Education:
Bachelor of Arts in Theatre, Minor in Film, UNC Charlotte (2008)
Master of Fine Arts in Dramatic Writing, New York University (2015)
Hometown: Elizabeth, N.J.
When Stacey Rose came to UNC Charlotte as a 30-year-old theatre major, she had never written a play and in fact had never studied theatre before.
“I spent a good deal of my time at UNC Charlotte getting familiar with theatre in general and discovering my place in it, with Dr. Mark Pizzato pointing me firmly in the direction of playwriting,” she says. “At the time, the program was so specifically non-specific, giving the student a small bit of every aspect of theatre experience, that it allowed room for me as an older student coming into theatre to find my own way, having been exposed to a little of all of it.”
In 2008, her final year at UNC Charlotte, Stacey's first play, The Waiting Place, was produced independently by a group of fellow students and performed in the Storrs Gallery. “It was an amazing experience,” she says, and launched what is now becoming a successful playwriting career.
Having completed her MFA in Dramatic Writing from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, where her thesis advisor was Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Annie Baker (The Flick), Stacey was named a Dramatists Guild Fellow for 2015-16. The prestigious fellowship, offered to just five playwrights from more than 150 applicants, provides mentoring, career training, and resources during a nine-month program. She has since received a 2017-18 Many Voices Fellowship from The Playwrights' Center in Minneapolis, MN, a 2018-19 Goodman Theatre’s Playwrights Unit fellowship, a 2019- 20 McKnight Fellowship, and a 2020-22 Playwrights’ Center Core Writer fellowship. Most recently, she was awarded a 2020 Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Initiative commission from the Manhattan Theatre Club.
Recently returning to Charlotte, Stacey received a Creative Renewal Fellowship from the Arts & Science Council to establish the Queen City New Play Initiative. In the meantime, she has plays appearing in multiple festivals and reading series and has joined the writing team for the Fox television series, 9-1-1 – all while maintaining a job as a respiratory therapist.
Stacey counsels theatre students to “look at the people around you (your classmates) for drive and inspiration. They are your resource, your partners in exploration, and who you will very likely go on to create with in the future.”
Stacey was the recipient of the 2020 CoA+A Distinguished Alumni Award in Theatre.
Visit her website at thestaceyrose.com.