[that] illuminates the traumas and triumphs of two cancer survivors to profound effect";[3] From Scarsdale: A Childhood (Dalkey Archive Press), praised by James Cook in the Times Literary Supplement as "sad and bleakly comic .
a fine, evocative memoir of a suburban 1980s childhood";[4] and True Story: A Trilogy of plays (Dalkey Archive Press) that David Dewitt in The Arts Fuse describes as "a distinctive achievement in theater history.
[6] Stephen Wilson in the Times Literary Supplement writes: "[O’Brien] has produced an exquisite and terrible beauty in these pages.
"[7] J. D. Schraffenberger in the North American Review writes: "Our Cancers tells [O’Brien’s] truth not only skillfully but masterfully, making from pain a lasting chronicle of art that traces fragmentary moments of healing over time.
"[11] O'Brien's play The Body of an American was awarded the Edward M. Kennedy Prize for Drama, shared with Robert Schenkkan's All the Way.
[18] O'Brien's many other plays include The Three Christs of Ypsilanti, The Cherry Sisters Revisited, The Voyage of the Carcass, The Dear Boy, The House in Hydesville, Moving Picture, Key West, Am Lit, Lamarck, The Last Supper Restoration, The Angel in the Trees, "Will You Please Shut Up?
His work has been developed at the National Playwrights Conference at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre Center, The New Harmony Project, and elsewhere.
[21] New Life, O'Brien's third poetry collection, was published in 2016 by CB Editions in London and in 2017 by Hanging Loose Press in the US.
Barbara Berman writes of New Life in The Rumpus that "an original voice speaks, on a plane with earlier masters.
Theotokia and The War Reporter, titled jointly as Visitations, was commissioned by Stanford Live, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Mellon Foundation, and premiered at the Bing Concert Hall at Stanford University in April 2013, directed by Rinde Eckert and performed by New York Polyphony and Mellissa Hughes.
Originally from Scarsdale, New York, O'Brien currently lives in Los Angeles with his wife, actress, writer, comedian, and producer Jessica St. Clair.