About

Hannah Irene Rubenstein is a New York City-based playwright, poet, and essayist whose work deals with intersecting themes of sisterhood, motherhood, childhood, bodily autonomy, grief, humor, nature, and community. She is interested in exploring grey space between culturally-conceived binaries: humor and grief, masculine and feminine, truth and imagination, isolation and community. In her work as a writer and arts administrator, she is committed to making the arts more accessible for all and fostering nuanced conversation around identity on and off stage.

Her produced playwriting projects include We Drift In and Out (New York Theater Festival, November 2025) and Wonder/Land (Barnard Movement Lab, 2024). She is a member of the New Perspectives Theater Company Women’s Work Short Play Lab, where she is developing a new piece that will premiere in August 2026. Hannah’s poetry, essays, and journalism have been published in the Broadway News, Bicoastal Review, Smoky Blue Literary & Arts Magazine, Michigan Public, Juilliard Journal, Meliora, Laurel Moon, and Communicator, among others. She ocassionally publishes musings on New York City theater on her Substack, Let Me Speak Freely. She is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild of America.

Hannah has worked as a writer, administrator, or creative collaborator with organizations including the MAP Fund, the Juilliard School (Drama Division), the Public Theater, Theatre for a New Audience, the New York Neo-Futurists, and Michigan Radio. Along with her creative writing, Hannah is a freelance copyeditor, dramaturg, and English tutor. 

Hannah is a graduate of Barnard College (English, Creative Writing, and Theatre) and recently completed postgraduate intensive writing courses with University of Oxford. At Barnard, she authored two senior theses. First, an in-depth research paper focused on the textual nuances and performance history of The Merchant of Venice, which grappled with the play’s antisemitic legacy and the potential for performance to re-shape our understanding of identity and social change. Second, a chapbook of original poems entitled What We Lost, which dealt with the intersection of personal, environmental, and political tragedy, and earned Barnard’s Helene Searcy Puls Prize in Poetry. Also at Barnard, Hannah directed and served as dramaturg for various campus theater productions.

Hannah was born and raised in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where she was a proud Community High School “Rainbow Zebra”. When she was 10 years old, she wrote, directed, designed, and starred in a production of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in her backyard, which may be her proudest theater credit to date.