Martyna Majok

Martyna Majok is a Polish-born American playwright. She was born in Bytom, southern Poland and emigrated to the United States with her mother as a child. She grew up in New Jersey and had her first taste of theatre watching Sam Mendes’ production of Cabaret at Studio 54 in New York, aged 17. Majok attended the University of Chicago and then went on to study at the Yale School of Drama and the Juilliard School, all with the assistance of scholarships. From 2012–13, Majok became a playwright-in-residence at the National New Playwright Network (NNPN), and subsequently became the 2015–16 Playwrights of New York (PoNY) Fellow at The Lark, and a 2018–19 Hodder Fellow at Princeton University.

Majok had her breakthrough with her 2014 play Ironbound, which examines the American Dream through the eyes of a Polish immigrant named Darja. After premiering at the Steppenwolf Theatre, Chicago, the play had an Off-Broadway run at the Rattlestick Playwrights Theater in 2016. Ironbound won multiple awards and was The New York Times critic's pick. Majok followed this success with her 2016 play Cost of Living, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama after a hugely successful Off-Broadway run. In 2018, the premiere of Queens took place at the Lincoln Center's LCT3/Claire Tow Theater. Based around a group of immigrant women living illegally in a basement, the play has since been picked up by HBO to be developed into a television series. Majok’s latest play Sanctuary City reopened in September 2021, after a short initial run in 2020 before its closure due to the COVID-19 pandemic.