About

W. David Hancock

W. David Hancock is an internationally-produced playwright, currently based in St. Paul. His work has been seen at theatres such as Cherry Lane, the Abbey Theater, Studio Theatre, and, most notably, the Foundry Theatre, where he is the most-produced playwright in their twenty-five year run.

His plays with the Foundry Theatre have included The Convention of Cartography (1994), Deviant Craft (1995), The Race of the Ark Tattoo (1998), and Master (2017). Hancock won Obie awards for both The Race of the Ark Tattoo and The Convention of Cartography. Deviant Craft was a Village Voice Choice three weeks in a row, and Master was a New York Times’ Critic’s Pick, and nominated for a Drama Desk Award.

Hancock’s other plays include Our Lot, presented by Clubbed Thumb in 2011, and The Incubus Archives, presented by the Rude Mechanicals and Hyde Park Theatre in 2002. In addition to his Obies, Hancock has been honored with the Whitting Writers’ Award, CalArts/Alpert Award in Theatre, the Hodder Fellowship, and has been a resident at the MacDowell Colony.

Hancock’s most recent work, Cathexis, is an interactive, robot facilitated judicial event co-funded by the Creative Europe program of the European Union and a TCG Global Connections grant. Cathexis was created in collaboration with Compagnie Elapse and partners in Holland, Belgium, Serbia and Bosnia.  Cathexis was most recently seen at Le Cube’s Centre de Création Numérique in Issy-les-Moulineaux, France. 

As an author of short stories, his work has been featured in The Massachusetts Review, Hunger Mountain Review, and Ping•Pong. His short story collaborations with Spencer Golub have been featured in Chicago Quarterly Review, Pacific Review, and InDigest.

Currently, Hancock is the McKnight Fellow at the Playwrights Center in Minneapolis. It is his second fellowship with the Center.

He lives in St. Paul, Minnesota, with his wife and children.

W. David Hancock CV (pdf)