About me
Heather Helinsky (she/her) is a Philadelphia-based dramaturg that playwrights have recognized as “especially adept at freeing energies in unexpected ways. She encourages discovery.” Since 2019, she’s been a Literary Manager for two organizations: Playwrights Foundation and Jewish Plays Project, where she’s known for her unique community-centered anti-bias script reading practices, creating abundance over scarcity mindset, and deep care for the playwrights who applied. Nationally, her production dramaturgical work has been seen at the American Repertory Theatre, Arizona Repertory Theatre, Borderlands Theatre Company, Denver Center Theatre, Great Plains Theatre Commons, The Kennedy Center, The Lark, Miracle Theatre in Portland, Moscow Art Theatre’s American Studio, Omaha Community Playhouse, Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival, Philadelphia Theatre Company, Phoenix Theatre in Indianapolis, Pittsburgh Irish and Classical Theatre, Pittsburgh Public Theatre, Salt Lake Acting Company, Telluride Playwrights Festival, TheatreSquared, Woolly Mammoth, Unexpected Stage Company, and others. Notable production dramaturgy includes the development of Tony-award winning J.T. Rogers’ Oslo at PlayPenn, Tira Palmquist’s climate change play Two Degrees at DCPA, Caridad Svich’s NNPN rolling world premiere of Guapa, and director Robert Woodruff’s Brittanicus. Yearly, she reads and evaluates scripts for Sundance Theatre Lab, O'Neill's Artistic Council, Great Plains Theatre Commons, Seven Devils, NNPN, and KCACTF and has worked on new plays in development on various festivals since 2010. As an Affiliate teaching artist for the Kennedy Center, she’s mentored dramaturgs through KCACTF’s regional festivals since 2012 and read for national playwriting awards. LMDA member since 2006, serving in leadership since 2018, co-creator of Dramaturging the Phoenix, and currently VP of Membership. M.F.A. in Dramaturgy from A.R.T./MXAT Institute for Advanced Theatre Training, ’07 and was an NCI O’Neill Critics fellow in 2016. UPCOMING: A multi-city development of the Trans World trilogy by Ty Defoe, an intersectional Indigiqueer Trans Futurist series of plays about trans joy, liberation, and indigenous wisdom, directed by Santi Iacinti, which was first developed at PlayPenn in 2024 and is receiving further development support as a Yale Rep commission and the Kennedy Center’s Social Impact at the Reach in 2025.
