Dan O’Brien is a playwright and poet whose work has been produced off-Broadway at Primary Stages, throughout the United States and in the United Kingdom. Some of his plays include The House in Scarsdale: A Memoir for the Stage and The Body of an American. O'Brien has been awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship in Drama, the Horton Foote Prize, the Edward M. Kennedy Prize and two PEN America Awards. Most recently, he published a collection of essays in his book, A Story that Happens...On Playwriting, Childhood, & Other Traumas. O'Brien reflects on theater, family, what it takes to be an artist in a fractured world and keeping hope alive.