Teaching

The work I create seeks to build connections between ourselves, encourage empathy, wrestle with the unknowns, and inspire creative communities.

As a playwright and storyteller, my work seeks to connect disconnected worlds, communities, and individuals, and to invite audiences to peer past the limits of our own experience, to authentically expand into the world of another, to question what is narrow inside us, and engage with empathy.

Teaching

John Walch currently serves as a professor and head of the M.F.A. program in playwriting at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville.

Under his direction, M.F.A. playwrights learn by doing, and participate in a series of rigorous writing workshops on a variety of topics designed to expand and challenge their theatrical imaginations while building foundational knowledge in dramatic form and structure.

John aims to give writers equal space to focus on the playwright’s personal process, as they reach toward embracing a fearless form of personal expression—one rooted in deep personal investment while engaging with the larger cultural dialogue their work challenges and confronts. 

Experience

John, a widely-recognized talent in the world of theatre, has been honored with a multitude of prestigious awards throughout his career. His accolades include the Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays and the Osborn Award from the American Theatre Critics Association, both acknowledging his contributions to contemporary American theatre. John's exceptional skills in musical theatre have also been recognized with the Frederick Loewe Award for his work on DoubleTime. The Kennedy Center honored him further with the Charlotte Woolard Award, which singles out promising new voices in American Theatre. His work was also acknowledged with the Marc Klein Playwriting Award, and he received three Austin Critics Table Awards, establishing his reputation on a local level.

Additionally, John is a two-time recipient of the prestigious Sloan Fellowship and was a James Michener Fellow at the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas at Austin. It is at this institution that he earned his MFA in Playwriting, thus cementing his academic credentials. His experience and talent stretch beyond writing as he served as the artistic director of Austin Script Works and shared his expertise by teaching playwriting at multiple institutions. These include the University of Texas at Austin, University of Iowa, and Bennington College, among others. This wealth of accolades and experiences attest to John's wide-ranging impact in the world of American Theatre.