Expo 2021."
Recently, Urbinati directed Al Letson’s The Centre Cannot Hold at the Hot Docs Festival in Toronto and the Five and Dime Theatre in Jacksonville, Florida.Dick Kerkes & Leisla Sansom, "‘'The Centre Cannot Hold’' Another Outstanding Performance by Playwright, Poet, Journalist, Actor and Nationally Known Personality Al Letson", EU Jacksonville, July 18, 2019
Urbinati's play, As A Mighty River, which he co-wrote with Melissa Maxwell, was selected for a workshop by the 2019 Black and Latino Playwrights Celebration at Texas State University, curated by Eugene Lee.
Three productions he directed, Lost, Syndrome, and Border/Clash,Performing Arts Research Collections video recordings, "Rob Urbinati, Director" New York Public Library and one that he wrote, Hazelwood Jr. High,Performing Arts Research Collections video recordings, "Rob Urbinati, Playwright" New York Public Library were videotaped for the Billy Rose Theatre on Film and Tape Archive at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.
Affiliations Rob Urbinati is a member of the Dramatists Guild of America, and the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers.
He is a participating member of the Drama Desk Awards as well as a critic covering New York City area theater for EDGE Media Network.Theatre EDGE Media Network
Urbinati has conducted numerous playwriting and directing workshops at various Regions of the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival and has previously served as Theatre Consultant for Home Box Office, Literary Manager for The Private Theatre and Artistic Adviser for Houston Family Arts Center.
He served on the Advisory Panel for the 2020 Queens Council on the Arts, Artist Commissioning Program.
Awards