Brenden Dahl (he/they) is a 20-year-old playwright, theater artist, and educator from Philadelphia. He has worked with many theatre companies in the Philadelphia and New York areas as an actor, playwright, and communications manager, and currently attends Northwestern University as a Theatre Major in the Class of 2025. His plays have been produced by Philadelphia Young Playwrights, Temple University, MacGuffin Theatre and Film, and Theatre Exile, and he has taught numerous classes and workshops on improvisation and playwriting at the elementary and high school levels. He has won National Gold Medals through the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards (including a Senior Portfolio award), was a YoungArts National Merit Selection for Dramatic Writing, and was the inaugural 2020 Playwright-in-Residence at Philadelphia Young Playwrights.

​In production, Brenden is drawn to inherently collaborative work, and has a strong passion for improvisation and devised creation. He is also drawn to work that advocates for social justice, empowers young people, and makes theater and theater education available to those who don't often get to experience it. In his writing, Brenden aims to reveal reality through the surreal, and to explore consciousness through the subconscious. He writes stories of complex psyches set in parallel or future worlds, but not in an overtly dystopian or premonitory way, rather in a provocatively hopeful one.