Levi is a baby grand piano falling down a flight of spiral stairs.
The son of a US Marine Corps general and a Pentecostal preacher from West Virginia, many of his plays fall into a nifty genre his dear friend Ann calls “Appalachian Gothic,” exploring themes of communal pain, cosmology, family curses, plainness, strangeness, and hope.
Levi’s plays have been produced in New York City, Chicago, IL, and Fredericksburg, VA, and include FURY, House Meeting: A Play With Music, Most Ultimate Big Boy, and Snakeroot (Barter Theater’s Appalachian Festival of Plays & Playwrights 2024 Winner). Levi is also a lyricist and composer, having written the music & lyrics for JOAN: A Glitter-Rock Passion Play (Book by M. Francis Miller), and an album of original songs entitled Coming Home Soon (2019). He now lives in Brooklyn, NY.
Hunter College Rita & Burton Goldberg Playwriting MFA Program (Shubert Foundation Scholar), 2025.
BA in Acting from Christopher Newport University, Class of 2013.
“So, what’s your deal?”
I write about dreams, and ghosts out of my bones. Not to get rid of them, but to better hold them in front of me, warm in the palms of my hands. I write about the confusion between love and outrage, and outrage and laughter.
I write so these ghosty-bones of mine will get up on these legs of theirs and dance. I write to syphon moments of love and grief into a thing that is ultimately meant to become a memory on closing night, but hopefully it’s somememory. I write to perpetuate memory so that there is always something to hold onto. I sit with pen and paper and let it move like a planchette on a ouija board. “Here’s my body, little ghosties, have at it.”
You can email Levi at shrader.levi@gmail.com
He’s got an instagram, too: @levijshrader
New Play Exchange: https://newplayexchange.org/users/100196/levi-j-shrader
And if you see him in the wild, don’t be afraid to say
hello, there.
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