Lucy O’Brien began her writing career at seventeen upon winning the Playmarket Young Playwright Award for her script Life’s Little Losses, which was performed in the 2001 Wellington Fringe Fes- tival and described in the Evening Post review as ‘the best of the Fringe’. She subsequently spent three years completing a BA in Film and Theatre at Victoria University, and in 2005 she achieved her MA in Scriptwriting, studying under mentor Ken Duncum. That year, O’Brien also won the Embassy Trust Theatre Prize for her the- sis project, the feature-length play Katydid.
After finishing her studies, O’Brien moved into different media, including writing the radio plays Fade Out and Window for Radio New Zealand National and working with the Gibson Group on their C4 TV series My Story. In 2007 O’Brien worked as a postal services officer for Australia Post, the inspiration for her black comedy theatre script, Postal. Postal was performed at BATS Theatre in 2009, and earned O’Brien a nomination for Outstanding New Playwright of the Year at the Chapman Tripp Theatre Awards.
Early in 2010, O’Brien co-wrote the popular Fringe show Who’s Neat? You! with Ralph McCubbin-Howell, which went on to win Best Theatre at the 2010 Wellington Fringe awards. During this time she also co-wrote the dialogue script for Blood Drive, an American video game released by Activision for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.
In August 2010, Katydid was performed at BATS Theatre to great acclaim, winning O’Brien Outstanding New Playwright of the Year at the Chapman Tripp Theatre Awards. O’Brien currently lives in Sydney.