About

Carolyn Kras is a writer for screen and stage based in Los Angeles.  Carolyn has developed projects for 20th TV, Escape Artists, Welle, and more. She was named to ISA’s List of “Top 25 Screenwriters to Watch.”

Carolyn’s screenplay MAGNETIC, featuring the relationship between Queen Elizabeth I and her physician William Gilbert, has director Jon Amiel (Entrapment) and producer Diane Nabatoff (Narc) attached. MAGNETIC was recognized by the Hamptons International Film Festival Screenwriters’ Lab Selection, Alfred P. Sloan First Place Screenwriting Award, Plume & Pellicule Award, Screenplay Search Award, and Writemovies.com Award.

Carolyn’s legal procedural pilot script IN CHAMBERS, centering the clerks of the Supreme Court, was honored by six competitions: Variety’s Sun Valley Screenwriters’ Lab Selection, NYTVF Scripts Official Selection, Middlebury Script Lab Selection, 2nd Place TRMS Austin, 3rd Place Emerging Screenwriters, and Top 3 Fresh Voices.

She was chosen as one of two Americans who pitched pilot scripts at Content London, a leading summit for global television.  Carolyn pitched her pilot THE SECOND CITY, a crime drama that takes place in the wake of the Great Chicago Fire.  The script also received the Hearst Fellowship.

Carolyn’s horror feature screenplay CUTTHROAT, about the killer competition to get into college, was named to Coverfly’s Red List of the Top 20 Horror Scripts.

Carolyn’s screenplay NEW REALITY, a romantic dramedy set in the tech industry, won First Place Comedy Screenplay in Vail Film Festival’s Screenplay Contest.

Her play THE SUBJECT, about a major scandal threatening King George III’s deranged family, had a United Nations Reading in central London featuring Alfred Enoch (How to Get Away with Murder).  THE SUBJECT was written in residence at Sell a Door Theatre Company in London through the support of the Fulbright LUSK Award.

Carolyn received the Visionary Playwright Award and Commission from Theater Masters, and the resulting play MINE & YOURS was named a top national new play by the Bay Area Playwrights Festival (Finalist), The Kilroys List Honorable Mention, and an L. Arnold Weissberger Award Nominee.  Her plays have been produced or developed at Antaeus Theatre Company, The Blank Theatre, The Road Theatre Company, The Looking Glass Theatre (NY), Long Beach Playhouse, Chicago Dramatists, Stage Left Theatre, Found Stages, Centenary Stage Company, 20% Theatre Company Chicago, Pittsburgh Irish & Classical Theatre, Live Girls! Theatre, Williams Street Rep, Chicago New Work Festival, Theater Masters, Pittsburgh New Works Festival, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, and more.  Carolyn has been a writer-in-residence at Ucross Foundation, Hawthornden Castle, Ragdale Foundation, and Anderson Center at Tower View.

Carolyn’s honors include: RSA Fellowship, Salon for Global Content Steering Committee, The Playwrights Union Member, Shubert Fellowship, Aspen Ideas Festival Scholar, Disquiet International Short Play Award, “Best Playwright” Award in The Looking Glass Theatre’s Writer/Director Forum, Filmaka.com grant, two A.E. Hotchner Playwriting Awards, and the Leota Diesel Ashton Playwriting Prize. She is Co-chair of Washington University in St. Louis’ Hollywood Alumni Society.

Carolyn is an alum of the NBC Page Program, Women in Film Mentorship Program, and Shakespeare at the Globe Theatre Program.  She has a B.A. in Drama from Washington University in St. Louis and an M.F.A. in Dramatic Writing from Carnegie Mellon University. She is represented by Doorie Lee at 42 and Bob Getman at Jackoway Austen Tyerman.