Adam Seidel
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- Playwright
- screenwriter
- music journalist
Adam Seidel | |
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| Nationality | American |
| Period | 2010s–present |
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Adam Seidel is an American playwright and screenwriter, born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and based in New York City.[1][2] He is best known for his off-Broadway plays Catch the Butcher (2015) and Original Sound (2019), the latter of which he adapted into the 2026 feature film of the same name.[3]
Catch the Butcher
Seidel's produced full-length theatrical works include Catch the Butcher (Panndora Productions; Cherry Lane Theatre, where it was named a New York Times Critic's Pick; and Ilisia Volonakis in Athens, Greece), Other People's Happiness (Playhouse on the Square, Memphis), Williston (Miranda Theatre Company, featuring Robert LuPone; Detroit Repertory Theater) and Original Sound (Cherry Lane Theatre).[1] His co-written and devised-theatre credits include Crime Scene: A Chicago Anthology, Crime Scene: The Next Chapter and Forgotten Future, all produced by Collaboraction Theatre Company.[1]
His plays have been published by Broadway Play Publishing Inc., Smith and Kraus and Applause Books,[4] and have won a Chicago "Fringe First", first prize at both the Labute Festival of New Theatre and at the New Works @ The Works series at Playhouse on the Square in Memphis, and a number of audience favourite awards at ten-minute play festivals across the United States.[1] He was a 2017 O'Neill semi-finalist.[5]
Catch the Butcher, a dark comedy about a kidnapped woman and her fastidious serial-killer captor, premiered in 2013 at the Long Beach Playhouse, before transferring to an off-Broadway run at the Cherry Lane Theatre in 2015.[6] The off-Broadway production starred Lauren Vélez and Jonathan Walker, and was named a Critic's Pick by The New York Times.[6][5] The play later received its European premiere at the Ilisia Volonakis Theatre in Athens.[5]
Original Sound
Seidel, a former music journalist, has said that the experience informed his play Original Sound, which dramatises contract negotiations and recording-studio jam sessions and explores questions of authorship and intellectual property in the music industry.[7] The play premiered off-Broadway at the Cherry Lane Theatre on 9 May 2019, following previews from 30 April; it was directed by Elena Araoz, with music direction by Daniel Ocanto, and starred Sebastian Chacon and Jane Bruce.[8]
For Original Sound, Seidel co-wrote songs with Bruce and Ocanto, including the songs "Stay" and "Jam"; he, Bruce and Ocanto were nominated for the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Music in a Play in 2020 for their work on the production.[9][10]
In February 2026, Playbill reported that Original Sound had been adapted into a feature film, with Seidel writing the screenplay and Tony Award winner Gregory Jbara making his screen directorial debut;[3] the film was released in U.S. theatres on 24 April 2026 by Cromono International, starring David Lambert, Laura Marano, Eric Stoltz, Bridget Moynahan, Ari Notartomaso, Luis Antonio Ramos and Constantine Maroulis.[3][11]