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playwright title

ALUMNAE

Zakiyyah Alexander (2004-2006)
Bekah Brunstetter (2008-2010)
Carla Ching (2008-2010)
Andrea Ciannavei (2006-2008)
Alexis Clements (2008-2010)
Nadia Davids (2008-2010)
Laura Eason (2008-2010)
Christine Evans (2008-2010)
Keli Garrett (2004-2006)
Christina Gorman (2006-2008)

Katori Hall (2006-2008)
Quiara Alegria Hudes (2004-2006)
Andrea Lepcio (2006-2008)

Cheri Magid (2004-2006)

Kara Manning (2008-2010)
Megan Mostyn-Brown (2004-2008)
Cybele Pascal (2004-2006)
Molly Rice (2006-2008)
Lynn Rosen (2008-2010)
Crystal Skillman (2008-2010)
Sonia Sobieski (2004-2006)
Peggy Stafford (2006-2008)
Saviana Stanescu (2004-2008)
Andrea Thome (2008-2010)
Joy Tomasko (2006-2008)
Kathryn Walat (2004-2008)

Click here for a list of the current 2010-2012 Lab Playwrights.

 

 

ZAKIYYAH ALEXANDER
Contact: Kate Navin, Abrams Artists Agency

Zakiyyah Alexander
is a writer and actor. She is the author of: 10 Things to do before I die (Second Stage Uptown), SICK? (Summer Play Festival), THE ETYMOLOGY OF BIRD (Hip Hop Theater Festival, Providence Black Repertory Theatre), BLURRING SHINE (Market Theater, Johannesburg), SWEET MALADIES (Rucker Theatre), something new, and (900). Her work has been seen and/or developed at: A Contemporary Theater (ACT), Bristol Riverside Theater, Philadelphia Theater Company, The Humana Festival, Penumbra Theater, The Bay Area Playwrights Festival, Rattlestick Theater, Hartford Stage, 24/7 Theater Company, the Hip Hop Theater Festival, Vineyard Theater, the Women's Project, Gale GAtes et. al, La Mama Theatre, Greenwich Street Theater, etc. Awards include: Helen Merrill Emerging Playwriting Award, ACT New Play Award/Lorainne Hanseberry Prize, Stellar Network Award, Theodore Ward Prize, Jackson Phelan Award, Drama League New Directors/New Works, New Professional Theatre Playwriting Award, Young Playwrights Inc.,etc. Her work is included in the current edition of New Monologues for Women by Women, featured in the book of essays, Girls who like Boys who like Boys, and Game on: The Humana Festival ’08 Anthology. A resident member of New Dramatists; past residencies and fellowships include: EST's Youngblood, the Women's Project Writer's Lab, the Women's Work Project, and the Drama League. She has received commissions from: Second Stage, The Philadelphia Theater Company and the Children’s Theater of Minneapolis.  A graduate of the Yale School of Drama (MFA in playwriting); currently on faculty at Bard College where she teaches undergraduate playwriting.  Zakiyyah is a native New Yorker and was raised in Queens and Brooklyn.


BEKAH BRUNSTETTER Bekah Brunsetter
Contact: Bekah Brunstetter

Bekah Brunstetter's plays include Be a Good Little Widow (Commissioned by Ars Nova, 2009), OOHRAH! (Ars Nova outloud reading series, developed in London at the Finborough Theater, Atlantic Theater Sept 2009), To Nineveh (NY Innovative Theater Award for Best new full length play, 2006) Sick (winner, Sam French short play festival 2006), Green (finalist, Alliance Theater’s Kendeda Competition; national finalist, Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival) Space (semi-finalist, Princess Grace Award 2007) I Used to Write On Walls (published and licensed by Samuel French,) Fat Kids On Fire (published and licensed by Playscripts, Inc), You May Go Now: A Marriage Play (Winner, 2008 NYIT award for best new Full Length Play (Babel Theater Project), Cenentary Stage 2009, Le Fou (The Atlantic Acting school), Happy Birthday/ I’m Dead (Samuel French Short Play festival Finalist, 2007), Miss Lilly Gets Boned (nominee, 2008 L. Arnold Weissberger Award), Celebrity, and Torch Number 2 (SOHO Think Tank), and Fucking Art (winner, Sam French Short play Festival 2008.) Her plays have been read and produced by the Babel Theatre Project, New Georges, The Rattlestick Playwright’s Theater, the Ohio Theater (Think tank), NYU, Centenary Stage, NC New Voices, The New School for Drama, Working Man’s Clothes, Flux Theatre Ensemble, Phare Play Productions, Old Vic/ New Voices, Boston Theatre Works, Manhattan Theatre Source, SPF, and The Alliance Theater. Her plays are published by Sam French, Playscripts, Original Works, and Smith and Krauss. She is a member of the Ars Nova play group, the Playwright’s Center, At Play Productions, and the Dramatist’s Guild. She is proud to be the 2009 playwright in residence at Ars Nova, and a member of the Women's Project Writer's Lab. She received her BA (Theater/Fiction Writing) from UNC Chapel Hill, and an MFA in Dramatic Writing from the New School for Drama. Bekah is currently working on a commission for the Roundabout Underground and Naked Angels. www.bekahbrunstetter.com



