Max Posner is a celebrated playwright whose upsetting comedies of family life have pushed buttons off Broadway and across the United States. His play The Treasurer premiered at Playwrights Horizons in a critically-acclaimed, sold-out production directed by David Cromer starring Peter Friedman & Deanna Dunagan (NYT & TimeOut Critic's Pick; "highbrow brilliant" in Vulture; Lortel Nominee for Best Play; printed in American Theater Magazine). Earlier plays include Judy (Page 73 directed by Ken Rus Schmoll, TimeOut Critic’s Pick); Sisters on the Ground (NYU directed by Ken Rus Schmoll); and Snore (Juilliard directed by Knud Adams)—both ensemble plays regularly performed in acting programs. His plays are published & licensed by Dramatists Play Service.
Film: Max is adapting Percival Everett’s novel So Much Blue for the screen with director Rashid Johnson. TV: Max wrote for John Early’s episode of The Characters (Netflix) and with Early he is developing a series about a jealous millennial hurtling towards a spiritual reckoning in the Hudson Valley.
Max is currently the Sun Valley Playwright in Residence. He’s also a Sundance Institute Fellow; winner of the Helen Merrill Emerging Playwright Award, the Page 73 Playwriting Fellowship, MacDowell Fellowships (x3), Le Compte du Nuoy Awards from Lincoln Center (x2), the Heideman Award from Actor’s Theater of Louisville, an Edgerton Foundation New Play Award as well as commissions from Playwrights Horizons, Manhattan Theater Club, Williamstown, Lincoln Center Theater, Clubbed Thumb and New York State Council for the Arts.
Born and raised in Denver, Colorado, Max went to undergrad at Brown University (Weston Award for Playwriting) where he studied with Paula Vogel and Erik Ehn. After moving to New York, he did a two-year Lila Acheson Wallace Playwriting Fellowship at Juilliard where he studied with Marsha Norman and the late Christopher Durang. Plays in development: Hanukkah Spectacular (Berkeley Rep Ground Floor directed by David Cromer; upcoming Sun Valley Playwright's Residency) and The Pool directed by Sarah Benson (upcoming TBA!)
He lives in New York with Sarah DeLappe, their cat, their dog and their son.