Justin Warner is a playwright, lyricist, freelance writer, and writing professor based in New York City. He is the librettist for the musical adaptation of Andrew Solomon’s award-winning bestseller Far From The Tree, co-written with composer Robert Maggio and lyricist Kristin Maloney. Far From The Tree won a 2024 Richard Rodgers Award, and was a finalist for the Kleban Prize in Musical Theater, a Jonathan Larson Grant, and the Sundance Theater Lab, as well as a semi-finalist for the O’Neill.  

Justin is a longstanding member of the BMI Musical Theater Workshop, and a winner of its Jerry Harrington Award for Outstanding Creative Achievement. His musicals have been produced, developed, or showcased by the Public Theater, Vineyard Arts Project, the HBMG Foundation, the Lincoln Center Holiday Songbook, the ASCAP/Disney Workshop with Stephen Schwartz, Vital Children's Theatre, Raw Impressions, Musical Mondays, the Triad, the York Theatre, and the Greenwich House Music School Theater Lab.

His plays have been produced in over 25 cities, including NYC, London, LA, DC, and San Francisco.  Among them are American Whup-Ass (AlterTheater, San Francisco; Global Age Project winner; published by Original Works) and Impostors (NEUROFest, NYC; Union Theatre, London), the children's musical Cinderella's Mice (Vital Theatre, published by Concord Theatricals), for which he wrote the book and additional lyrics, and more than a dozen widely produced, award-winning ten-minute plays.  

A Philadelphia-area native, Justin started his career as a science writer in Washington, DC, and was a staff writer/editor for the Peabody Award-winning children’s radio show Kinetic City Super Crew, funded by National Science Foundation.  He was also a founding member of Washington Improv Theater, which has evolved into DC's leading improv comedy troupe.  

Justin is a full-time Clinical Associate Professor of Expository Writing at New York University, and currently teaches students in the Tisch School of the Arts.  He lives in Jackson Heights, Queens, with his wife, two teenage children, and a very cute dog.