Writer/Director/Producer
Guggenheim award-winning writer/director/producer Madeleine Olnek has had four films at Sundance: “Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same” “The Foxy Merkins” “Countertransference” and “Hold Up.” She wrote and directed the first-ever on-screen portrayal of a queer Emily Dickinson. “Wild Nights With Emily,” premiered 2018 opening weekend at the Paramount theater at SXSW, was acquired by Hulu & Universal Pictures, and was picked by Rotten Tomatoes as one of the top ten "Best Comedies of 2019." She served as the sole juror for the NEXT Section of the 2023 Sundance Film Festival.
Critical Praise for Olnek’s Theatrical Work
“Hilarious… Olnek directs at a breathless pace.” - The Village Voice
“A delightful playground of bizarre moments.” - Time Out New York
“Funny, darkly obsessive, often fascinating… The work is disturbing, sexy and pithy, all at once.” - Greenwich Village Press
“Madeleine Olnek is making incredible contemporary masterpieces.” - Playwright Paula Vogel in American Theatre Magazine
Plays
Produced in downtown New York City
Three Stories High
Lenore, The Human Roach Motel
You Call for The Fireman and The Arsonist Comes
Gay, Gay, Gay!
The Jewish Nun
Oona and Lurleen
Fan Mail
Help! Police!
23 Weston Road
A Bird in The Hand
It’s Not The Shoes (based on “The Twelve Dancing Princessess”)
Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same
From Eternity to Here
Frances Farmer Talks About Her Lobotomy
The Destiny of Mimi
Room and Board
The Bad Neighbors Soap Opera, Episode 2
How to Write While You Sleep
Spookyworld
Double Awareness Double Awareness
Dick Clark’s Happy Rockin’ New Year’s Eve at the Millennium (commissioned by the Joseph Papp Public Theatre)
Case Studies (segments)
The I’m-Not-Welcome-Anywhere Christmas Special
Disaster Area Nurse
“If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.”
— Emily Dickinson