Doris Baizley was born in Portland, Maine, raised in Philadelphia and lives in Los Angeles where she teaches at Loyola Marymount University. For seven years she was resident playwright for the Mark Taper Forum's ITP Company for young audiences and dramaturg for its Other Voices Program for theater artists with disabilities. Her plays include MRS. CALIFORNIA, SHILOH RULES, A CHRISTMAS CAROL (DPS), TEARS OF RAGE, and SEX STING, developed and produced at theatres including the Mark Taper Forum, ACT Seattle, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, and the Salt Lake Acting Company. Her adaptation of A CHRISTMAS CAROL was produced at the Alley Theater in Houston TX as their return to live theater in 2021. Her newest play SISTERS OF PEACE, was commissioned and produced at the History Theater in St. Paul MN in April 2019. Earlier plays for the History Theater are SISTER KENNY’S CHILDREN, and PEACE CRIMES: The Minnesota Eight vs. The War.

Documentary and community-based plays include ONE DAY: LIVING AND DREAMING IN HOSPICE, winner of a 2009 Santa Barbara Independent Press Award for best original script. SEX STING, written with criminal defense attorney Susan Raffanti, won the first Guthrie Theater /Playwrights Center Two-Headed Challenge Commission, was produced by the Skylight Theatre in Los Angeles in 2013. With Victoria Ann Lewis she co-edited PH*REAKS: The Hidden History of People with Disabilities composed in the Other Voices workshop at the Mark Taper Forum.

As story editor for documentary films she has worked with editor Mary Lampson on: EMILE NORMAN: BY HIS OWN DESIGN, winner of the Miami Gay and Lesbian Film Festival HBO Audience Award, 2007; WE STILL LIVE HERE! AS NUTAYANEAN, directed by Anne Makepeace, winner Full Frame Documentary Festival Inspiration Award and Telluride Moving Mountains Award 2011; REBELS WITH A CAUSE, directed by Nancy Kelley and Kenji Yamamoto, winner Mill Valley Film Festival Audience Award, 2012. Most recently she was story editor on Anne Makepeace’s TRIBAL JUSTICE, seen on the PBS series POV in 2018. She teaches Voices of Justice, a documentary theater workshop class, at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.