Patrick Cribben was the recipient of the 1990 Virginia Prize for Playwriting for Feast of Stephen and the 1989 Southern Playwrighting Award for Fall Into Winter, which also won the Critics' Choice Award at the Festival of Southern Theatre at the University of Mississippi. His plays have received more than two dozen productions throughout the U.S. In 2003 The Theatre-Studio Inc. in New York City produced a program of four of his short plays, including Turnaround. His short plays Overview and Professional Help were produced at the Source Theatre in Washington D.C. in 2000 and 2001. He has been a contributing writer for Saturday Night Live, and has taught comedy writing and improvisational comedy at the University of Virginia's School of Continuing and Professional Studies. He was Playwright-in-Residence at the State University of New York–Oneonta in 1991 and has been a fellow at the Yaddo artists' community and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Cribben's film and theater criticism has appeared in 64, C-Ville, The Charlottesville Daily Progress, The Fredericksburg Freelance-Star, and Die Welte Woche.