Madeleine Olnek

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

Madeleine Olnek
Born
New York City
Alma materNYU (BFA)
Brown University (MFA)
Columbia University (MFA)
Occupation

Biography

Olnek was born in New York City and raised in Connecticut. She studied drama at NYU and graduated in 1987, and also has an MFA in creative writing from Brown University and an MFA in film from Columbia University.[2] She became a member of the advocacy group ACT UP in the late 80s and early 90s.[3]

Olnek (right) with the cast of The Foxy Merkins at its Sundance Premiere in 2014

After graduating from NYU, she worked with WOW Café theater in New York where she wrote Fan Mail with Nancy Swartz,[4](p94) as well as Wild Nights with Emily[5] and Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same. 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] Olnek was awarded a Women in Film grant for Countertransference.[8]

In 2011 Olnek adapted one of her plays into her first feature film Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same, which played at Sundance and was nominated in the category of Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You at the 2011 Gotham Independent Film Awards.[9] Her second feature film The Foxy Merkins also played at Sundance and other festivals, and included some of the actors from Codependent. 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, which premiered in 2018.[10] She is currently working on a new project with Peg Healey of The Five Lesbian Brothers.[11]

Personal life

Madeleine Olnek is a lesbian[12] and lives in New York City.[13]

Filmography
Year Film Type Credit
2006 Hold Up[14] Short film Director
2006 Make Room for Phyllis[15] Short film Director
2009 Countertransference[16] Short film Director
2011 Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same Feature film Director, writer, co-producer
2013 The Foxy Merkins Feature film Director, co-writer, co-producer
2018 Wild Nights with Emily Feature film Director, writer, co-producer

Bibliography

Selected plays
  • Fan Mail (1987), co-written with Nancy Swartz[4](p94)
  • Case Studies (1988), co-written with Dominique Dibbell and Nancy Swartz[17]
  • Double Awareness, Double Awareness (1991)[17]
  • Spooky World (1992)[17]
  • Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same (1992)[18][4](p83)
  • The I'm Not Welcome Anywhere Christmas Special[19]
  • The Jewish Nun (1992)[19][17]
  • It's Not the Shoes (1992), co-written with Alternate Visions Theater Troupe of Youth Enrichment Services at the LGBT Center[17]
  • Disaster Area Nurse (1993)[17][20]
  • Destiny of Mimi (1994)[17]
  • The Young Skulls (1996), co-written with Laurie Weeks[17]
  • How To Write While You Sleep (1998)[19]
  • Wild Nights with Emily (1999)[5]
  • Gay! Gay! Gay! (1999)[20]

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

References
  1. Dry, Judy (11 March 2018). "'Wild Nights With Emily' Review: Molly Shannon Is Emily Dickinson in the Best Lesbian Comedy in Years — SXSW". IndieWire. Retrieved 2 February 2019.
  2. Ambroff-Tahan, James (30 August 2018). "Filmmaker Madeleine Olnek Gives Voice to Women's Stories". Adobe Create Magazine. Adobe Inc. Retrieved 2 February 2019.
  3. Esposito, Cameron (5 May 2019). "Episode 85: Madeleine Olnek". Queery with Cameron Esposito (podcast). Event occurs at 48:36. Retrieved 7 May 2019.
  4. Hughes, Holly; Tropicana, Carmelita; Dolan, Jill (30 November 2015). Memories of the Revolution: The First Ten Years of the WOW Café Theater. University of Michigan Press. ISBN 978-0472068630. Retrieved 2 February 2019 – via GoogleBooks.
  5. "Circus Catch". Village Voice. 15 June 1999. Retrieved 2 February 2019.
  6. Luers, Erik (5 December 2014). ""85% of Protagonists in Film and Television are Male": Madeleine Olnek on The Foxy Merkins". Filmmaker Magazine. Retrieved 2 February 2019.
  7. "Catching up with Madeleine Olnek". Curve Magazine. 13 January 2011. Retrieved 2 February 2019.
  8. "Women in Film Hosts Sundance Panel, Award Event". Entertainment Close-up. 29 January 2009. Retrieved 2 February 2019 – via General OneFile. A $5,000 film grant, sponsored by Tax Credits and The Incentives Office, was awarded by the WIF jury to female director Madeleine Olnek, for her directing work on "Countertransference," a Sundance Shorts Program entry at the film festival.
  9. Guerrasio, Jason (November 17, 2011). "Check Out Gothams' Best Film Not Playing At A Theater Near You Nominees at MOMA This Weekend". Filmmaker Magazine. IFP. Retrieved 15 November 2017.
  10. N'Duka, Amanda (26 November 2018). "Emily Dickinson SXSW Comedy 'Wild Nights With Emily' Set At Greenwich". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved 31 January 2019.
  11. Esposito, Cameron (5 May 2019). "Episode 85: Madeleine Olnek". Queery with Cameron Esposito (podcast). Event occurs at 29:55. Retrieved 7 May 2019.
  12. Pedersen, Hans (15 January 2015). "The Foxy Merkins". Echo Magazine. Retrieved 2 February 2019. No, we’re all out, and we’ve all paid a price.
  13. "Wild Nights with Emily". Cucalorus Film Festival. Retrieved 2 February 2019.
  14. Kilday, Gregg (6 December 2005). "Sundance Fest Picks 73 Shorts". Backstage. Retrieved 2 February 2019.
  15. "Make Room for Phyllis". Nashville Film Festival / Agile Ticketing Solutions. Retrieved 2 February 2019.
  16. Silverstein, Melissa (20 January 2014). "Sundance Women Directors: Meet Madeleine Olnek". IndieWire. Retrieved 2 February 2019.
  17. Davy, Kate (2010). Lady Dicks and Lesbian Brothers: Staging the Unimaginable at the WOW Café Theatre. University of Michigan Press. ISBN 978-0472071227. Retrieved 2 February 2019 – via GoogleBooks.
  18. Johns, Merryn (March–April 2016). "A world of women: celebrating the WOW Cafe, New York City's legendary lesbian theater space". Curve. p. 54+. Retrieved 2 February 2019 – via General OneFile. Madeleine Olnek, for example, wrote the funny-yet-political Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same while at WOW.
  19. Lefkowitz, David (22 May 1998). "Last Chance To Write While You Sleep in Soho, to May 24". Playbill. Retrieved 2 February 2019.
  20. Ehren, Christine (11 October 2011). "Co-dependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same in San Francisco, Oct. 11-28". Playbill. Retrieved 2 February 2019.
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