MEGAN TABAQUE is a writer, director, and actor of mixed Filipina-Canadian descent who grew up in the dirtbag strip malls of Florida’s Gulf Coast. She’s written for theater, fiction, and the immersive, weirdo-giants at Meow Wolf.
Megan writes to create new mythologies, using pop cultural tropes as accessible entry points for absurd, hot button issues. A decorated playwright, Megan’s play Britney Approximately (an adaptation of Medea remixed with the Britney Spears conservatorship) played to sold-out audiences in Atlanta as part of Theater Emory’s 2023 season. Only Reason (co-written with Kimberly Belflower) was named Best New Play by Austin’s Critic Circle and follows six obsessed teen girl fans when their favorite boy band crashes their tour bus.
Her work has been called “suburban punk poetry,” and “like I don’t know I’m going to be thinking about a big deal thing, and then suddenly, I am, but like, I’m like laughing and then I’m crying and like, I don’t mind, you know?”
Among her other plays are Cycle Play (a two woman thriller that takes place in a Soul Cycle), Marry Me, Bruno Mars (a socio-comic caper about QAnon believer on a rescue mission) and Batman Returns Returns (an indie-holiday-musical adaptation of Tim Burton’s 90s classic) which she created with installation artist Terror Pigeon at Austin’s Museum of Human Achievement (MOHA).
Upcoming projects include a commission from Inner City Arts youth programs in Los Angeles, the world premiere of her play Decapitations with Salvage Vanguard Theater in Austin, and writing and directing MOHA’s 2023 Christmas Musical Spectacular Edward Normalhands.
Her work has been developed, commissioned, and produced by the Alliance Theater, Salvage Vanguard Theater, Tofte Lake Center, the Workshop Theater, Paper Chairs, and Vanderbilt University, among others. She is a James A. Michener Fellow, Kundiman Fiction Fellow, Sewanee Writers' Conference Scholar, Seattle Public Theater Emerald Prize finalist, Playwrights' Realm Scratchpad Series semi-finalist, a 2021 Four Seasons Residency nominee, and was the 2021-2023 Emory Fellow of Playwriting.
She’s taught creative writing at Bennington College, Emory University, UT Austin and at non-profit programs for youth across the U.S. including Rude Mech’s Off Center Teens, the New South Young Playwrights Conference, and the Austin Bat Cave. Megan has an MFA in Playwriting and Fiction from the Michener Center for Writers in Austin, TX. She currently resides in Los Angeles where she assists award winning screenwriter, Sheila Callaghan and lives with her husband, playwright Drew Paryzer, and their cat Rylance.
Megan writes to create new mythologies, using pop cultural tropes as accessible entry points for absurd, hot button issues. A decorated playwright, Megan’s play Britney Approximately (an adaptation of Medea remixed with the Britney Spears conservatorship) played to sold-out audiences in Atlanta as part of Theater Emory’s 2023 season. Only Reason (co-written with Kimberly Belflower) was named Best New Play by Austin’s Critic Circle and follows six obsessed teen girl fans when their favorite boy band crashes their tour bus.
Her work has been called “suburban punk poetry,” and “like I don’t know I’m going to be thinking about a big deal thing, and then suddenly, I am, but like, I’m like laughing and then I’m crying and like, I don’t mind, you know?”
Among her other plays are Cycle Play (a two woman thriller that takes place in a Soul Cycle), Marry Me, Bruno Mars (a socio-comic caper about QAnon believer on a rescue mission) and Batman Returns Returns (an indie-holiday-musical adaptation of Tim Burton’s 90s classic) which she created with installation artist Terror Pigeon at Austin’s Museum of Human Achievement (MOHA).
Upcoming projects include a commission from Inner City Arts youth programs in Los Angeles, the world premiere of her play Decapitations with Salvage Vanguard Theater in Austin, and writing and directing MOHA’s 2023 Christmas Musical Spectacular Edward Normalhands.
Her work has been developed, commissioned, and produced by the Alliance Theater, Salvage Vanguard Theater, Tofte Lake Center, the Workshop Theater, Paper Chairs, and Vanderbilt University, among others. She is a James A. Michener Fellow, Kundiman Fiction Fellow, Sewanee Writers' Conference Scholar, Seattle Public Theater Emerald Prize finalist, Playwrights' Realm Scratchpad Series semi-finalist, a 2021 Four Seasons Residency nominee, and was the 2021-2023 Emory Fellow of Playwriting.
She’s taught creative writing at Bennington College, Emory University, UT Austin and at non-profit programs for youth across the U.S. including Rude Mech’s Off Center Teens, the New South Young Playwrights Conference, and the Austin Bat Cave. Megan has an MFA in Playwriting and Fiction from the Michener Center for Writers in Austin, TX. She currently resides in Los Angeles where she assists award winning screenwriter, Sheila Callaghan and lives with her husband, playwright Drew Paryzer, and their cat Rylance.