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Audrey Cefaly Biography
Audrey Cefaly (she/her)
Playwright. Southern Intimist. Tender-hearted troublemaker.
Audrey Cefaly is an Alabama-born playwright whose work explores the quiet, aching corners of the human experience. Known for her lyrical language, emotional intimacy, and deep empathy for outsiders, Cefaly’s plays center on characters who are scarred, stubborn, and still reaching for connection. Read: The Poetic Architecture of Audrey Cefaly’s Plays
Her critically acclaimed play Alabaster was developed through the National New Play Network’s Rolling World Premiere program and went on to receive over 20 productions nationwide. Other works include The Gulf (Lambda Literary Award winner), Maytag Virgin, The Last Wide Open, and Love is a Blue Tick Hound. Her plays have been produced at Signature Theatre, Cincinnati Playhouse, Florida Rep, Florida Studio Theatre, and many more.
Cefaly’s work is published by Concord Theatricals, TRW Plays, and several other theatrical publishers.
Her style is often described as Southern Gothic, but she prefers “Southern Intimist”—a term that better captures her commitment to poetic realism, emotional weather, and the sacredness of small stories. Her characters don’t just survive; they stay, they fight, and sometimes, they get free. Read: Walking with Tennessee Williams
She is a recipient of the David Calicchio Emerging American Playwright Prize, an Edgerton New American Play Award, the Lammy Award for LGBTQ Drama and the NNPN Goldman Prize. Audrey is also the creator of a growing collection of handmade stickers and strange love letters to the writing life via her Substack, How to Playwright.
She currently resides in Baltimore with her rescue dog Rosa and her husband Tim (also a rescue).
Audrey Cefaly Plays Include...
all-female Southern pieces
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The Gulf
all-female southern 2-hander
(Edgerton Recipient, Lammy Winner, Charles MacArthur Nominee) -
Alabaster
all-female southern 4-hander
(NNPN Record-Breaking Rolling World Premiere, Kilroys-Listed, Calicchio Prize Winner, and Pulitzer-Prize Nominee) -
Trouble
all-female southern 6-hander -
Evie and Star
all-female southern 2-hander -
Fin & Euba
award-winning one-act featured in Best American Short Plays
2-hander love stories
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Maytag Virgin
classic southern love story -
The Last Wide Open
a play with music!
large cast plays / collections - well-suited for schools and colleges
all new plays
"What makes her special: After seeing a handful of Cefaly’s works, Washington Blade reporter Patrick Folliard describes her as “compassionate and unfailingly thoughtful in tackling big ideas in wholly relatable ways…Cefaly gives a voice to those you don’t always hear. Her work is at once unexpected and familiar.” He singles out The Gulf as “phenomenal…A two-hander about a lesbian couple who hash out their romantic differences in the confines of a small fishing boat in the Alabama Delta.” Florida Rep’s associate artistic director, Jason Parrish*, says that Cefaly’s plays “tackle big issues... READ MORE
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