Marie Kohler is an American playwright, director, writer and producer. Her plays have earned nominations for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize and the Harold and Mimi Steinberg/American Theatre Critics Association New Play Award and Citations, among others. Her play Boswell captured four-star reviews at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, went on to a sold-out off-Broadway run at 59E59 Theaters (2022) and had a stellar run at Milwaukee’s Next Act Theatre (2025). Milwaukee Opera Theatre produced a popular staged reading of Kohler’s latest play, Maybe We’ll Fly, and it is scheduled for its premier production in the fall of 2026 at Milwaukee Chamber Theatre. Her published plays include Midnight and Moll Flanders (2024), Boswell (2024) and A Girl of the Limberlost (2018). Kohler cofounded Milwaukee’s women-run Renaissance Theaterworks and served as co-artistic director and resident playwright for 20 years. She earned her bachelor’s degree at Harvard University and her master’s degree at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
