Alison Carey is director of American Revolutions: the United States History Cycle, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival's ten year program of commissioning up to thirty seven new plays sprung from moments of change in United States history. Five nationally acclaimed productions have come from the program: Richard Montoya and Culture Clash's American Night, Tony Taccone and Jonathan Moscone's Ghost Light, Frank Galati's The March (a co-commission with Steppenwolf Theatre), Universes's Party People and Robert Schenkkan's All the Way. There are currently sixteen additional writers under commission.

Previously, Carey was co-founder and resident playwright of Cornerstone Theater Company, which creates community-specific productions in Los Angeles and around the nation. Her plays have been seen at the Mark Taper Forum, Long Wharf Theatre, Arena Stage, Pasadena Playhouse, Yale Repertory Theatre, New York Shakespeare Festival, Great Lakes Theatre Festival, the World Shakespeare Conference, the shuttered mother plant of Bethlehem Steel, a dirt-floor cattle sale barn, and a crowded shopping mall. In 2012, her plays A Resting Place premiered at Touchstone Theater and The Very Merry Wives of Windsor, Iowa at OSF. She has developed hour-long television pilots for CBS and F/X, and her script work has been seen on Judging Amy. She is currently under commission from Cornerstone.