Playwright
Performer
Satirist
Joanna Castle Miller
Joanna Castle Miller is a NY-based playwright, performer, and satirist.
Recent work includes the plays CONVERSA (2024 JPP Special Finalist), EKPHRASIS (We the Women), INFERNA (world premiere 2026), Sh@med (Jewish Plays Project finalist, Kilroy’s List), around and around and around the static sun (McNerney Prize Finalist), My Child Blank, The Storehouse, and Fox News the Musical. Her short plays include The World’s Next Tooth Fairy Is Marci Peterson, The Being Heard Academy, and Parasite. Film/TV work includes Sorta My Thing (Funny or Die), Ash (Generative Films), and Keep This Far Apart (We the Women). Joanna was a recent New York Stage and Film Nexus Fellow and is currently under commission by We the Women Collective. Her Deconstruction series (INFERNA, CONVERSA, and VIRGINIA) are in development now, with CONVERSA and INFERNA slated to premiere in the 2025-26 season at Theatre Lab in Boca Raton. Her latest solo show They Painted Us Real is currently in development.
As a comedian, Joanna is the co-creator and host of The Town Criers: Improv Inspired by [Your Hometown] and hosts the popular Hudson Valley all-women comedy show The Hudson Valley Bechdel Test.
Joanna’s satire and monologues have appeared in Time, McSweeney’s, The Hill, Applause Books, and The Belladonna, and her sketches have been featured on Funny or Die, WhoHaha, and Comedy Cake. She is the creator and host of Red, White, and Dad – a web show chronicling her father’s 2016 campaign for POTUS (he, and this cannot be stressed enough, is not the guy who won).
Joanna is a passionate teacher and advocate for new work. She offers dramaturgy consultations and private coaching sessions, along with workshops and classes in satire, sketch comedy, and solo show development.
As the founder and executive producer of Wait Don’t Leave Productions, Joanna focuses on projects related to historical memory. She is a co-founder of Hire Survivors Broadway, which works to end retaliation against survivors of sexual violence in the theatre industry. Born and raised in Memphis, she is a proud member of SAG-AFTRA and the Dramatists Guild and enjoys good bourbon, bad words, and quality time.
In their words…
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"Charming and earnest. A different kind of political conversation."
Fortune
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"Very funny... sharp satire in disguise."
The Daily Beast
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"Dark and complicated themes...balanced with a dose of wry, sharp comedy."
N.M. – Playwright
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"Peeling away layers of contradiction, Castle Miller leans into her truth and has you questioning your own."
J.P. – Playwright
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“Compassionate, knowledgeable, enthusiastic, open as an artist and skilled in putting together an inspiring mix of observation and action for a variety of students.”
Former Student
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“Warm and welcoming. Peppy. Fun. And with a healthy attitude toward criticism, which is essential.”
Former student
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"Powerful, honest, brave, and theatrically exciting. Castle Miller is telling a difficult story in a creative way, structuring her play in a way that makes it feel appropriately intimate, devastating, and, despite everything, often very humorous."
G.R. – Educator, Writer, and Dramaturg
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“We are awash in stories in this culture, told to us since childhood, with the capacity to cause incredible harm if we don't stop and examine them. Joanna Castle Miller's own story, by turns hilarious and heartbreaking, is an unsparing look at the myths we tell ourselves, how they can curdle into delusion, and how to bring honesty back into our lives. Vivid and visceral.”
M.O. – Writer and Producer
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"(Joanna has) an incredible knack for presenting really difficult situations with compassion and humor - and done in a way that is so well-crafted."
J.S. – Playwright and Performer
