Recent Alum Tyler Whidden’s new play “Occupation:Dad” will be part of the 2016-17 season at Ensemble Theater in Cleveland. The play received a thesis production at the Seabury Quinn Jr Festival and also received the prestigious Trisolini Fellowship. He has worked on previous plays with Ensemble including “Dancing with N.E.D” and “Run Kingsbury Run.”
Synopsis of Occupation:Dad: Jason has a job, okay? He just works from home now. Things are tough nowadays what with the economy and all. So, stop looking at him like that. Lots of dads stay home with their babies. Right? It’s no big deal and it’s really not that tough. Except his kid won’t walk. And his mother won’t help. And his older brother’s a jerk-off. And his sister’s kids are already perfect and the playground moms are psychotic and everybody on Facebook hates him. But, other than all that, everything is just hunky-dory. Except his dad – you know what, forget his dad. It’s fine. Seriously. Everything is …
Congrats Tyler! Check the play out in Ensemble’s next season!
More about Tyler
Tyler Whidden was born and raised in Cleveland, OH where he grew up the least-talented son of a hockey-first family. After earning his BFA in Playwriting at Ohio University, he began a tragic career as a stand-up comic based out of Seattle, WA. As a comedian, Tyler was labeled by critics and fans alike as, “hilarious,” “tragic,” and “probably stoned.” After years of toiling on the road, he moved to Chicago where he returned to theater, studying and working with Victory Gardens and the Neo-Futurists theaters among many others.He received his MFA in Creative Writing from Goddard College and worked as Director of Education with the great Ensemble Theatre of Cleveland.His play Dancing With N.E.D. has seen productions in New Jersey, Ohio, and Washington. His family-friendly farce, The Unofficial Almost True Campfire Tales of Put-in-Bay was commissioned by the Put-in-Bay Arts Council as part of their Bicentennial Celebration of the Battle of Lake Erie in the Summer of 2013 and his one-act play, Detour, was part of the “Truck Stop Plays” production in Chicago.He is the 2015 – 2016 recipient of the prestigious Anthony Trisolini Named Fellowship and 2016 graduate of the MFA Playwriting program at Ohio University under Charles Smith and Erik Ramsey.