CARLA CHING

Contact: Carla Ching

Originally a poet from the Los Angeles, Carla Ching stumbled upon pan-Asian performance collective Peeling at the Asian American Writers Workshop and wrote and performed with them from for three years, using autobiography as a departure point for performance. Her work with Peeling appeared at Second Stage Theater, The Asian American Writers Workshop, The Puffin Room, NYU, Rutgers, Cornell, Columbia University and St. Mark’s Theater.  Her full-length plays include TBA, DirtyBig Blind/Little Blind and The Sugar House at the Edge of the Wilderness.  Short plays include “Next Big Thing," “The Further Adventures of Little Goth Girl" “Dissipating Heat” and “Closing Up Shop."  Her plays have produced or developed by Ma-Yi Theater Company, The Women's Project, 2g, Desipina & Company, Vampire Cowboys and others.  She is a member of the Ma-Yi Writers Lab, The Women’s Project Lab 2008-2010 and the 2010/11 Playwright's Workshop at Lark Play Development Center.  Carla is the recipient of a 2008 Urban Artists Initiative fellowship and a 2009/10 Teachers & Writers Collaborative Fellowship.  She’s received a 2010 EST/Sloan Commission from Ensemble Studio Theatre to write a new play on game theory.   BA, Vassar College.  MFA, Actors Studio Drama School.  As a teaching artist, she has worked with The New Victory Theater, Lincoln Center Institute, TDF, The Public Theater, Young Playwrights, The Women’s Project and American Place Theatre.  She teaches playwriting in the Performing Arts Department at Pace University and is Artistic Director of 2g.  www.carlaching.com

 

 

ANDREA CIANNAVEI
Contact: Andrea Ciannavei

Andrea Ciannavei is a writer, actor and producer in New York City.  Andrea just completed the two-year Lila Acheson Playwriting Fellowship under the direction of Marsha Norman and Christopher Durang at The Juilliard School.  Plays include: Deep Trees, The Hard Sell, 7 Captiva Road and Pretty Chin Up which received a development production at LAByrinth Theater Company (Artistic Drectors: Philip Seymour Hoffman and John Ortiz) in Spring 2007 at The Public Theater.  TV: The Borgias  (Season 1, Episode 7. Tom Fontana, Executive Producer, Atlantique Creations SASU). Andrea is the recipient of Juillard’s Lila Acheson Playwriting Fellowship 2008-2010. Awarded the Lecomte du Nouy Prize 2008 - 2010.  Grand Jury Prize - Best Supporting Actress from -  New York Independent International Film and Video Festival’s for her work in Pigeonholed. Member of Women’s Project Playwrights’ LAB 2006 – 2008.  Selected to participate in the Royal Court’s 2006 Playwright Residency in New York.  Graduate of New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts’ Dramatic Writing Program. Member of LAByrinth Theater Company. Member of the Dramatists’ Guild. For more info: www.prettychinupproductions.com

 

