Rajiv Joseph

Featured In:
Clean Slate (2019 Wordsmith Duo Commission)

Rajiv Joseph’s play Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo was a 2010 Pulitzer Prize finalist for Drama, and also awarded a grant for "Outstanding New American Play" by the National Endowment for the Arts. He has twice won the Obie Award for "Best New American Play," first in 2016 with Guards at the Taj (also a 2016 Lortel Winner for "Best Play"), and then in 2018 for Describe the Night.

Other plays include Archduke, Gruesome Playground Injuries, Animals Out of Paper, The Lake Effect, The North Pool, and Mr. Wolf. He has been awarded artistic grants from the Whiting Foundation, United States Artists, and the Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust. He is a board member of the Lark Play Development Center in New York City, where he develops all his plays.

He is the book-writer and co-lyricist for the musical Fly. He also wrote for the Showtime series Nurse Jackie for seasons three and four. Additionally, he was the co-screenwriter of the film Draft Day starring Kevin Costner and Jennifer Garner. He received his B.A. in Creative Writing from Miami University, and his M.F.A. in Playwriting from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. He served for three years in the Peace Corps in Senegal, West Africa, and now lives in Brooklyn, New York.