Mary Tilden
Mary Tilden is a queer, Southern-born writer, director, actor, producer, and educator. Past work as an actor includes The Wolves at Goodman Theatre, which won a 2018 Jeff Award for Best Ensemble and Athena at Writers Theatre in the titular role. She has developed new work with The Kennedy Center, The Latinx Theatre Commons, Sideshow Theatre, Jackalope Theatre, The Neo-Futurists, Refracted Theatre and Steep Theatre. She is a proud member of the long-running improv team Devil’s Daughter.
In 2018, Mary co-starred in and co-produced the short film Cool for Five Seconds, which was featured at 22 festivals and received the Grand Prize at the Midwest Film Awards and Best Ensemble at the Milwaukee Shorts Fest in 2021. Mary won the Emerging Filmmaker award at the Midwest Film Festival in 2022 for her short film Rough River Lake. Other directing credits include Collaborate & Listen (Seriesfest 2025), The Unfinished Film(Seattle Queer Film Festival 2024) and FERN(Nominated for Best Comedy Short at New Filmmakers Los Angeles). Her next short film BUGGY will begin production in Fall 2026. Mary is passionate about telling stories that uplift queer, feminist perspectives.
Featured Artworks
"Cool for Five Seconds"
Midwest Film Festival winner of Emerging Filmmaker Award
"The Wolves"
"FERN" by Mary Tilden & Katherine Bourne Taylor
"Rough River Lake" by Mary Tilden
on the set of "Rough River Lake"
Mary Tilden has crowd-funded a project with 3AP
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- $6,240 raised of $6,000 goal
- 47 Days 11:42:51 LEFT
STRETCH GOAL!!! Thanks to our community of friends, family, and indie film advocates, we’ve been able to reach our original goal of $6,000—and so quickly! We’re so grateful and moved by the level of support. We have 48 days on the …
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