Cecilia Copeland

WRITER, DIRECTOR, PRODUCER. Works include Award Winning Best Dramatic Feature Script Female Eye Film Festival THE COPELAND CASE based on the true story of the Copeland Kidnappings. Best Pilot Screenplay LA Femme International Film Festival TALTRIX based on her Sci-Fi Book Surviving the Gauntlet. Currently developing 13th ST SCARE a feminist vampire script set in a horror themed theater in NYC with Producer Perla Martínez, Oscar Winning Art Director Brigitte Broch, Actor Producer Guillermo Ivan, DP Carlos Hidalgo. Copeland is a Member of New York Women in Film and Television, the League of Professional Theatre Women, Indie Theater Hall of Fame, and recipient of the Lennis J. Holm Scholarship at the Writers Workshop University of Iowa and Screenplay Special Effects Grant from MetroScreen Australia. Her sci-fi TV Pilot TALTRIX was presented by New York Women in Film and Television (NYWIFT) as the Winner of the New Works Lab with a reading starring Golden Globe Winner Regina Taylor. It also won Best TV Pilot Screenplay at LA Femme International Film Festival. TALTRIX honors include Finalist for LA INDIE FILM FESTIVAL, Semi-Finalist MADE IN NY WRITERS ROOM and NextTV Writing & Pitch Competition, Quarter-Finalist ScreenCraft Screenwriting Fellowship and Creative World Awards. THE COPELAND CASE is a Page International Screenwriting Awards Quarter Finalist, SIDEWRITE SIDEWALK Film Festival Finalist, Winner Queen Supreme Best Feature Script Queen Palm International Film Festival, Best Screenplay Pinnacle Film Awards, Gold Winner Best Feature Script and Best Dialogue Queen Palm International Film Festival, LA Live Film Festival Official Selection. Her TV Pilot comedy WOMG won Best New TV Pilot at Boom! Productions. She is a credited contributing writer on INDIAN BILLY ICE winner best screenplay Royal Wolf Film Awards, Queen Palm Film Awards, Los Angeles Film Awards, LA Live Best Historical Screenplay, the European Independent Film Festival, Finalist Moondance Film Festival among others. Copeland is a Kilroy’s List Nominee and Honorable mention for her plays, Light of Night and “R Culture.” Her play, THE NEXT TIME has been produced around the world and published in the Gun Control Plays Collection on Amazon. Her trans rights activist play, One Woman won Best Premiere at United Solo. Her plays have been produced Off-Broadway, regionally and internationally. She is the Founding Artistic Director of New York Madness, producing over two hundred and fifty short plays in over thirty “madness” festivals all over New York from 2010-2017. Before stepping down as Artistic Director, Copeland oversaw NYMadness’s transition to company-in-residence at The Kraine Theater. She remains part of the company as an artistic advisory board member. Her plays have been presented in New York at Daryl Roth's DR2, the Cherry Lane Theatre, Culture Project, Ensemble Studios Theatre, The Lower East Side Festival of the Arts, HERE Arts Center, Open Hydrant Theatre Co, IRT Theater, Planet Connections Festivity, and IATI Theatre among others. Regionally her works have been presented at The William Inge Center, Carnegie Mellon University, UT Dallas, Bishop Arts Theatre Center, Cara Mia Theatre, Philadelphia Theatre Company Susanne Robert's Theatre, Venus Theatre, University of Iowa and Ohio University. Internationally her works have been presented at Theatre Royal Stratford East London, Finborough Theatre London, The Anarchist Theatre Festival Montreal, Sydney, and featured in the Verlag Textbook on American Drama in Germany. She has been published by the Playwrights Center for Women Writers, NoPassport Press, Indie Theatre Now, and Amazon. Copeland has contributed articles to WIT online, HowlRound, Theaterspeak, and TCG. She has been an invited guest speaker on the topic of gender in theatre for Letter of Marque Theatre Company, The Neo-Political Cowgirls Theatre Company, and Planet Connections Festivity Playwrights for a Cause. She was also a panelist for the League of Professional Theatre Women Producers Forum. Copeland’s work has been covered by The Washington Post, Huffington Post, Playbill, BroadwayWorld, and American Theatre Magazine. She has been interviewed by The Native Society Inspiring Female Filmmakers, Visible Soul, People You Should Know, UndergroundZero, Theaterspeak, Indie Theater New, and Works by Women. A graduate of University of Iowa BA with Honors in Theatre-Playwriting and a Minor in Dance, Copeland received her MFA in Playwriting from Ohio University. She is a graduate of Stella Adler Studio where she was welcomed back to teach play script analysis for actors. Other teaching credits include in The Performing Arts High School, Ohio University, and the Actor’s Center Sydney. Copeland interned with The Women’s Project, Seven Devil’s and New Dramatists.