Brian Guehring is the award-winning Playwright in Residence of the Omaha Theater Company, (one of the nation’s ten largest professional theaters for young people).  Brian’s scripts have won several national and regional awards.  His play Sherlock Holmes and the First Baker Street Irregular won a Distinguished Play Award from American Alliance for Theater Education.  His original play Popularity Coach was selected for development by New York University’s New Plays for Young Audiences in 2019. His script The Bully Show was selected for the 2002 New Visions/New Voices new play development workshop at the Kennedy Center.  His original Theater in Education play The Super Adventures of Nutrition Man and Dr. Exercise and his adaptations of  Where the Red Fern Grows and Old Yeller won AATE (American Alliance for Theater and Education) Unpublished Play Project Awards.  Brian received a playwriting fellowship from the Nebraska Arts Council in 2002.  His original script script King Chemo won the Southwest Theater Association’s 1997 Best New Play for Children, and his original play Creating Haley’s World was selected in 2003 by the Children’s Theatre Foundation for development in the inaugural Playwrights in the Schools program.

At the Rose, Brian has adapted the world premiere scripts of the Newberry Award winning novel Julie of the Wolves (directed by Everett Quinton), Miss Bindergarten, If You Give a Cat a Cupcake, Holidays Around the World, and The Grocer’s Goblin and The Little Mermaid.  Brian has also written many large cast youth shows for summer camps with cast ranging from 12-60 performers such as Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, The Terrible Tales of Trolls, Munro’s Melodramatic Evil Scheme, and The Totally True Tall Tales of Pecos Bill.  He has also written several interactive touring shows tied to curriculum including  The Mysterious Case Files of Silver Cash Money Detective,  The Bully Show, Nebraskaland! The New Nebraska History Theme Park, and The Super Adventures of Pyramid Man and Dr. Nutrition. His plays have been produced by Imagination Stage in Washington, D.C., Lexington Children’s Theater, Walnut Street Theater in Philadelphia, Barter Theater of Virginia , South Carolina Children’s Theater, A. D. Players in Houston,  Apple Tree Theater for Young Audiences in Chicago, Town Hall Theater in Dayton, and other schools and theaters.  Where the Red Fern Grows and Old Yeller both had national tours. 

Sherlock Holmes and the First Baker Street Irregular, The Brave Little Tailor, The Many Disguises of Robin Hood, Stronger than Strong: Great American Tall Tale Heroines, King Chemo and The Bully Show are published by Dramatic Publishing Company.  His short play Mindless Drooling Teenage Zombie Bullies is included in the Dramatic Publishing anthology The Bully Plays and his short play Jesse the Great’s Guide to Surviving a Pandemic is included in the Dramatic Publishing anthology I Have a Story.

Brian is also a teaching artist at the Omaha Theater Company which does drama education outreach for every single child in over 70 local schools each year. He has lead the teen young playwrights program there for over 24 years and ran the education department for over 15 years.  In 2016, Brian was honored by the Children’s Theater Foundation with the Orlin Corey Medallion Award for significant achievements for the enrichment of children in the United States and Canada through nurturing artistic work in theatre and the arts. He was awarded a Lin Wright Special Recognition Award from the American Alliance for Theater and Education in 2013. Brian has served on the Board of Theater For Young Audiences/USA and the Pride Youth Theater Alliance.

Brian Guehring has received regional and national attention for his work using improvisational drama with gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered and straight allied youth. The teen theater troupe he co-founded and co-directs  at the Omaha Theater Company at the Rose is  Pride Players (which uses improvisation to explore issues facing gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer and straight allied teens).  Pride Players recently celebrated its 20th season.  He presented his work at several American Alliance for Theater and Education national conferences, the national LGBT Task Force Conference in 2006, the Texas Network of Youth Services Annual Conference, and won a prestigious Rockefeller Foundation Grant.  Pride Players won a Human and Civil Rights Award from the National Education Association in 2006 and hosted a National Queer Youth Theater Director Retreat in the summer of 2011.

He earned his MFA in children’s theater and creative drama from University of Texas at Austin.  Brian has been teaching theater, acting, creative drama, improvisation, musical theater and playwriting for over 25 years for students aged 4 through college.  He has worked as an Artist in Schools in Texas, Georgia, Iowa and Nebraska.  He has taught for numerous organizations including University of Texas at Austin, Macon State College, Omaha Theater Ballet, Omaha Symphony, Nebraska Arts Council, and the Texas Young Playwrights Festival.

Brian Guehring has also been a member of the resident acting company at the Omaha Theater Company for Young People for more than 20 years.  He has been seen on stage as the Frog in A Year with Frog and Toad,  Lord Farquaad in Shrek, Prince John/Will Scarlett in Robin Hood, and in ballets as Uncle Drosselmier/Mouse King in the Nutcracker and Stepsister in Cinderella.  Brian earned his BA in theater from Duke University.

Brian has been happily married to his husband Michael for over 25 years and spends lots of time at home spoiling his rescue dogs, watching Disney and Pixar movies, baking, and reading mysteries.