ALEXIS CLEMENTSAlexis Clements
Contact: Alexis Clements

Alexis Clements. A former fellow of the Dramatists Guild of America, recipient of two Puffin Foundation Artist Grants and a Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation grant, Clements writes plays, short stories, articles, and is the founder of New Acquisition. Her work has been produced and published in both the US and the UK. Recent theatrical productions include: Place ReImagined (New York, NY); The Interview (Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Scotland, UK); Causality (Wheeling, WV); Three Choices (Chesterfield, UK); Pieces (Washington, DC, & Iowa City, IA); Class and The Great American Novel (Washington, DC); Finding Words and Unfettered (Kansas City, MO). She is the co-editor for the two-volume Out of Time & Place: An Anthology of Play by Members of the Women’s Project Playwrights Lab, which includes her performance piece Conversation. Her plays, Pieces and Three Choices, have both been published by KNOCK Magazine. Her short stories have appeared in a handful of literary magazines and collections, including two different anthologies published by Route (UK), Bonne Route and Ideas Above Our Station, and also on the Guardian's website. Her articles and reviews have appeared in magazines and newspapers such as The Brooklyn Rail, Nature, Aesthetica, and Travel New England. She regularly writes about experimental theater and performance art for The L Magazine. She has a M.Sc. in Philosophy & History of Science from the London School of Economics and Political Science and a B.A. in Theatre Studies from Emerson College. www.AlexisClements.com

 


NADIA DAVIDSNadia Davids
Contact: Nadia Davids

Nadia Davids was born in 1977 in Cape Town. She is an award-winning South African playwright, director and scholar; her work has been produced, published and studied in Africa, Europe and North America. She has written five plays, among them At Her Feet (2002), for which she received the Fleur de Cap for best New Director and was nominated for the Noma Award for best book published in Africa. At Her Feet has been a school and university set-work in South Africa and North America since 2004. Between 2003-2004 she wrote a weekly column for The Argus; today she writes a bi monthly column for the New York based publication, The Brooklyn Rail. In June 2008, Nadia graduated with PhD in Theatre at the University of Cape Town for a thesis which traces the performative connections between archive, exile, memory and loss through the experience of forced removals under apartheid in District Six. She has received two A.W.Mellon Fellowships for her research and has been made a visiting scholar at U.C.Berkeley (2001) and New York University (2004-2006). She has lectured at UCT and NYU.



LAURA EASON
Contact: Laura Eason

Laura Eason is the author of more than fifteen plays, both original work and adaptations. Produced full-length plays include: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (Hartford Stage, CT; People’s Light, PA), Sex with Strangers (Steppenwolf Theatre, Chicago), Around the World in 80 Days (also director, Baltimore Centerstage; Kansas City Rep; Lookingglass Theatre, Chicago), Rewind (Side Project, Chicago), When the Messenger is Hot (59E59, NYC; Steppenwolf; Theatre Schmeater, Seattle), Area of Rescue (Andhow Theatre, NYC), Ethan Frome (also director, Lookingglass), A Tale of Two Cities and Huck Finn (Steppenwolf), In the Eye of the Beholder (also director, Touchstone Theatre, PA; Lookingglass), and 28 (also director, Lookingglass), among others. Produced short plays include: USA-001A (American Theatre Company, Chicago), Mr. Smitten and Jack and the Collection (W.E.T., NYC), It Was Fun While It Lasted (City Theatre, Miami), Dynamometer (Working Man's Clothes, NYC), and Lost in the Supermarket (Vital Theatre, NYC), among others.  Laura’s work has been developed by Rattlestick, New Georges, New York Theatre Workshop, The Women’s Project and MCC, all in NY, and is published by Smith & Kraus, Playscripts, and Broadway Play Publishing where she is a former playwright of the year. In New York, she is an Affiliated Artist of the Obie-winning New Georges and an alumna of the Women’s Project Playwright’s Lab and America-in-Play.  For six years, she was the Artistic Director of Lookingglass Theatre Company in Chicago where she is still an active Ensemble Member. Laura is a graduate of the Performance Studies Department of Northwestern University and has received two Joseph Jefferson Awards (Chicago) for new work and adaptation.  Originally from Chicago, she lives in Brooklyn, NY.  More information is available at her website:  www.lauraeason.com.              

 


