Biography

Dan Bernitt is a nationally-touring solo performer. Since 2004, he has toured his work in festivals in the United States, from Minneapolis and Cape Cod to Cincinnati and New York. He is a recipient of grants from the Kentucky Center for the Arts, the University of Kentucky, and the Kentucky Arts Council. Accolades for his solo show Thanks for the Scabies, Jerkface! include Top 10 of KC Fringe performances, Stage Pick from the Berkshires’ Valley Advocate, Fringe Encore from the Minnesota Fringe Festival (an extra performance for each venue’s top-selling shows), a Voice Choice from the Village Voice, and an Off-Off Broadway Critic's Pick from Backstage Magazine.

Dose: Plays & Monologues, his collection of plays and performance texts, was published in 2007 by Sawyer House Press. It is a current finalist for the 2008 Lambda Literary Award in Drama.

In 2005 and 2006, he directed the V-Day performances of The Vagina Monologues at the University of Kentucky; the performances helped raise $10,000 for Kentucky organizations dedicated to ending violence against women. Also in 2005, he performed music and poetry for ‘Sex and the Country: An Aphrodisiac Dinner with Candace Bushnell’, an event presented by the Kentucky Women Writers Conference.

A Gaines Fellow and member of the Honors Program at the University of Kentucky, he is a graduate of the undergraduate arts administration program. He has also served as creative writing assistant faculty for the Kentucky Governor’s School for the Arts, a program of which is a graduate.

Frederick Smock, poet-in-residence at Bellarmine University, described Dan and his work best: "Serious, smart, dedicated. He is a young man seemingly without limitations."