Photo by Alison Balletta

Dan Caffrey is a playwright, musician, teacher, and pop-culture critic who graduated from The University of Texas at Austin's M.F.A. Playwriting program in 2020. He's currently a Teaching Artist and Playwriting Instructor at the Tony Award-winning Alliance Theatre.

​Dan was shortlisted for the Alpine Fellowship's 2021 Theatre Prize, has been both a Finalist and Semi-Finalist at the O'Neill, a Semi-Finalist for the Princess Grace Awards Playwriting Fellowship, a Resident Artist at Tofte Lake Center, an M.F.A. Scholar at the Sewanee Writers' Conference, an artist in The Orchard Project's Liveness Lab, and his work has been published in several anthologies by Smith & Kraus, including Best Women's Monologues, 2021 this October. His plays have recently been developed by American Records, Mixily Presents, Jarrott Productions in Austin, Kitchen Dog Theater in Dallas, and Pegasus PlayLab at the University of Central Florida. His short play "A Seed" was part of the 46th Annual Samuel French Off Off Broadway Short Play Festival, produced by Concord Theatricals.

His work draws heavily from his interest in pop culture, from riffing on classic literature such as Lord of the Flies to putting his love of horror at the forefront of his stories. He loves seeing monsters onstage—whether it be an actual supernatural entity or the darkness that resides within human beings. He's specifically fascinated by how these forces can move characters to rethink their choices and reshape their lives.
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He's also written for a variety of pop-culture publications, including Consequence of Sound, The A.V. Club, Pitchfork, and Vox. His first book, Radiohead FAQ, is currently available from Backbeat Books (an imprint of Rowman & Littlefield). He co-hosts The Losers' Club: A Stephen King Podcast (recipient of the Silver Bolo Award For Excellence In Horror Media) and Halloweenies: A Horror Franchise podcast, in addition to recording music with Mae Shults under the name Methodist Hospital. Dean of American Rock Critics Robert Christgau hailed their debut album, Giants, as one of the best of 2018.

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