CHRISTINE EVANSmolly Rice Photo
Contact: Christine Evans

Christine Evans plays have received awards and been produced in her native Australia at venues including Belvoir St. Theatre (Sydney) and the Adelaide International Festival of the Arts. In the U.S., her work has been seen in New York, San Francisco, Providence, New Jersey, Pittsburgh, Seattle, Atlanta, Santa Rosa and Boston. Selected productions include Trojan Barbie at the A.R.T (American Repertory Theatre, scheduled 2009); All Souls Day (Perishable Theatre; Boston Theater Marathon); Weightless (Perishable Theatre); Mothergun (Perishable Theatre; Emergency Theatre Project, NYC) Slow Falling Bird (Crowded Fire) and My Vicious Angel (Belvoir St. Theatre, Sydney.) Awards and honors include a Fulbright Award, the 2007 Jane Chambers Playwriting Award, the Bay Area Playwrights Festival, the Rella Lossy Playwriting Award, the Monash National Playwriting Award (Australia), the Weston Award for Dramatic Writing, Perishable Theatres Womens Playwriting Festival (WPF) award (2000 and 2001), and the 2009 recipient of the Rhode Island State Council for the Arts Fellowship in Playwriting. Christine is a member of the Dramatists Guild of America and was a 2007 Resident Artist at Perishable Theatre. She holds an MFA (Playwriting) and Ph.D. (Theatre & Performance Studies) from Brown University. She is the Briggs-Copeland Lecturer in Playwriting at Harvard.


KELI GARRETT
Contact: Keli Garrett

Keli Garrett’s plays have been produced and developed at Dixon Place in New York City, the Zoo District in Los Angeles, 24 Hour Plays, Playwrights Horizon in New York, Rites and Reason Theatre, Victory Gardens Theatre, City Lit Theater Company, Chicago Theater Company, Organic Theater, The Providence Black Repertory Company and The California College of Arts and Crafts. The Rhode Island Arts Council, The Joyce Foundation, City Lit Theatre and the Rhode Island School of Design Museum have commissioned her work. Currently, Keli is a 2004-05 fellow of The Dramatists Guild and The Women’s Project Playwright’s Lab. Keli holds an M.F.A. 1999 in Creative Writing from Brown University, where in 1997 she was a Beinecke Foundation fellow. She holds a B.A. in Theatre from Columbia College. Plays include: Funkland, Red Clay Hills, TOBAS, Uppa Creek, serve and protect, Meridian by Alice Walker, Faith and the Good Thing by Charles Johnson, breezing thru.

 

CHRISTINA GORMAN
Contact: Christina Gorman

Christina Gorman is currently a 2010 Fellow of the New York Foundation for the Arts and the Harold Clurman 2010-11 Playwright-in-Residence at Stella Adler Studios.  Her produced plays include:  Just Knots (festival winner of the Samuel French Off-Off Broadway Play Festival, NYC; Cockeyed Optimists Theatre Company, NYC) and is published in the Samuel French publication Off-Off Broadway Festival Plays, 34th Series; Split Wide Open (Summer Play Festival, NYC) and was runner-up for Princess Grace Award; DNA (Prospect Theatre Company, NYC; Hangar Theatre, Ithaca, NY; Samuel French Short Play Festival, NYC; New York International Fringe Festival, where it received the award for Overall Excellence in Playwriting); The God Particle (Estrogenius Festival 2010, NYC); and Keep the Change, co-written with Joy Tomasko (Women's Project for the World Financial Center's Word of Mouth Festival, NYC).  Her play American Myth was developed at The Public Theater while she was a member of The Public’s inaugural Emerging Writers Group and where it was presented as part of The Public Theater’s Spotlight Series. It was also presented as part of the hotINK International Festival (NYC).  Her plays have been developed at the Lark Play Development Center, Women’s Project, and Luna Stage.  Christina is a member of the SPF Script Advisory Committee, an alumna of the Women’s Project Playwrights Lab and former fellow of the Ensemble Studio Theatre’s New Voices Program.

 

