Mary Lynn OwenInstructor, Theater Studies

Mary Lynn Owen is an Atlanta-based theater artist with a career spanning over forty years. As an actor, her work includes a breadth of styles and a repertoire of the theater’s most well-known roles. She is a Lunt-Fontanne nominee, a two-time Suzi Award winner (Outstanding Performer in a Leading Role and Outstanding Performer in a Supporting Role), and an eight-time Suzi nominee. Recently, she assumed the traditionally male role of The Stage Manager in the historic repertory of OUR TOWN and THE LARAMIE PROJECT at Theatrical Outfit. She is a frequent performer and collaborator in many of Atlanta's New Works Festivals including the Kendeda Festival at The Alliance Theater, the Stripped Bare Festival at Synchronicity Theater, and the Brave New Works Festival at Theater Emory.  As a writer, Mary Lynn's first play, KNEAD, a one-person play in which she also performed, baking 4 loaves of bread on stage during every performance, received its world premiere at The Alliance Theatre in November 2018. KNEAD, recipient of the 2019 Gene Gabriel Moore Playwriting Award, and The Alliance Theatre’s 2016-17 Reiser Lab Award, was also a semi-finalist for the 2017 O’Neill National Playwright’s Conference.

Mary Lynn’s second full-length play, LADY PARTS, a semi-finalist for the 2019 O'Neill National Playwright's Conference, was selected for the 2019 Working Title Playwrights First Light Series and for Theatrical Outfit’s 2020 Unexpected Play Festival. Her commissions include Alabama Shakespeare Festival, The MoJo Festival, and an upcoming commission with Synchronicity Theatre. At Emory, Mary Lynn teaches Introduction to Acting and yearly workshops in Teaching as Performance.  She has also developed an ongoing collaboration with the Spanish and Portuguese Department in the production of both new and classical Spanish/Latinx Theater. She co-created the popular course, ‘Taller de Teatro en Español - a Theater Workshop in Spanish,’ a class designed to improve Spanish language proficiency through the use of Theater techniques. She is a professional member of the Dramatists Guild, Working Title Playwrights, AEA, and Sag-Aftra. Her writing residencies include Cottages at Hedgebrook in Langley, WA, and The Hambidge Center in Rabun Gap, GA.