SHIRLEY FISHMAN is the Director of Play Development at La Jolla Playhouse, where she oversees projects under commission and in development. Dramaturgy credits at La Jolla Playhouse include: The Night Watcher, 33 Variations, Zorro in Hell, The Wiz, among others. Dramaturgy credits at The Public Theater include: Jessica Hagedorn's Dogeaters; Two Sisters and a Piano by Nilo Cruz; Tina Landau's Space; Arthur Miller's The Ride Down Mt. Morgan; Tony Kushner's A Dybbuk: Or Between Two Worlds; David Henry Hwang's Golden Child; and many readings and workshops as co-curator of the New Work Now! Festival. She was a Creative Advisor/Dramaturg at the Sundance Theatre Lab, which featured: I Am My Own Wife; 36 Views; and The Laramie Project. She is a member of LMDA, received her MFA from Columbia University, and is a dramaturg for University of California-San Diego's Baldwin Festival.
Shirley is fantastic!!! I am her assistant, as well as Randy's, and as soon as she stepped into rehearsal, I started taking notes. She shared some amazing stories. She told me that she was working as a dramaturg before she knew what a dramaturg was! Many people don't know what a dramaturg is, even dramaturgs find it difficult to define. Among many things, a dramaturg gathers research surrounding the play and shares it with the cast and crew; in a very similar field, literary managers read and work on new plays. For Wings, Shirley has helped shaped the structure of Joy's script by suggesting to add and cut lines, maintaining the pace, and relaying main ideas to the audience.
Not only did Shirley work on Doug Wright's I Am My Own Wife, but she insisted on adding a scene. Though Doug was resistant at first, he wrote her a note on opening night thanking her for her insistence. He permanently thanked her by writing her into the scene she suggested; you can find Shirley Blacker in the second act of the play!
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