KATORI HALLHall
Contact: www.katorihall.com

Katori Hall is a playwright-performer hailing from Memphis, Tennessee. Her plays include Hoodoo Love, which was produced Off-Broadway at the Cherry Lane Theatre, and The Mountaintop, which was recently produced to great acclaim at London’s Theatre 503 and transferred to the Trafalgar Studios in London’s West End. It was nominated for Best New Play at the  2010 Olivier Awards.  Other plays include Remembrance, Hurt Village, Saturday Night/Sunday Morning, WHADDABLOODCLOT!?!? and The Hope Well. Her awards include the 2009-10 Lark Play Development Playwrights of New York (PONY) Fellowship, Kate Neal Kinley Fellowship, two Lecompte du Nouy Prizes from Lincoln Center, Fellowship of Southern Writers Bryan Family Award in Drama, NYFA Fellowship, Van Lier Fellowship from the Public Theatre and the Lorraine Hansberry Playwriting Award. Hall was shortlisted for the London Evening Standard Most Promising Playwright Award and received the Otis Guernsey New Voices Playwriting Award from the William Inge Theatre Festival. She is the first African-American to be honored with this award. Hall has been published as a book reviewer, journalist, and essayist in publications such as The Boston Globe, Essence and Newsweek.  She has been a Kennedy Center Playwriting Fellow at the O’Neill. Hall is an alumna of the Women’s Project Playwrights Lab and the Primary Stages Dorothy Strelsin New American Writer’s Group. She is a current member of the Lark Playwrights’ Workshop, the Dramatist’s Guild and the Old Vic New Voices program. As an actor, Hall’s credits include Law and Order and Law & Order: SVU, The President’s Puppets (The Public), Growing Up a Slave (American Place Theatre), Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (American Place Theatre), the world premiere of Amerika (Theatre de la Jeune Lune/American Repertory Theatre), Spring Awakening (Moscow Art Theatre School), and Ain’t Supposed to Die a Natural Death (Classical Theatre of Harlem). She graduated from Columbia University in 2003 with a major in African-American Studies and Creative Writing. She was awarded top departmental honors from the university’s Institute for Research in African-American Studies (IRAAS). In 2005, she graduated from the American Repertory Theatre Institute for Advanced Theatre Training at Harvard University with a Master of Fine Arts in Acting. She is a recent graduate of the Juilliard School’s Lila Acheson Wallace playwriting program.  Hall currently resides in New York City.

 

 

QUIARA ALEGRÍA HUDESHudes
Contact: Quiara Alegria Hudes

Quiara Alegría Hudes is a playwright and librettist originally from West Philadelphia. Her musicals include In the Heights (2008 Tony Award for Best Musical, 2009 Pulitzer Prize Finalist); Barrio Grrrl! (Helen Hayes Nominee); and the forthcoming Like Water for Chocolate. Her work-in-progress “The Elliot Trilogy” includes the plays Elliot, A Soldiers Fugue (2007 Pulitzer Prize Finalist) and Water By the Spoonful. Other plays include 26 Miles (Alliance Theatre); Lulu’s Golden Shoes (Miracle Theatre); and Yemaya’s Belly (Portland Stage Company, Clauder Prize, Kennedy Center ACTF Latino Playwriting Award, the Paula Vogel Award in Playwriting). Hudes’ honors include a Tony Nomination for Best Book, a Lucille Lortel Award, an Outer Critics Circle Award, and a Resolution from the City of Philadelphia. She has found many homes for her writing including New Dramatists, where she is a resident writer; Page 73 Productions; Alliance Theatre; Hartford Stage; the Goodman Theatre, where she is the Joyce Fellow; and Philadelphia Young Playwrights, which produced her first play in the tenth grade and where she now serves as a mentor and board member. Hudes lives in New York with her husband and daughter.

 

ANDREA LEPCIO
Contact: Andrea Lepcio

Andrea Lepcio’s plays have been produced and developed at At Hand Theatre, Chashama, HERE, Lark Play Development Center, Manhattan Theatre Source, New Georges, NewShoe, Shalimar Productions, Three Chicks, Vital Theatre, and Women's Project in NY, and at Bloody Unicorn, Hangar Theatre, Provincetown Theatre Company, Synchronicity Performance Group and Trustus Theatre, regionally.  Looking for the Pony was a NEA Outstanding New American Play finalist in 2008 and currently is a Dramatists Guild Hull-Warriner Award finalist. She is a member of America-in-Play, BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Librettist Workshop, NewShoe, New Perspective’s Women’s Work Lab, and is a New Georges Affiliated Artist.  She is an alumna of the Lark’s Playwrights’ Workshop and the Women’s Project Playwrights’ Lab.  A two-time finalist for the Heideman Award, her short plays and monologues have been published in Plays and Playwrights 2003, Estrogenius, lichen and by Smith & Kraus.  Upcoming in 2010-2011:  The Ballad of Rom and Julz work in progress concert reading at Bard Summerscape July 25th; Looking for the Pony (Venus Theatre, Laurel, Maryland October 2010 and Detroit Repertory Theatre, Michigan, June 2011.)  Andrea is the Dramatists Guild Fellows Program Director.  She is a member of the Dramatist Guild, League of Professional Theater Woman and New York Theatre Experience Advisory Committee.  M.F.A. in Dramatic Writing, Carnegie Mellon University.  M.B.A. UC, Berkeley. B.A. Human Ecology, College of the Atlantic.  More information is available at her website: www.andrealepcio.com

