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Madeleine Olnek is an American independent film director, producer, screenwriter, and playwright. She has written 24 plays and three feature films, including Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same, The Foxy Merkins, and Wild Nights with Emily. Her feature films have been described as "madcap comedies with absurdist leanings" and are all centered around queer characters.[1]

Madeleine Olnek
Olnek in 2014
Born	New York City
Alma mater	NYU (BFA) Brown University (MFA) Columbia University (MFA)
Occupation	Film director screenwriter playwright

Biography

Olnek was born in New York City and raised in Connecticut. She studied drama at NYU and graduated in 1987, she received fellowships for an MFA in creative writing from Brown University, and the William Goldman Screenwriting Fellowship for an MFA in film from Columbia University.[2] She became a member of the advocacy group ACT UP in the early 90's.[3]

During her time at NYU, Olnek directed a comedy show called "The Follies" in which cast member and NYU classmate Molly Shannon created the basis for her Catholic schoolgirl persona, Mary Katherine Gallagher. Shannon credits Olnek with being "the midwife" to her signature sketch comedy character.[4] After graduating from NYU, Olnek was a downtown New York City playwright and director. She belonged to the Emerging Writers Group at New York's Public Theater and worked with the WOW Café theater in New York where she wrote and directed many plays including, Wild Nights with Emily (1999)[5] and Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same (1992). Olnek began to realize that technological advances in the film industry were making it "the place of immediacy", so she began to focus on filmmaking.[6] She made her first short film Hold Up in 2006 and another Countertransference in 2009, both of which screened at the Sundance Film Festival.[7] Countertransference was awarded "Best Short Film Directed by a woman at Sundance" by Women in Film Los Angeles.[8]

In 2011 Olnek adapted one of her plays into her first feature film Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same, which played at Sundance, MoMA, and The Viennale, and was nominated for the 2011 Gotham Independent Film Awards.[9] Her second feature film The Foxy Merkins, which also included some of the actors from Codependent, played at Sundance, The Moscow International Film Festival, and BAMcinemaFest. It was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award. Olnek received research grants from Harvard University Press and the Guggenheim Foundation to adapt another of her plays into her third feature, Wild Nights with Emily.[10] The film was the first ever on-screen portrayal of a queer Emily Dickinson. It starred Molly Shannon, premiered in 2018 at SXSW, and was nominated for the John Cassavetes Independent Spirit Award.[11] The Rotten Tomatoes editorial staff ranked it in the top ten of "The Best Comedies of 2019."[12]

Personal life

Madeleine Olnek considers herself a "lady homosexual"[13] and lives in New York City.[14] She likes to tell jokes.[15]

Filmography

Year	Film	Type	Credit
2006	Hold Up[16]	Short film	Director
2006	Make Room for Phyllis[17]	Short film	Director
2009	Countertransference[18]	Short film	Director, Producer
2011	Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same	Feature film	Director, Writer, Producer
2013	The Foxy Merkins	Feature film	Director, Co-writer, Producer
2018	Wild Nights with Emily	Feature film	Director, Writer, Producer

Bibliography

Selected plays

• Fan Mail (1987), co-written with Nancy Swartz[19]^: 94
• Case Studies (1988), co-written with Dominique Dibbell and Nancy Swartz[20]
• Double Awareness, Double Awareness (1991)[20]
• Spookyworld (1992)[20]
• Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same (1992)[21][19]^: 83
• The I'm Not Welcome Anywhere Christmas Special[22]
• The Jewish Nun (1992)[22][20]
• It's Not the Shoes (1992), an adaptation of The Twelve Dancing Princesses by Hans Christian Andersen for the Alternate Visions Theater Troupe of Youth Enrichment Services at the LGBT Center[20]
• Disaster Area Nurse (1993)[20][23]
• Destiny of Mimi (1994)[20]
• How To Write While You Sleep (1998)[22]
• Wild Nights with Emily (1999)[5]
• Gay! Gay! Gay! (1999)[23]

Textbooks

• A Practical Handbook for the Actor by Melissa Bruder, Lee Michael Cohn, Madeleine Olnek, Nathaniel Pollack, Robert Previtio, Scott Zigler, and David Mamet

See also

• List of female film and television directors
• List of lesbian filmmakers
• List of LGBT-related films directed by women

References

External links

• Madeleine Olnek at IMDb
• Official Website

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