MJ Halberstadt (he/him)
MJ never quite grew out of being a theatre kid.
After studying Theatre Education at Emerson College in Boston, he stuck around to work as a counselor in the Undergraduate Admission Office—reading applications and recruiting students while earning his MFA in Playwriting at Boston University. He joined a group of actor friends as a founding “playmaker” of Bridge Repertory Theater, where he wrote and produced plays including The Launch Prize, for which he received the Elliot Norton Award for Outstanding New Script. He developed plays as a playwriting fellow at Huntington Theatre Company and as a selected playwright in SpeakEasy Stage Company’s Boston Project program (The Usual Unusual.) His production credits include Deal Me Out (Boston Playwrights’ Theatre), How to Cook Up a Good Idea (Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater), That Time the House Burned Down (Fresh Ink Theatre), Brute (Pingree School), not Jenny (Bridge Repertory Theater), and several short immersive works.
As an adjunct professor, he has taught screenwriting and playwriting courses at Emerson College, Northeastern University, The Boston Conservatory at Berklee, and Merrimack College.
Today he works as a writing coach for mental health and climate tech professionals under the heading of his business Find the Words. A frequent knitter, MJ lives in Portland, Oregon with his husband and too many books.