John Nassivera was born in 1950. He graduated from Hudson Falls High School in 1968. He attended college in the U.S., in Italy, and in Canada, receiving his B.A. from Boston University in 1972, and his PhD. from McGill University in 1977.

After graduate school he moved to Manhattan to teach at Columbia University, where he became a lifetime Fellow of Columbia’s Society of Fellows in the Humanities. At that time he began playwriting and his plays have since been presented around the United States, including New York, Miamg, Washington and Phoenix, and have received a National Endowment for the Arts Award.

John Nassivera was the Founding Producing Director of the award-winning Dorset Theatre Festival in Vermont, and he co-produced plays in New York as well. He also founded the Dorset Colony for Writers, for authors from across the U.S.

Professor Nassivera is now on the faculty of Green Mountain College in Vermont, where he greatly enjoys teaching drama, literature, and writing.