Home
Monica Elizabeth Bauer is a graduate of Brown, Yale, Boston University, and the University of Nebraska. Unable to decide what to do when she grew up, her disparate basket of college degrees include a BA in History, a Masters in Divinity, a Masters and Ph.D. in Political Science, and finally, a Masters in Creative Writing. She’s been known as a playwright since bursting onto off-off Broadway and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival twenty years ago. She began writing novels and short stories during the pandemic, as an alternative to going batshit crazy. She lives in Tucson, Arizona with a husband named Neil and a cat named Neo, which is as confusing as it sounds.
Her award-winning full-length plays have been produced Off-Broadway, regionally, and internationally. Awards include the Emerging Playwright Award from Off Broadway's Urban Stages for "My Occasion of Sin," runner-up for the New South Writing Prize for "The Maternal Instinct" at the Brighton (UK) Fringe Festival, and finalist for the Heideman Award at the Actors Theater of Louisville for "Answering," published by Heuer. Her play for one actor, "Made for Each Other" won best solo show at the Hollywood Fringe, and has been produced in seven states and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Published plays include: "Vivian's Music, 1969," published by Original Works (multiple productions), and "Three Men With Guns," included in "The Best New Ten Minute Plays of 2021," edited by Lawrence Harbison for Applause Books. Full length plays produced at 59e59 Theaters, Boston Playwrights Theater, Detroit Repertory Theater, New Jersey Repertory Theater, Shelterbelt Theater, Emerson Theater Collective, Anacostia Theater, the Invisible Theater, and Theater for the New City. Recent awards for fiction include the Arizona Authors Association First Prize for unpublished novel, and Second Prize for short story. Her "Dead Birds" was published in the Arizona Authors Association Literary Magazine, and nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She retired from Quinnipiac University as a Writing Fellow in 2015. Proud member of the Dramatists Guild and the Authors Guild.