The Secret Garden

Jeannine Coloumbe – Jeannine is an award-winning playwright, theatre artist and educator based in Minnesota. She is the author of several full-length plays for adult audiences, including Homegrown, The Mill, Hummingbirds, and The Vacant Lot as well as numerous shorter works. Her adult work has been produced at Upright Citizens Brigade, New Georges, Manhattan Repertory, Producer’s Theatre, History Theatre, Wonderlust, Clubbed Thumb, Minnesota Fringe and others. Ms. Coulombe also authored more than fifteen script adaptations of children’s literature, including the novels Where the Mountain Meets the Moon and Starry River of the Sky (both by Grace Lin), Crenshaw (by Katharine Applegate), Raymie Nightingale (by Kate DiCamillo), Iron-Hearted Violet (by Kelly Barnhill) and Fish in a Tree (by Lynda Mullaly-Hunt), and the picture books Zen Shorts and Zen Ties (both by Jon J. Muth). She also wrote the lyrics and book for the musical adaptations of I Love You Stinky Face, Stone Soup, Whoever You Are, and One-Dog Canoe, which featured music by the Grammy Award winning Okie-Dokie Brothers. Her plays for young audiences have been produced at Stages Theatre Company, Wheelock Family Theatre, Synchronicity Theatre, Community Asian Theatre of the Sierra, Harwich Junior Theatre, and many schools across the US. Her shorter plays for young audiences have been produced in classrooms, training programs, and schools throughout the country. In addition to playwriting, Ms. Coulombe was a founding member of the Workhaus Playwrights Collective and Theatre Unbound, both based in Minneapolis. She was also the literary manager at Stages Theatre Company in the Twin Cities where she worked with young performers, playwrights, and composers to develop dozens of plays for young audiences. As a teaching artist, Ms. Coulombe has worked in hundreds of K-12 classrooms throughout the Midwest and has trained hundreds of young actors. She has also worked as a dramaturg, director, and producer. Her work has been published by Dramatic Publishing, Smith & Kraus, and Heinemann. She received her MFA from the University of Iowa’s Playwrights Workshop and her BFA in Theatre and BA in History from the University of Minnesota-Duluth.