 

 

 

CHERI MAGID
Contact: Beth Blickers, Abrams Artists Agency

Cheri’s Magid’s plays which include The Tavern Wench, et al;, and Manna have been seen at The New Group, The Women’s Project, Rattlestick, The Slipper Room, Vital Theatre Company, La Mama, Makor, Abingdon Theatre Company, The Lark and the West Bank Theatre all in New York, M.Y.E Productions in Los Angeles, South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa, CA, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, The University of Iowa, and Calvin College in Michigan.  She is currently writing two musicals The Surreal Housewives of Woodstock with songwriters Jules Shear and Ed Sanders of The Fugs, and The Christmas Windows of 1937 , commissioned by Jackson Gay.  South Coast commissioned her play et al; as well as an adaptation of the children’s story The Reluctant Dragon.  The Keen Company commissioned her children’s play The Ghost of Enoch Charlton, which, along with Manna, has been published by Playscripts.  Excerpts of Manna are also included in The Best Stage Scenes of 2009 published by Smith and Kraus. Pretty Things Press published the Cliffs of Moher in 2006.  Cheri’s erotic story She Grinds Her Own Coffee is published in Cleis Press’ anthology Hide and Seek.  Her erotica writing is profiled here. Lydia, or the Girl at the Wheel, Cheri’s radio play about the earliest days of burlesque, aired on National Public Radio and her short story Yeah, We Got That, was featured on Playboy Radio.  She wrote the screenplay Story of D, about the real story behind the writing of the famous sadomasochistic novel Story of O, for Nicole Kidman. Her short film Carnophobia is in post-production and her short films hot yoga and She Grinds Her Own Coffee will shoot this fall.  Cheri was a member of The Women’s Project writers’ group from 2005-6.  She also served as New Dramatists’ Literary Director from 1995-1999 and was the New York Creative Executive for Wildwood Productions, Robert Redford’s film company, from 1999-2001. 

KARA MANNING
Contact: Kara Manning

Kara Manning’s plays, including Sleeping Rough, Mind the GapKilling Swans and afterdark, have been performed or developed via the Royal Court Theatre, Hampstead Theatre, the O'Neill Playwrights Conference, Playwrights Horizons, MCC Theater, HighTide Festival Productions  (UK), Rattlestick, Women’s Project, NYTW, LAByrinth Theater, Magic Theater, New Dramatists, the Lark Play Development Center, Studio Dante, the Brooklyn Academy of Music (The 24 Hour Plays), Here (Raw Impressions), The Directors Company, Ensemble Studio Theater and the Bloomington Playwrights Project. She is the 2007 recipient of the Princess Grace Award in playwriting. Kara is also a member of the 2008-2010 Women’s Project Playwrights Lab and MCC Theater’s Playwrights Coalition. She was a playwright-in-residence with the Royal Court Theatre’s International Residency, Page 73 Productions’ 2008 Yale retreat, LAByrinth Theatre’s 2009 Summer Ensemble Intensive and Women's Project's 2009 Envision Lab retreat via Voice & Vision. Recipient of the 2000-2001 Jerome Foundation, Affiliated Writers Program grant in association with American Theatre magazine, finalist for the Bay Area Playwrights Festival (2008), P73 fellowship (2008), the Heideman Award (2009, 2007), PlayPenn Conference (2006), Barrie Stavis Award (2005), semifinalist for the Cherry Lane Mentor Project (2007), shortlisted for NYU’s Hot Ink festival (2008) and nominee for the 2007-08 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. She is the literary manager of the Irish Repertory Theatre in New York.  Member of the Dramatists Guild. She served as an assistant director at Edinburgh's Traverse Theatre (Fringe Festival), research assistant to Anne Bogart and the SITI Company. Kara is also a freelance music/arts journalist and a former MTV News reporter and staff writer for Rolling Stone magazine. She wrote liner notes for the Grammy-nominated Rhino box set "Respect: A Century of Women in Music.” She is a web editor/on-air interviewer for WFUV/The Alternate Side and wrangles musicians for John Wesley Harding’s Cabinet of Wonders. Graduate of Columbia University's M.F.A. program in playwriting.

