Lizzie Stern is the Literary Director at Playwrights Horizons, where she leads the daily operations of the Literary Department and is a member of the theater’s dramaturgy team. She reads new plays, participates in season programming, offers feedback to writers on drafts, workshops, and productions, and serves as Co-Editor-in-Chief of the theater’s annual print magazine, Almanac. She also co-runs a fully-subsidized financial literacy program for artists with Ari Teplitz, CFP, ChFC.

Outside of Playwrights Horizons, Lizzie is a freelance consultant on a variety of texts including plays, screenplays, pilots, and non-fiction prose; she is currently working with David Byrne on his next book. A playwright herself, she is a proud alum of EST/Youngblood, Clubbed Thumb’s Early Career Writers’ Group, and SPACE on Ryder Farm; her plays have been produced in New York and Istanbul.

Lizzie is a lifelong New Yorker and a graduate of Williams College where she majored in English and Theater and minored in International Relations.

RECOMMENDED BY

"Lizzie is one of the most brilliant, thoughtful, devoted dramaturgs in our field. I worked with her most recently on my play WISH YOU WERE HERE, during which she helped me unearth discoveries about my play without ever losing sight of the play I was trying to write. I love the way she thinks about art, and how she tirelessly interrogates what our field, our stages, and even our processes could look like. I love that she does not separate the person from the artist but thinks holistically about the two. She is the best listener I know. I treasure her deeply and am a better artist for having worked with her."
—Sanaz Toossi, playwright

"Lizzie Stern possesses all of the qualities one could hope for in a dream dramaturg: she’s smart, patient, incisive, generous, articulate, and thoughtful. We worked together on Jaclyn Backhaus’ Wives at Playwrights Horizons and Lizzie was in the trenches with us from the moment the play was programmed. Her script notes, thoughts on rehearsals, and fantastic dramaturgical design eye were invaluable to the process. She was an instrumental part of the team and I felt grateful every day to have her as my dramaturg/collaborator. I can’t wait until I have the chance to work with her again."
— Margot Bordelon, director