R. Eric Thomas is the national bestselling author of Here For It, or How to Save Your Soul in America, a Read with Jenna book club pick featured on Today and “a laugh-out-loud memoir strongly recommended for everyone” (Library Journal). His biography of Rep. Maxine Waters, Reclaiming Her Time, co-authored with Helena Andrews-Dyer, makes “the case that political biographies shine bright when they have as much panache as their subject” (Washington Post). He is also a television writer (AppleTV+’s Dickinson, FX’s Better Things), a playwright, and the long-running host of The Moth in Philadelphia and D.C.. For four years he was a Senior Staff Writer for Elle.com where he wrote “Eric Reads the News,” a daily current events and culture column. He won the 2016 Barrymore Award for Best New Play and the 2018 Dramatists Guild Lanford Wilson Award.
He has been published multiple times in The New York Times, TIME, Philadelphia Inquirer, and Man Repeller, as well as Philadelphia Magazine, Newsworks, ThinkingDance, and others.
With over a million social media shares, Eric’s ELLE.com column “Eric Reads the News” has quickly become an online humor staple. Covering pop culture, politics and current events, the column is a sardonic and sassy take on our world. His play, TIME IS ON OUR SIDE, was commissioned by Simpatico Theater Project and developed with PlayPenn. It was the recipient of two 2016 Barrymore Awards, including Best New Play, and was named one of six finalists for the Harold and Mimi Steinberg American Theater Critics Association New Play Award. Of the play, The Philadelphia Inquirer wrote, “it’s a superbly crafted two-hour mystery… Thomas creates an entire world with seeming room for all of humanity’s hopes and dreams, foibles and longings.”
The world premiere of MRS. HARRISON was produced by Azuka Theatre and was nominated for 3 Barrymore Awards, including Best New Play. About it the Philadelphia Inquirer raved “Every once in a (great) while, a new work in Philadelphia premieres with such power and promise that it demands to be seen by a much wider audience. That play is Mrs. Harrison at Azuka Theatre. That playwright is R. Eric Thomas.”
Other plays include SAFE SPACE (Single Carrot Theater; development: Cohesion Theater Company Playwright’s Fellowship), BACKING TRACK (commission: Arden Theatre Company), MERLAND (commission: Baltimore Center Stage), THE EVER PRESENT (commission: Theatre Exile), CRYING ON TELEVISION (development: Ingram New Works Fellowship), INFINITY JONES NEEDS SOME SPACE! (development: Act II Theatre), NIGHTBIRD (development: Interact Theater Company/NNPN Commission), MIRIAM1234 (City Theater Shorts-On-Ships 2018; Finalist: City Theatre National National Award for Short Playwriting 2017), HUMAN RESOURCES (City Theatre Summer Shorts, 2015, Finalist: 2015 City Theatre National Award for Short Playwriting, published: City Theatre Anthology 2015), the wordless puppet play FRIEDA THE INVISIBLE WOMAN (developed with Aaron Cromie, FringeArts 2015), WHEN YOU PUT IT THAT WAY IT JUST SOUNDS RIDICULOUS (Finalist: 2014 City Theatre National Award for Short Playwriting), ALWAYS THE BRIDESMAID (Quince Productions).
Eric is an alumnus of The Foundry, a Philadelphia playwrights lab and InterAct Theatre Company’s Core Playwrights program. In 2017, he received a 2017/2018 National New Play Network Commission in conjunction with InterAct. He was a 2017 Lambda Literary Fellow, a 2018-2019 Ingram New Works Fellow, a member of Baltimore Center Stage’s Playwright’s Collective and the Cohesion Theater Company 2017 Playwright’s Fellowship.