Steven Cosson (born August 1968) is a writer and director specializing in the creation of new theater work inspired by real life. He is the founding Artistic Director of the New York-based investigative theater company The Civilians. Early life and education Cosson was born in the Washington, D.C. area. He received his BA from Dartmouth College and holds an MFA in directing from the University of California San Diego, where he studied under director and Joint Stock member Les Waters. Career Cosson led The Civilians as the first theater company in residence at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He wrote the first major American play about climate change, The Great Immensity, which generated significant controversy from Republicans in Congress and right-wing media, and was featured as a TED Talk at the main TED conference in 2012. Cosson collaborated repeatedly with composer Michael Friedman on works with The Civilians and other companies, until Friedman's death in 2017. Other notable accomplishments include developing and directing Anne Washburn's Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play, named the 4th Best American Play of the past 25 Years by The New York Times. Credits include: book-writer and director of The Abominables at Children's Theatre Company (2018) writer and director of The Undertaking at BAM Next Wave Festival (2016), US tour, Theatre de la Ville, Paris director of José Rivera's Another Word for Beauty, world premiere at the Goodman Theatre (2016) writer/director, Rimbaud in New York at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (2016) director of Michael Friedman and Bess Wohl's musical Pretty Filthy (2015) the Off-Broadway revival of The Belle of Amherst, starring Joely Richardson (2014) With The Civilians: writer/director of The Great Immensity (2014), music by Michael Friedman, created in residence with the Princeton Environmental Institute and the Princeton Atelier co-writer and director of This Beautiful City, which premiered in 2009 to excellent reviews at the Humana Festival of New American Plays and then completed a critically acclaimed run at the Vineyard Theatre (Drama Desk, Drama League, Lortel nominations) co-writer and director of Brooklyn at Eye Level, produced at Brooklyn's Lyceum Theatre in 2008 co-writer/director of Paris Commune produced in 2004 in The Public Theater's PublicLAB series writer/director of the long-running hit Gone Missing which toured for several years throughout the U.S. and the U.K., culminating in 2007 in a seven-month Off-Broadway run at Barrow Street Theater (New York Times’ Top 10 of 2007 list) writer/director (I