Marc is a university professor, bestselling author, playwright, actor and NCAA baseball coach. In 2023 he was awarded a Citation of Honor by the Office of the Borough President of Queens, New York City. He is the two-time recipient of Mercy University's Outstanding Research Award (2023, 2025) and their 2022 Faculty Innovation Award, and of the Jerome Lowell DeJur Award from The City College of New York's MFA in Creative Writing.  

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Marc's memoir, She Danced With Lightning (Post Hill Press) was published in August of 2022. See the book's page.

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Marc's plays include Poor Fellas, Carl The Second, Levittown, The Groundling, and Waiting For The Host, all of which are published by Dramatists Play Service, Inc. His adaptation of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night opened at Axis Company NYC in April, 2024 to critical acclaim (receiving one Drama Desk nomination for Costume Design.) Holli Harms in Front Row Center wrote, “Marc Palmieri’s brilliant adaptation… is pure story; accessible, lovely and flowing." Helen Shaw of The New Yorker called the show in her review, "A design and staging triumph." The adaptation is published by Theatrical Rights Worldwide .  

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Marc's play set in the COVID pandemic, Waiting For The Host  premiered at Penn State Centre Stage in April 2020 directed by Rick Lombardo. It was the first American professionally produced play to premiere online. TDF Stages' Raven Snook wrote, "...a comedic show within a show...The brainchild of NYC-based playwright Marc Palmieri, the play just may be the first full-length work written for our new surreality.” The show was then produced with a second act at The Red House Arts Center (directed by Tony nominee Hunter Foster). Broadway World wrote: “Waiting For the Host...allows a new work, a new approach to theater, a new approach to performing, a new approach to directing to take place and it is definitely entertaining...It is real, raw, and brings some much-needed laughter; exactly what theater is supposed to do.”  The play continues to have multiple productions (on the live stage) across the country and beyond, making its Hawaiian debut at Manoa Valley Theatre and international debut with Singapore's  Pangdemonium Theatre Company.

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Marc's play Levittown, critic Neil Genzlinger wrote in his New York Times "Critic's Pick" review, "You won't stop watching for a second." The play was first workshopped and presented at the Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre's Exposure Festival in 2004 (directed by Tony Award winner Thomas Kail), premiering in full production at Axis Theatre in 2006 and again in 2009 at Theatre at Saint Clements (directed by George Demas). Time Out NY wrote,  "A drama that’ll send you screaming out of the family room. Interesting, mine-filled terrain…[LEVITTOWN] reveals the damaging side of paternal love, reaching heights of agony that are painful to watch.”​

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Theatremania called  Marc's play The Groundling "One of the surprise downtown gems of the season." Alexis Soloski of The New York Times described The Groundling as "Half comedy, half tragedy, half verse, half prose...begins as formulaic farce. But Mr. Palmieri, borrowing a neat trick from Shakespeare, tops off this saccharine comedy with a nicely bittersweet finish." The play was workshopped and presented at South Coast Repertory's 2012 NewSCRipts Series, directed by Shelley Butler. Marc directed the 2015 world premiere at Axis Co. in NYC. 

Marc has published prose in Fiction (Issue 59 and Issue 64), The Global City Review (Issue 24), (Re) An Ideas Journal. He has published one-act plays, scenes and monologues in numerous anthologies with Smith & Kraus, Inc. and Applause Books. 

As an actor, Marc has worked with Axis Company, Classic Stage Company, Gorilla Rep, The Directors Company, Tectonic Theatre Project and many others. He played the lead role in David Maquiling's critically acclaimed feature film Too Much Sleep, which was distributed theatrically by Shooting Gallery, Inc. in 2001, by Starz Encore for TV and nominated for an IFP Spirit Award in 2002. The film, which critic Robert Ebert referred to as "an understated gem" was re-released on Blu Ray and for streaming by Whole Grain Pictures in 2024. Marc has done national commercials for Verizon, Toyota, Macy's, Heineken, Burger King, Microsoft, NY Lottery, Nike, Pizza Hut and others. His commercial reel is below. Marc is a fully vested member of Actors Equity and SAG-AFTRA. 

Marc wrote the screenplay for Miramax Films' 1999 feature, Telling You, starring Peter Facinelli and Jennifer Love Hewitt. He also directed a short film version of Shakespeare's Sonnet #138 for The Shakespeare Exchange's Sonnet Project and wrote and directed the web series The Thing at www.theplayis.com .

Marc is an Associate Professor at the School of Liberal Arts at Mercy University in Dobbs Ferry, NY, where he has taught courses in Shakespeare, film history, performance, playwriting and communications. Since 2011 Marc has also been the Kowald guest faculty member teaching playwriting, screenwriting and dramatic adaptation in the Creative Writing MFA Program at The City College of New York. 

Marc received a B.A. in Speech, Communications and Theatre Arts from Wake Forest University and both an M.A. and M.F.A. in  Creative Writing from The City College of New York.

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In 1989 Marc was drafted by the Toronto Blue Jays in the Major League Baseball Amateur Draft out of high school. He elected to accept an athletic scholarship to Wake Forest University, where he graduated the second winningest pitcher in program history. Marc served as varsity pitching coach at Chaminade High School in Mineola, NY, coaching for 10 years. He is currently a the NCAA Division II Mercy University Maverick's pitching coach. 

 

Contact: marcpal25@yahoo.com