Biography
Charles Evered is a playwright, screenwriter and director. He took his undergraduate degree from Rutgers-Newark and an MFA from Yale University. He has won several awards for his writing including the Audrey Wood Writing Scholarship at Yale, the Eugene O’Neill Writing Scholarship at Yale, the George Pierce Baker Scholarship at Yale, The Crawford Award, The Berrilla Kerr Award, The Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship at The Manhattan Theatre Club, The Chesterfield/Amblin Fellowship, (Sponsored by Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment), The Edward Albee/William Flanagan Fellowship, The Bert Linder Fellowship and The Lucas Artist Fellowship at the Millay Colony.
His plays include Running Funny, (premiere at Williamstown Theatre Festival featured Paul Giamatti), Billy and Dago, (Actor’s Studio–NYC), The Size of the World, (Yale Repertory Theatre premiere featured Liev Schreiber, Circle Repertory Company—NYC premiere featured Rita Moreno and Frank Whaley), The Shoreham, (LA premiere featured Eric Stoltz), Adopt a Sailor, (Town Hall — NYC premiere featured Sam Waterston, Eli Wallach, and Neil Patrick Harris,) Celadine, (premiere featured Amy Irving) and Class, (premiere featured Thaao Penghlis.)
His plays have been published by Broadway Play Publishing, Samuel French, and Smith and Kraus among others. Additional plays include Traces, Wilderness of Mirrors, Bridewell, Ted’s Head, Clouds Hill, Looking Again, (“Best Ten Minute Plays 2012”, Smith and Kraus), and Ten. He has written screenplays and teleplays for studios and companies such as Arthur Hiller’s Golden Quill, Universal Pictures, NBC, Steven Spielberg’s Dreamworks, and Paramount. His produced film and television credits include an episode of Monk entitled “Mr. Monk and the Leper” for USA Network, starring Tony Shalhoub. Mr. Evered wrote and directed the feature film Adopt a Sailor, starring Peter Coyote, Bebe Neuwirth and Ethan Peck. Adopt a Sailor was an official selection at more than twenty national and international film festivals, premiering on Showtime.
In addition, his play Running Funny was adapted for the screen and he wrote and directed the short film Visiting, which premiered at the Palm Springs International Film Festival. His second feature film as a director, A Thousand Cuts, starred Academy Award nominee Michael O’Keefe and was nominated for a Saturn Award by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Films. Mr. Evered’s film, Out, premiered at the Newport Beach Film Festival.
His play, “Knock, Knock,” premiered in London at Theatre503. His Christmas play, “An Actor’s Carol,” premiered in California starring Hal Linden. “An Actor’s Carol” was nominated for eight Desert League Awards, winning the Bill Groves Award for “Outstanding Original Writing.” He was designated a lifetime member of the Writers Guild of America and has taught or guest lectured at Yale University, Carnegie Mellon University, Whitman College, Emerson College, and the University of California, where he is an Emeritus professor. His plays have been added to the permanent Public History Collection at the Massachusetts Historical Society and his work has been profiled in the New York Times, BBC World, and on NPR, among other outlets.
In the summer of 2024, he was named Artist in Residence at the George Washington Birthplace National Monument in Colonial Beach, Virginia. In November, 2024, a published collection titled “Charles Evered, Fourteen Short Plays and Monologues,” covering forty years of his writing was released. In January 2025, he was chosen as a Research Fellow at the American Revolution Institute of the Society of the Cincinnati in Washington, D.C. In June 2026, he was in residence at the Arvo Part Centre in Laulasmaa, Estonia. In August 2026, he was named Playwright in Residence for the 2026 -2027 season at the Ear Inn Theatre in Tribeca, New York City. His play Class will have its New York City premiere there in November.
Mr. Evered was the founder of the Evered House, a program that assisted artists who served in the military. In support of the Evered House, his play “Adopt a Sailor” toured all fifty states. From 2000-2008 he served in the United States Navy Reserve, reaching the rank of Lieutenant. Mr. Evered is a member of the Yale Veterans Association and the Princeton Battlefield Society. He is the proud father of Margaret Evered and John O’Hara Evered, both of whom grew up in Princeton, New Jersey. He splits his time between Shenandoah, Virginia, and Princeton, New Jersey.