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Mary F. Unser is a writer and an actor. Her play, The Only Gift was a semi-finalist for the O’Neill Playwrights Conference, the Playwrights’ Center’s PlayLabs Festival and the Seven Devils Playwrights Conference (all 2006). It also helped make Unser a finalist for a 2006 Jerome Fellowship at The Playwrights’ Center and was chosen as part of the 2005 CMU Summer New Play Festival (Pittsburgh).

Most recently, her play, Samaritan, was given a workshop production at Carnegie Mellon University.

Short plays include: Belly (chosen for the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival Region II;finalist for Snowdance 10-min. Comedy Festival, Racine, WI), Temporaria (winner and produced by Perishable Theatre’s Women’s Playwriting Festival; finalist,Actors Theatre of Louisville’s 10-minute play festival; semi-finalist, Ensemble Studio Theatre’s (EST) one-act play marathon; produced by EST’s Actor/Director Lab and at EST’s Octoberfest), Coffee Incident #2 and Between Siddhartha and the Angel (both produced by EST A/D Lab), The Pledge (produced by EST’s A/D Lab and NY Int’l Fringe Festival), Buttergator (semi-finalist, EST’s one-act play marathon; produced by EST’s A/D Lab) and Tight (semi-finalist, EST’s one act play marathon; produced by EST’s A/D Lab and OW! Co. at Theatre 22. Additionally, Tight was filmed as a short and is currently in post-production).

As a screenwriter, Unser won the CMU Alfred P. Sloan Science Teleplay Competition for Love Chance, which was taped in May 2005 and was aired on PBS in January 2006. Additionally, she was a finalist for the CMU Sloan Screenwriting Competition in 2005 and 2006.

She has taught Beginning and Advanced Playwriting at Carnegie Mellon University, Playwriting at the Pittsburgh Public Theater and dramaturged for City Theatre Company's (Pittsburgh) Young Playwrights Festival. She has read plays for City Theatre Company as well as the 2003 and 2004 New York Int’l Fringe Festival. This past summer she co-created the newest (and best) CMU roboceptionist (yes folks, a robot receptionist): Marion “Tank” LeFleur.

Unser, a two-time recipient of a Schubert Fellowship for Dramatic Writing (CMU), graduates with an MFA in Dramatic Writing in 2006. She is a member of The Dramatists Guild, the Ensemble Studio Theatre (NYC) and Actors' Equity Association. She holds a BA in Biology from St. Anselm College and was valedictorian of her bartending class.

As an actor, she has most recently worked at EST, The Women’s Project and the Neighborhood Playhouse.

Full resume available upon request.

Labels: Bio, Class of 2006