Proehl was the James M. Dolliver National Endowment for the Humanities Distinguished Professor, 2009-2013, at the University of Puget Sound, where he taught, dramaturged, and directed for over twenty years. A long-time member of Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas, he was president of this organization from 1998-2000 and active in several initiatives over two decades. In 2016, LMDA recognized his work in the field with its highest honor: the Lessing Award for Lifetime Achievement. Proehl has a PhD in directing and dramatic criticism from Stanford University, an MFA in directing from Wayne State, and a BA from George Fox College.

Many collaborators contributed to the work reflected on these pages, among them playwright and director C. Rosalind Bell; actor, director, and dramaturg Grace Livingston, and scenic designer and production manager Kurt Walls. Beginning with the essays that would become Toward a Dramaturgical Sensibility, Canadian dramaturg DD Kugler (Professor Emeritus in Theatre at Simon Fraser University) and Geoff Proehl have worked together as a dramaturg/writer team on three book-length projects, sharing, in the summer of 2015, a residency at Tofte Lake Center (Liz Engelman, director) in the Boundary Waters of Minnesota.