Director and playwright
Madeleine Olnek is an American independent film director, producer, screenwriter, and playwright. She has written 24 plays and three feature films, including "Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same, The Foxy Merkins," and "Wild Nights with Emily". Her feature films have been described as "madcap comedies with absurdist leanings" and are all centered around LGBT characters.
Biography.
Olnek was raised in Greenwich, Connecticut. She studied drama at NYU and graduated in 1987, she received fellowships for an MFA in creative writing from Brown University, and the William Goldman Screenwriting Fellowship for an MFA in film from Columbia University. She became a member of the advocacy group ACT UP in the early 90's.
During her time at NYU, Olnek directed a comedy show called "The Follies" in which cast member and NYU classmate Molly Shannon created the basis for her Catholic schoolgirl persona, Mary Katherine Gallagher. Shannon credits Olnek with being "the midwife" to her signature sketch comedy character. After graduating from NYU, Olnek was a downtown New York City playwright and director. She belonged to the Emerging Writers Group at New York's Public Theater and worked with the WOW Café theater in New York where she wrote and directed many plays including, "Wild Nights with Emily (1999)" and "Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same (1992)". Olnek began to realize that technological advances in the film industry were making it "the place of immediacy", so she began to focus on filmmaking. She made her first short film "Hold Up" in 2006 and another "Countertransference" in 2009, both of which screened at the Sundance Film Festival. "Countertransference" was awarded "Best Short Film Directed by a woman at Sundance" by Women in Film Los Angeles.
In 2011, Olnek adapted one of her plays into her first feature film "Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same", which played at Sundance, MoMA, and The Viennale, and was nominated for the 2011 Gotham Independent Film Awards. Her second feature film "The Foxy Merkins," which also included some of the actors from "Codependent", played at Sundance, The Moscow International Film Festival, and BAMcinemaFest. It was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award. Olnek received research grants from Harvard University Press and the Guggenheim Foundation to adapt another of her plays into her third feature, "Wild Nights with Emily." The film was the first ever on-screen portrayal of a queer Emily Dickinson. It starred Molly Shannon, premiered in 2018 at SXSW, and was nominated for the John Cassavetes Independent Spirit Award. The Rotten Tomatoes editorial staff ranked it in the top ten of "The Best Comedies of 2019."
Personal life.
Madeleine Olnek considers herself a "lady homosexual" and lives in New York City. She likes to tell jokes.
References.
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