Paul Kelly

A native of Syracuse, New York, Paul M. Kelly graduated from Le Moyne College where he received a bachelor's degree in business. After working for five years in the law office of a former U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of New York, he moved to New York City in 1985 and taught accounting and business courses at a parochial high school. During this time, Kelly began studying at Fordham University's Graduate School of Education where he earned a master's and doctorate in higher education administration. In 1987, Kelly joined the administrative staff at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in Manhattan as a registrar and academic advisor to graduate and undergraduate students. He also taught as an adjunct associate professor of English. For 28 years he maintained continuous employment at the college while pursuing an active career as a playwright and filmmaker. His published plays have consistently received positive reviews and have been particularly popular with audiences in stage performances at Off-Broadway and Regional Theatres. He is a member of the Dramatists Guild of America. In 2019, as an acknowledgment of his achievements and dedication to the Guild, Kelly was awarded a Lifetime Membership. Kelly is a founding member of two New York City playwriting groups. His work has made the leap from stage to screen where he wrote, directed and produced the SAG-AFTRA short films, Fermented (2010), My Day (2013), Last Words (2014), Now (2016), Final Polish (2017) and Bard Words (2020). His films have won several festival and competition awards. Kelly's super short films include, Another Visit (2015), Who Ate All the Children? (2016), MT7 (2016), Free (2016), Bruno, Maya and the Pothole (2016), Rough Road (2016), The Unattended (2018), Fowl Fury (2019), Burying Chekhov (2019), Elegy (2019), A Flying Squirrel's Tale (2019), Origin Story (2019), A Head Above the Rest (2020), Wishful Keep (2020) and Uncaught (2020). When feeling the creative need to recharge, Kelly retreats to his lake house in the Finger Lakes Region of Upstate New York where he develops scripts for future stage and film projects.