Joseph Zettelmaier is a Florida-based playwright and four-time nominee for the Steinberg/American Theatre Critics Association Award for best new play, first in 2006 for All Childish Things, then in 2007 for Language Lessons, in 2010 for It Came From Mars and in 2012 for Dead Man’s Shoes. His plays The Stillness Between Breaths and It Came From Mars were selected to appear in the National New Play Network’s Festival of New Plays. and It Came From Mars was a recipient of 2009’s Edgerton Foundation New American Play Award. Dead Man’s Shoes won the Edgerton Foundation New American Play Award in 2011. In 2016, his play Pulp received a National New Play Network Rolling World Premiere, appearing at The Phoenix Theatre in Indianapolis, Williamston Theatre in Michigan, and The KNOW Theatre of Cincinnati. Recent films based on his plays include The Gravedigger (distributed by Indican Pictures) and Kindling (currently filming.) He is an At Large Ambassador to the National New Play Network and has served as an adjunct lecturer at Eastern Michigan University, Siena Heights University, Adrian College, and Schoolcraft College where he taught Playwriting and Screenwriting.

Joseph was profiled in the March 2012 issue of American Theatre Magazine.