Tom Horan is a Writer, Sound Designer, and Educator.

Currently, Tom serves as Playwright-in-Residence at The Phoenix Theatre in Indianapolis, originally through a grant from NNPN. He has premiered four shows at the Phoenix: TYPHOID MARY, which received development help from Stage West Theatre, The Lark Play Development, the 2014 NNPN Showcase; ACID DOLPHIN EXPERIMENT, a kaleidoscopic look at the life of John C. Lilly; LEYENDA, a collaborative creation with Producing Director Bryan Fonseca based off Latino Folk Tales, and STATIC, a looping ghost story developed at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (Washington D.C), the Source Festival (Washington D.C.), as well as the University of Texas at Austin, where Tom received his MFA. In addition, Tom has curated the annual Christmas show, designed sound for a couple dozen plays, and highlighted community members in the Phoenix Honors series. 

Alongside his conventional playwriting Tom has worked on a number of collaborative projects. Notably, he co-founded The Duplicates and, with them, he served as Script and Sound Designer for over a half a dozen plays, including a site-specific spectacle about the Dionne quintuplets entitled THE FICTIONAL LIFE OF HISTORICAL ODDITIES, a love story told with objects entitled THE MAN WITH THE DANCING EYES, a playful memorial entitled SEPTEMBER PLAY, and a drive-in puppet theater about Elvis’ car entitled ELVIS MACHINE. THE POISON SQUAD, about chemist Harvey Wiley, earned six Austin Critics Table nominations, including Sound Design, Drama Production and New Play, winning awards for Lighting and Ensemble.

Other work includes: an adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut’s MOTHER NIGHT, commissioned by the Vonnegut Museum for the 2017 Indy Fringe (Indianapolis); I’M GOING TO DO THIS FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE, a commissioned piece for the University of Indianapolis based off interviews with addicts; his play TYPHOID MARY, which served as the inaugural production at Queen City Theater (Cincinnati); his solo toy theater play, THE KING AND CLOCKMAKER, which received Best-of-Week and Best-of-Fest honors at FronteraFest (Austin) and a subsequent production with Great Small Works (New York City); and 13 DEAD HUSBANDS, which received funding from the Department of Cultural Affairs (Chicago).

Tom works as a tenure-track Assistant Professor of Playwriting at Ball State University.