Charlotte T. Martin is an award-winning writer, performer, teaching artist, and script consultant. They’re currently based in Philadelphia, PA.

They also go by “Chaz”,
which rhymes with “Nas”
as in Lil Nas X.

Charlotte T. Martin is a writer, teaching artist, and script consultant —which is altogether very shocking to her, too.

As a child, Charlotte was debilitatingly shy. Legend has it that if someone looked at them from across the aisle at the grocery store, they would burst into tears. Yet they were also a ham, prone to running around the house in a tireless loop, screaming most of the lyrics to “Jingle Bells”. To combat the shyness and provide them with an outlet for the hamminess, Charlotte’s mother forced them to audition for a community theater production of The Sound of Music. Charlotte was not cast, but they were forced to audition again for the next musical: Narnia. Though their costume bore more of a resemblance to Wile E. Coyote, they were supposedly cast as “the Fox”. And before you could say “Lady Gaga”, a star was born.

Their first week of high school, Charlotte dropped Public Speaking (a graduation requirement) not because they were still burdened with shyness, but because the instructor seemed out of her blonde mind. (She was, time would tell.) Instead, Charlotte doubled down on their nerdiness and rejoined Band—something they swore they were done with after the eighth grade. In the hallowed space of the band room, Charlotte met other musically-inclined nerds with whom they started a very legit band. Charlotte wrote 90% of the band’s lyrics. The band played one paid gig in a church basement and one unpaid gig at The World’s Largest Brat Fest. That’s “brat”, short for “bratwurst”. Google it.

The band broke up because everyone went to college. Charlotte went east to attend New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, from which they would graduate with a BFA in Drama. It was at acting school that they were first exposed to the sheer terror of having their scripts not only read aloud, but performed in front of people. It went well.

A cliché (but formative) barista job brought Charlotte face-to-face with some of their literary heroes. Not only doe Charlotte now know their coffee orders, but they were also gifted with exceptionally generous encouragement to continue writing, and to continue taking it seriously, and to get the hell out of New York if that’s what felt right.

Their short script, Melissa, was one of five projects to be selected for the Tribeca Film Institute’s Through Her Lens program in 2019, currently in development as a feature. They wrote and starred in the short film Chemistry, which has won numerous awards at film festivals across the country, and they’re expecting two shorts they co-wrote, Honeywell and Jesus Would Have Loved Punk Rock, to be released in 2023. They are currently in pre-production for their short, Girls’ Night, as of Fall 2022.

Charlotte is now based in Philadelphia, where they’re the Literary Manager for InterAct Theatre Company, as well as the 2022-23 Theater Management Fellow at Lantern Theater Company. Chaz is thrilled to be a member of The Foundry at PlayPenn in the 2022-23 cohort.

Charlotte’s adaptation of A Christmas Carol will have its world premiere at the Children’s Theater of Madison in December 2022.