About Kari

Kari Bentley-Quinn is a playwright who’s work has been seen in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. Her plays have been developed with or presented at Lark Play Development Center, Lesser America, Halcyon Theatre, Animus Theatre Company, Theatre of NOTE, Premiere Stages at Kean University, Loyola Marymount University, Michigan State University, Astoria Performing Arts Center, The Brick Theater, The Secret Theatre, Artemisia Theater, Project Y Theatre, Post Productions (Canada), Packawallop Productions, FringeNYC, and more.

Kari’s full length plays include Paper Cranes (Backstage Critic's Pick), The Unlikely Ascent of Sybil Stevens (The Secret Theatre New Voices Project), The Ocean Thought Nothing (O’Neill NPC Finalist), Prepared (Kilroys List Honorable Mention), The Worst Mother in the World  (Bay Area Playwrights Festival Finalist), Wendy and the Neckbeards (The Relentless Award Honorable Mention), and Hyannis (Ashland New Plays Festival Winner).

Kari was a co-founder of Mission to (dit)Mars, a theater company based in Queens, New York City. As part of the company, Kari was a leader of the Propulsion Lab, a bi-weekly writers group that supported emerging playwrights, as well as the Launch Pad Reading Series, which gave plays written in the lab their first public readings. Alongside her fellow co-founders, Kari facilitated the development of more than 30 new plays, some of which have been produced all over the country, as well as internationally.

Kari has been a finalist for the O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, the Bay Area Playwrights Festival, Dramatists Guild Fellowship, The Playwrights Realm Writing Fellows, the Public Theater Emerging Writers Group, the Leah Ryan FEWW Prize, and was a nominee for the Doric Wilson Playwriting Award. She is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild. Kari has an MFA in Playwriting from Hunter College under Tina Howe, Arthur Kopit, and Mark Bly, and where she was the recipient of the Rita and Burton Goldberg Playwriting Award.

Kari lives in New York City in Astoria, Queens.

Please click here to view Kari's profile on the New Play Exchange. 

Published Plays: Paper Cranes

Please click here for an artist statement.