 

MEGAN MOSTYN-BROWN
Contact: Seth Glewen, Gersh Agency

meg picMegan Mostyn-Brown: Plays include: Girl, The Secret Lives of Losers, 4th of July, Going After Alice and The Hawk Has No Home. Her plays have been read and performed at: The Actor’s Theater of Louisville, The Women’s Project and Productions, LAByrinth Theater Company, The Guthrie Theater, Minneapolis Playwrights Center, The Public Theater, The Warehouse Theater, Barrington Stage Company, The NYC International Fringe Festival, The Tribeca Theater Festival and The HBO Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, CO. She won an honorable mention for The Secret Lives of Losers in the 2004 Herrick Theater Foundation New Play Competition. Megan is a member of LAByrinth Theater Company and The Women’s Project Playwrights LAB. She has been a guest playwright at New River Dramatists and the 24/7 Lab. Megan is a graduate of Northwestern University.

 

CYBELE PASCALPascal
Contact: Christopher Till and Melissa Karp, Paradigm

Cybele Pascal's plays have been produced/ developed by the Cherry Lane Theater, PSNBC, NYTW, Naked Angels, New Georges, Dixon Place, the Abingdon Theater Company, the Lark Theater Company, New York Performance Works, Miranda Theater Company, Underwood Theater Company, Stages Repertory Theater, in Houston, Texas, and the Stamford Center for the Arts. Cybele is the recipient of a Berrilla-Kerr Playwriting Award, two LeComte du Nouy Awards from the Lincoln Center Foundation, a John Golden Playwriting Award, a Cherry Lane Playwriting Fellowship, a Schubert Playwriting Fellowship, and a Juilliard Playwriting Fellowship. Her cookbook, The Whole Foods Allergy Cookbook: 200 Gourmet and Homestyle Recipes for the Food Allergic Family, just won an I-Parenting Media Award and is currently on the top ten list for pre-orders on Amazon. Artists Diploma, The Juilliard School, MFA, Columbia University.Plays include: Yellow, The Burning Ghat, The Oysterman’s House, The Erotic Nature of Funerals, Party Lines, The Allegory of Painting, Marlena Sits, Girlplay.

 

MOLLY RICE
Contact: Molly Rice

Molly Rice’s plays have been developed/ produced in NYC and in theaters across the country. Heinemann Press, Clarkson Potter, the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor Press, Salvage Vanguard Press, Perishable Press, Austin Script Works Press, Head’s Tart, and DEVICE.com have published her plays, and her articles have appeared in the Kenyon Review, American Theater Magazine and the Austin Chronicle. Residencies include the Visible Bartlett Island Retreat, Yale/ P73 Residency, Missoula Colony, Voice and Vision, and Hangar Theater; awards include the Weston Award for Graduate Playwriting (Brown University), the Women’s International Playwriting Festival (Perishable Theater), and nominations for the Kesselring Fellowship, the PONY Award, Cherry Lane Mentor Project, and New York Innovative Theater Award (Outstanding Original Short Play). Current projects include THE SISTERS LEAR, commissioned by Visible Theater; the book and music (with Ray Rizzo) for CANARY, an original musical developed by Rattlestick Theater and Playwrights Horizons, the book for FUTURITY, a musical conceived by Brooklyn band The Lisps, and continuing development of SAINTS TOUR, a neighborhood tour that takes place in cities across the country, featuring local musicians and community service organizations. It was produced in Louisville, KY in April 2009, and in the West Village in April 2010 with the illustrious Taylor Mac as tour guide. Molly was a Lucille Lortel fellow at Brown University (2004-2007), where she earned her MFA in Playwriting. She has taught graduate and undergraduate students at Brown, the University of Rhode Island, Kenyon College (as Visiting Assistant Professor), and Rowan University; she currently teaches Advanced Playwriting at Marymount Manhattan College and Site-Specific Theater in an old mansion at Brown.  This Spring she began a commission to write a play for the Tisch Graduate Acting Program, to be directed by Tea Alagic.

