Nancy Steele
Brokaw

Nancy Steele Brokaw is a playwright, journalist, and writer whose work has brought stories to life on stages across the country — and into the imaginations of tens of thousands of young people. A graduate of Illinois Wesleyan University, she went on to study at Harvard Divinity School and Washington University. In 2025, she was awarded the IWU Distinguished Humanities Alumnus award.

Brokaw has had twelve innovative children's operas produced by Prairie Fire Theatre and Illinois Wesleyan University, including The Sky Is Falling And I'm Not Even Kidding!, Who Stole B-Flat?, and Mozart's Day Out. These productions have toured to tens of thousands of Illinois schoolchildren over the past eight years. The University of California–Merced also presents her operas yearly to thousands of grade school students.

She has been resident playwright for the Illinois Shakespeare Festival for many years, writing Theatre for Young Audiences shows including A Summer's Winter Tale and Much Ado About Quite A Lot, among others.

In May 2014, Fort Worth Opera Frontiers showcased Fertile Ground, an original opera for which she wrote the libretto in collaboration with composer David Vayo. Opera Plus called it "thorough and complex" and said it "immediately portrayed a gripping story." Her libretto Cleopatra and the Plastic Surgeon — originally composed by Austrian composer Nancy Van de Vate and later given a new score by Danielle Fisher — has been performed at Illinois State University, the University of Toronto, the University of North Texas, and several other universities.

Brokaw wrote grade school adaptations of Mozart's Magic Flute and Marriage of Figaro, and Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel for Illinois Wesleyan University productions. For twenty years, she has served as resident playwright for Holiday Spectacular, Inc., writing three or more shows a year.

She is a longtime contributor to The Pantagraph and Illinois Wesleyan Magazine, and the author of the award-winning middle-grade novel Leaving Emma (Clarion/Houghton Mifflin). The McLean County Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission hired Brokaw to co-author Lincoln's in Town!

Nancy serves on the Board of Directors of IWU's Associates Board, the Promise Council (removing barriers to learning in local schools), the Stevenson Lecture Series, and is a member of the Normal Rotary Club. She was recently a drummer for an older adult rock band.

She lives in Bloomington, Illinois.