Judy Klass: Bio/Credits

Judy Klass is from the NY/NJ area originally. She is an unlikely person to write country music, but she has loved it since she was a kid, and it's a big part of why she re-located to Nashville in 2006. Judy went to Sarah Lawrence College as an undergraduate. She was a Truman Scholar. She has an M.Phil and D.Phil from Oxford University; she was at St. Antony's College, reading in Politics/Latin American Studies, and her dissertation was on Nicaraguan communication media before, during and after the Sandinista Revolution, but she has found she prefers teaching literature and creative writing. She teaches at Vanderbilt University, mostly for the Departments of English and Jewish Studies. She also teaches for the MLAS graduate program, for Medicine, Health and Society and for the Department of Theatre.
The Cry of The Onlies is an original-series Star Trek novel she wrote while in college/graduate school. It's published by Pocket Books. Judy co-wrote the Showtime cable film In the Time of the Butterflies, based on the novel by Julia Alvarez. The film was released on DVD. Judy's original screenplay Au Pair Girl was optioned multiple times. She turned it into a YA novel, published by Itoh Press in 2012. The press has closed, and Judy is now the publisher of it. Judy co-wrote the song "Turn This Ship Around" with Phillip Sandifer. Phillip recorded it, and in 2020 it was included on the Hope Rises CD, produced by Music to Life. Judy co-wrote the song "Lost With You" with Jimmy Borja and Jacob Westfall. In 2021, it became a hit for Filipina star Maine Mendoza. With Rob Taube and with Simon Kirke of Bad Company, she wrote "Wind and the Rain," a song Simon put on his All Because of You album. Judy co-wrote eleven of the twelve songs on West Coast country artist Thad Foster's 2022 album Majestic with Thad, and she co-wrote Thad's song "Hell Bent and Heaven Bound" with him and Ted Russell Kamp. Judy co-wrote nine songs in the musical comedy film Cooking for Two, filmed in Hong Kong, available on Tubi TV.
Eight of Judy's full-length plays have been produced onstage (one is a co-write), and forty of her one-act plays have been produced onstage, all over the US, and a few have been produced in the UK and Ireland. Judy's full-length play Cell was produced in 2008 in a mystery festival in Kentucky. It was nominated for an Edgar and published by Samuel French in 2009. Her full-length play After Tartuffe was a NewBorn Festival Winner with Manhattan Theatre Works, got produced in the Fresh Fruit Festival in NYC in 2015, and it's now published by Next Stage Press. Her full-length play Country Fried Murder -- a whodunit it involving country music and divisions within the US -- won the S.O.P.S. competition and was produced at the Shawnee Playhouse in Pennsylvania in 2019. It had a production over Zoom during the pandemic with Quarantine Players, which was released as a Zoom recording on YouTube and as a podcast. In all, two of Judy's full-length plays and six of her one-act plays have been produced as podcasts. Filmed versions of two of her short pandemic plays stream from theshelterplays.com.
Three of Judy's short plays are published, each as a stand-alone script, by Brooklyn Publishers. Her short plays have appeared in magazines like the Rockhurst Review, Ponder Review, Synkroniciti, Corvus, Seven Hills Review and Fresh Words Magazine, as well as in anthologies, including The Best New Ten-Minute Plays 2021, Contemporary One Act Plays, Volume I and The Art of the One-Act.
Judy's first CD, Brooklyn Cowgirl, came out in 2005. In 2015 she released the follow-up CD: The Brooklyn Cowgirl Rides Again.
The Cry of The Onlies is an original-series Star Trek novel she wrote while in college/graduate school. It's published by Pocket Books. Judy co-wrote the Showtime cable film In the Time of the Butterflies, based on the novel by Julia Alvarez. The film was released on DVD. Judy's original screenplay Au Pair Girl was optioned multiple times. She turned it into a YA novel, published by Itoh Press in 2012. The press has closed, and Judy is now the publisher of it. Judy co-wrote the song "Turn This Ship Around" with Phillip Sandifer. Phillip recorded it, and in 2020 it was included on the Hope Rises CD, produced by Music to Life. Judy co-wrote the song "Lost With You" with Jimmy Borja and Jacob Westfall. In 2021, it became a hit for Filipina star Maine Mendoza. With Rob Taube and with Simon Kirke of Bad Company, she wrote "Wind and the Rain," a song Simon put on his All Because of You album. Judy co-wrote eleven of the twelve songs on West Coast country artist Thad Foster's 2022 album Majestic with Thad, and she co-wrote Thad's song "Hell Bent and Heaven Bound" with him and Ted Russell Kamp. Judy co-wrote nine songs in the musical comedy film Cooking for Two, filmed in Hong Kong, available on Tubi TV.
Eight of Judy's full-length plays have been produced onstage (one is a co-write), and forty of her one-act plays have been produced onstage, all over the US, and a few have been produced in the UK and Ireland. Judy's full-length play Cell was produced in 2008 in a mystery festival in Kentucky. It was nominated for an Edgar and published by Samuel French in 2009. Her full-length play After Tartuffe was a NewBorn Festival Winner with Manhattan Theatre Works, got produced in the Fresh Fruit Festival in NYC in 2015, and it's now published by Next Stage Press. Her full-length play Country Fried Murder -- a whodunit it involving country music and divisions within the US -- won the S.O.P.S. competition and was produced at the Shawnee Playhouse in Pennsylvania in 2019. It had a production over Zoom during the pandemic with Quarantine Players, which was released as a Zoom recording on YouTube and as a podcast. In all, two of Judy's full-length plays and six of her one-act plays have been produced as podcasts. Filmed versions of two of her short pandemic plays stream from theshelterplays.com.
Three of Judy's short plays are published, each as a stand-alone script, by Brooklyn Publishers. Her short plays have appeared in magazines like the Rockhurst Review, Ponder Review, Synkroniciti, Corvus, Seven Hills Review and Fresh Words Magazine, as well as in anthologies, including The Best New Ten-Minute Plays 2021, Contemporary One Act Plays, Volume I and The Art of the One-Act.
Judy's first CD, Brooklyn Cowgirl, came out in 2005. In 2015 she released the follow-up CD: The Brooklyn Cowgirl Rides Again.