Adam Szymkowicz is that rarest of things: a full-time playwright. In an era when the business of live theatre seems perpetually on the verge of implosion, most dramatists survive only through soul-sucking day jobs, the largesse of patrons or their own families, or writing for television. Szymkowicz has carved out a distinctive niche for himself without relying on big institutions or the brass ring of a mega-hit Broadway production. Each year, his body of work--over thirty sharp, funny, pop-culture-inflected plays animated by an unabashed romanticism--is staged everywhere from big-city theatres to colleges and high schools.

In Letters to a Young Playwright, Szymkowicz dispenses hard-earned, unsentimental, and entertaining advice to early-career dramatists. Modeled on Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet, it covers topics like writer's block, self-promotion, and the pluses and minuses of pivoting to Hollywood in insightful and digestible short essays. Perfect for beginning playwrights as well as mid-career writers looking to reinvigorate their craft and career, it contains endlessly useful advice and reflections from one of the most-produced living playwrights in America.

One minute: that's all the time an actor needs to make a scorching impression--to pull in an audience, make them care, laugh, cry, remind them that life is worth living, or help them forget that life is hard.

Small Explosions collects more than ninety entirely new monologues from acclaimed playwright Adam Szymkowicz (Hearts Like Fists, Clown Bar, Pretty Theft). Short, punchy, and thoroughly memorable, they traverse the extremes of heartbreak and joy, epiphany, and bewilderment, across a range of moods and voices. Perfect as audition pieces or training exercises, they hit hard, make their mark, and just as quickly get out of the way, leaving an indelible impression.

Firefighting and fire starting get the noir-camp treatment in Adam Szymkowicz's INCENDIARY, which tackles the whimsical dilemma of star-crossed lovers in the arsonist and arson-investigator fields.
...this nutty love triangle of boy, girl and inferno is charmingly original and genuinely suspenseful.
Time Out Chicago

Hilariously ornate in the best world-weary, film-noir fashion.
Chicago Theater Beat

Welcome to Colchester, a small town where everybody knows each other and the pace of life allows the pursuit of love to take up as much space as it needs. Our tour guide is Suzanne, the town photographer, who lets us peek into her neighbors' lives to catch glimpses of romance in all its stages of development. A play about love, nostalgia, the seasons and how we learn to say goodbye.

STOCKHOLM SYNDROME: OR, REMEMBER THE TIME JIMMY'S ALL AMERICAN BEEFSTEAK PLACE WAS TAKEN OVER BY THAT GROUP OF RADICALS? That mouthful of a title is set, appropriately, at Jimmy's All American Beefsteak Restaurant-a fictional chain (the kind you love to hate) -whose employees and patrons suddenly find themselves in the midst of a hostage crisis...and a love story.

An outrageous farce of violence and lasciviousness!

The New Orleans Advocate

STOCKHOLM SYNDROME is a hilarious and captivating show, in the best way possible.

Gambit Weekly

In all its absurdity...an entirely new genre of theater-the interactive terrorist musical comedy.... You'll get a hearty kick out of STOCKHOLM SYNDROME.

The Times-Picayune

But for all the talk about immersion, maybe the most important piece for an audience member to feel immersed in is thematic. And that's what I enjoyed most about the show.

At the heart of STOCKHOLM SYNDROME is a group of characters who look at their lives at some point in the show and realize they're not totally happy with how things are going. Worse yet, they don't even understand how their lives got to this level of disappointment.

A server who sings about the dissatisfaction of every day being exactly the same as the last. A diner who doesn't have her needs fulfilled by her husband. A manager whose dedication and loyalty frequently lead to letdowns and heartbreak. A woman who wants a man with more ambition. And a man who just wants a woman to go home and hold hands with.

This story is full of realizations of life-gone-astray, and that's a realization most of us can relate to at at least one point or another.

Very Local

A series of vignettes, mostly love stories, taking place at a Christmas tree farm, including a breakup, a breakdown, a meet cute, four Santas, a film director, high school sweethearts, and some carolers. A holiday play about love and joy.

A couple decides their fate in a parking lot. A play meant to be performed outside by two actors quarantined together (1M, 1F) who can play a couple. It takes place in a parking lot and people watch from the safety of their cars.

This show is infinitely more than a public therapy session. It's a humorous, heartfelt and thought-provoking narrative for all of us in life's 'parking lot'. THE PARKING LOT is the opportunity we've been missing. It's an outlet to remember that the arts are changing-forever, maybe-but they will never cease to do what they have always done: form us into deeper, better versions of ourselves.

Little Village Mag

Playwright Adam Szymkowicz hit on a simply brilliant plan, hatched during the pandemic, of penning a play revolving around a parking lot, to be performed in a parking lot, with audience members staying in their vehicles.

The Gazette

Five stylistically diverse short plays from playwright Adam Szymkowicz whose plays the New York Times has called, unabashedly silly but also shrewd, hysterical, genuinely funny, sweet, sexy, neurotic friendly, fabulously weird and weirdly fabulous, and disturbing but touching.