Matthew Edward Gustavsen: avid hiker; gamer; fan of all animals, plants, and fungi; lover of the Adirondacks and the Great Smoky Mountains; playwright; actor; director. As a playwright, he channels his love for the natural world and all the misunderstood souls who occupy it into the characters whose inner lives make his plays worth writing.

In 2013, Matthew brought his one-act play “Superacid” to the Lower East Side of Manhattan. A small crowd gathered inside Arlene’s Grocery on Easter Sunday to watch a cast of three raise Matthew’s characters from the silence of the page. In 2019, “Time Juice,” another one-act, sprang to life as part of the Kicking & Swearing One-Act Festival in Rahway, NJ.

Dancing Mad, a 2025 Stanley Drama Award semifinalist, is the first of Matthew’s full-length plays to make it to the stage. It is the culmination of ten years of growth and collaboration with a small army of beautiful weirdos. It is also Matthew’s most intimate work, written from the heart in the wake of COVID-era trauma.