MATTHEW COLE KELLY is a queer playwright, librettist, lyricist, and screenwriter whose work has been produced and developed throughout the US and world, garnering nominations for over twenty awards and honors. Previous developmental credits include Abingdon Theatre, Luna Stage, Letter of Marque Theater, Metropolitan Playhouse, HRC Showcase Theatre, the NJ Play Lab, California’s Talk Back Theatre, Loose Change Productions, the Makor Steinhardt Center, Turn Park Art Space, and Occupy Wall Street, among many others.

Recently, Matthew’s play THE GODS OF THE OZARKS received a full production by Dublin’s AboutFACE Theatre, garnering praise from Ireland’s largest national newspaper for “explor[ing] profound questions of life and death with a playful touch.” His opera AMI & TAMI (composer Mátti Kovler) was translated into Italian for a November 2019 performance in the historic Teatro Coccia di Novara. Having received five-star reviews, the team is planning a European tour. Matthew is currently in residence at the NJ Play Lab, where he recently debuted a 29-hour reading of his new play WE VICTORIANS, and at New York City’s Letter of Marque Theater, where debuted a workshop of THE WAGER, an immersive play set in a 17th-Century French casino. He is also in residence at NYC’s Floating Tower, where he is developing several new operas and musicals.

Matthew’s plays have been nominated as finalist or semifinalist for the Abingdon Theatre’s Christopher Brian Wolk Award, the Bloomington Playwright Project’s Woodward/Newman Drama Award, the College of Charleston’s Todd McNerney Playwriting Award, the Association for Theatre in Higher Education’s Award for Excellence in Playwriting (twice), the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center’s National Playwrights Conference, the Judith Royer Excellence in Playwriting Award, ScreenCraft’s Stage Play Contest, the Shakespeare in the Berg Award, and the New York City Screenplay Contest Stage Play Category. His screenplays have been nominated as finalist or semifinalist in ScreenCraft’s Comedy Screenplay Competition (twice), the Cannes Screenplay Contest, the Richmond International Film & Music Festival, the WeScreenplay Diverse Voices Competition, the Los Angeles International Screenplay Competition, the Creative World Awards, the Emerging Screenwriter Awards, the ISA Fast Track Fellowship, and the New York City Screenplay Contest in the Comedy Category. 

Matthew studied playwriting at Brown University under the tutelage of Paula Vogel before earning a PhD in Sociomedical Sciences and History from Columbia University. He is a member of the Dramatist Guild and the BMI Lehman Engel Librettist Workshop.