Bella D. Poynton, Ph.D.

Bella Poynton is a playwright, director, and theatre scholar from Buffalo, NY. Her scholarly work has been published in Theatre/Practice, Global Performance Studies, the Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism, Texas Theatre Journal, and Comparative Drama. She currently serves as director of the Playwrights’ Wing at First Look Buffalo Theatre Company, literary manager Post-Industrial Productions, and program director of Medaille Summer Theatre camp at Medaille University. 

Poynton’s plays have been produced and developed nationwide at the Bechdel Group, Alleyway Theatre, the Great Plains Theatre Festival, Road Less Traveled Productions, Otherworld Theatre, Kitchen Theatre Company, Pittsburgh New Works Festival, and the Sam French OOB Festival to name a few. Her creative work has been published by Concord Theatricals, as well as The Best Ten-Minute Plays of 2019, The Best American Short Plays 2018-2019, The Weirdest Plays of 2020, and WE-US: Monologues for Gender Minority Characters. 

Poynton holds an MFA in Playwriting from The Iowa Playwrights Workshop and a PhD in Theatre and Performance Studies from the University at Buffalo.