Playwright Heidi Kraay (she/they) flirts with other disciplines to examine the links between brain and body on personal, global, mythic scales in theatrical, expressive, impossible ways.
Cultivating a daily writing practice adapted from Natalie Goldberg/Julia Cameron approaches taught Heidi to trust her mind. Training through workshops in Alexander Technique, Viewpoints and Suzuki Method opened her senses to theatrical time/space. Experimenting in a multiplicity of writing, movement and stillness practices opened them to the awakening, healing nature of art in mind/body as well as the (meta)physical potential of creative, dramatic ritual.
Plays, including TrapDoor, Take Me Away, see in the dark, How to Hide Your Monster, New Eden and CloudMelt have been presented where she lives in Boise, regionally, in NYC and internationally. Climate Change Theatre Action commissioned two micro-plays, Tree People (2023) and DreamSong (2021), to present worldwide. Her play for middle-grade audiences Wolf/Girl received its university premiere at Boise State University (2024).
Heidi was a founding associate artist for Migration Theory from 2015-2021, for which they co-devised SuperSecretSiteSpecificSomething (also for BCT) and small matters. Other co-devised work include HomeGrown Theatre’s DIRT, leading BCT Theater Lab students to co-create plays between 2013 and 2017 and teaching BSU students in devising classes since 2022.
Heidi is a three-time Seven Devils Playwrights Conference, Valdez Theatre Conference and National Winter Playwrights Retreat alum. She has received grants from The Cabin, Covid Cultural Commissioning Fund, Idaho Commission on the Arts, Alexa Rose Foundation, Boise City Department of Arts & History and Boise Weekly. Finalist placements include the Women’s Playwrights’ Initiative, City Theatre, Southwest Theatre Productions, Purple Crayon Players, The Local Theater and Creede Repertory Theatre. Semi-finalist awards include Eugene O’Neill Center, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, Seven Devils, Dramatists Guild Foundation, PlayPenn, Screencraft, Unicorn Theatre, UP Theater Company and B-Street Theatre.
Selected drama, poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction is published through the Arts & Climate Initiative, Applause, Smith & Kraus, Magical Women Magazine and Dramatist Guild Magazine. A chapbook album Drown to Resurface is available on Bandcamp. Their memoir-adjacent book in the ancient century form 12 Lifetimes: A Century Cycle is available through Modern Mythographer.
An inaugural Boise City Writer-in-Residence in 2024, in 2025 she traversed inner/outer wildernesses at Ketchum’s Hemingway House. In 2014 Boise State NPR named Heidi one of Boise’s 5 top emerging artists. They hold a BA in Theatre Arts from Boise State University, with emphases in Dramatic Writing and Design, and an MFA in Creative Inquiry, Interdisciplinary Arts from California Institute of Integral Studies. She is pursuing a certificate in Writing for the Stage through PlayPenn (formerly through the Dramatist Guild Institute) and is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild of America.
Heidi teaches through the Department of Theatre, Film and Creative Writing at Boise State University (awarded Adjunct of the Year 2026) and The Cabin. Heidi is available to facilitate workshops, midwife projects and mentor artists of all disciplines.
Heidi transforms monstrous memories into mythic theater, so we can all learn to trust our inner selves and move forward.
Cultivating a daily writing practice adapted from Natalie Goldberg/Julia Cameron approaches taught Heidi to trust her mind. Training through workshops in Alexander Technique, Viewpoints and Suzuki Method opened her senses to theatrical time/space. Experimenting in a multiplicity of writing, movement and stillness practices opened them to the awakening, healing nature of art in mind/body as well as the (meta)physical potential of creative, dramatic ritual.
Plays, including TrapDoor, Take Me Away, see in the dark, How to Hide Your Monster, New Eden and CloudMelt have been presented where she lives in Boise, regionally, in NYC and internationally. Climate Change Theatre Action commissioned two micro-plays, Tree People (2023) and DreamSong (2021), to present worldwide. Her play for middle-grade audiences Wolf/Girl received its university premiere at Boise State University (2024).
Heidi was a founding associate artist for Migration Theory from 2015-2021, for which they co-devised SuperSecretSiteSpecificSomething (also for BCT) and small matters. Other co-devised work include HomeGrown Theatre’s DIRT, leading BCT Theater Lab students to co-create plays between 2013 and 2017 and teaching BSU students in devising classes since 2022.
Heidi is a three-time Seven Devils Playwrights Conference, Valdez Theatre Conference and National Winter Playwrights Retreat alum. She has received grants from The Cabin, Covid Cultural Commissioning Fund, Idaho Commission on the Arts, Alexa Rose Foundation, Boise City Department of Arts & History and Boise Weekly. Finalist placements include the Women’s Playwrights’ Initiative, City Theatre, Southwest Theatre Productions, Purple Crayon Players, The Local Theater and Creede Repertory Theatre. Semi-finalist awards include Eugene O’Neill Center, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, Seven Devils, Dramatists Guild Foundation, PlayPenn, Screencraft, Unicorn Theatre, UP Theater Company and B-Street Theatre.
Selected drama, poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction is published through the Arts & Climate Initiative, Applause, Smith & Kraus, Magical Women Magazine and Dramatist Guild Magazine. A chapbook album Drown to Resurface is available on Bandcamp. Their memoir-adjacent book in the ancient century form 12 Lifetimes: A Century Cycle is available through Modern Mythographer.
An inaugural Boise City Writer-in-Residence in 2024, in 2025 she traversed inner/outer wildernesses at Ketchum’s Hemingway House. In 2014 Boise State NPR named Heidi one of Boise’s 5 top emerging artists. They hold a BA in Theatre Arts from Boise State University, with emphases in Dramatic Writing and Design, and an MFA in Creative Inquiry, Interdisciplinary Arts from California Institute of Integral Studies. She is pursuing a certificate in Writing for the Stage through PlayPenn (formerly through the Dramatist Guild Institute) and is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild of America.
Heidi teaches through the Department of Theatre, Film and Creative Writing at Boise State University (awarded Adjunct of the Year 2026) and The Cabin. Heidi is available to facilitate workshops, midwife projects and mentor artists of all disciplines.
Heidi transforms monstrous memories into mythic theater, so we can all learn to trust our inner selves and move forward.