 

LYNN ROSEN Lynn Rosen
Contact: Seth Glewen, The Gersh Agency

Lynn Rosen's productions include: Apple Cove, (Women’s Project, 2010-2011 season, directed by Giovanna Sardelli; Todd Mountain Theater Project, NY); Washed Up On The Potomac (“Working It Out,” Centerstage, Baltimore; The Ensemble Studio Theatre Marathon, NYC); Back From The Front (The Working Theater, NYC; The NY International Fringe Festival); Ideal Home (New Georges, NYC); Nighthawks (The Studio Theatre, D.C.; Willow Cabin Theatre Company, NYC; published by Samuel French); NEXT! (multiple productions in Germany). Her newest full-length plays Puddy Tat and Washed Up On The Potomac have been developed with many theatres, including: The Lark Play Development Center (Writing Fellow 2003-4), The New Harmony Project, New Georges, Centerstage, and The New Group. She was commissioned in 2003 and 2010 by The EST/Sloan Foundation for Progress In Flying, also workshopped at Geva Theatre and The Working Theater, and she is currently working on a commission for New Georges called Goldor & Mythyka: A Hero Is Born. A member of the Women's Project Lab, EST, The Dramatists Guild, and The Fire Dept, as well as a New Georges and Lark Affiliated Artist, Lynn was named one of “50 To Watch” by The Dramatist magazine. She is originally from Gary, Indiana.

 



CRYSTAL SKILLMAN
Contact: Crystal Skillman

Crystal Skillman is a Brooklyn based playwright. Her plays include: Hack! an I.T. Spaghetti Western and The Vigil or the Guided Cradle (Impetuous Theater Group & Brick Theater, NYC), both directed by John Hurley; Birthday, Nobody, and Telling Trilogy (Rising Phoenix Rep, NYC) directed by Daniel Talbott; The Sleeping World (Dev’d by Lincoln Center Directors Lab, Rattlestick, Flux, as well as Woodshed Collective, NYC); Kiss and Agony in the Garden (The Side Project, CH). She is part of the creative team working on the musical That’s Andy (York Theater Developmental Reading Series), which was a finalist for NAMT this year. Crystal is the recipient of two Alfred P. Sloan/E.S.T Project commissions: The Ballad of Phineas P. Gage (HERE) and Flow, recently workshopped at the Working Theater and Brecht Forum with director Nicole A. Watson (just accepted into the Women’s Project lab!). Her play Geek was just published in Poems & Plays; Telling Trilogy is published by Plays & Playwrights 2008; and For Our Mothers and Fathers will be published by Smith & Kraus this fall. Crystal is a New Georges Affiliated Artist and member of the MCC Theater Playwrights’ Coalition, E.S.T, Rising Phoenix Rep, 24/Seven Lab Fellow, and Dramatists Guild, among others. Her work with producer Amanda Feldman, who she met in the lab, continues on the next stages of Hack! Just dubbed “the indie theater go-to lately” by critic Leonard Jacobs (Clyde Fitch Report) and an “indie trailblazer” by Michael Roderick in Broadway World, this summer she’ll be writing a new play commissioned for the Vampire Cowboys.

 

SONYA SOBIESKIsonya pic
Contact: Sonya Sobieski

Sonya Sobieski received her MFA in playwriting from Brooklyn College. She is an Affiliated Artist with the Obie Award-winning New Georges (New York, NY), who commissioned her full-length comic drama, Commedia dell Smartass, an alternative take on the archetypes of high school. The New Georges production was a Village Voice Choice, a New York Magazine Off-Off Broadway Pick, and subsequently produced by Serious Play! Theatre Ensemble (Northampton, MA) with a cast of teen actors. Sonya is currently developing The Unfortunate Squirrel: a play about everyday life, with songs with Little Theatre @ Dixon Place (New York, NY). Other NYC: Clubbed Thumb, Vital Theatre, Cherry Lane Alternative, Raw Impressions Music Theater, and adobe theater company. She has been a finalist for the Actors Theatre of Louisville Heideman Award three times. Other honors include Best in Fringe Award from the New York International Fringe Festival, Weissberger Award finalist, Princess Grace Award semifinalist, Slamdance Finalist and Special Jury Prize for Best Short Screenplay at the Avignon/New York Film Festival. Theater writer for the The Brooklyn Rail. Lecturer in playwriting at Hunter College and the New York University School of Continuing and Professional Studies.


PEGGY STAFFORD
Contact: Peggy Stafford

Peggy Stafford’s plays have been produced at theatres across the country including Wapato (Women’s Project, NYC), Three Miracles and a Giant (P73, NYC), Trunk & Net (Dixon Place, NYC; Bottom’s Dream, Los Angeles; and On the Boards, Seattle), Middle Window (Annex Theatre, Seattle), Don Quixote Project (Peculiar Works Project/HERE, NYC), and Katherine’s Jar (Little Theatre, NYC). Her plays have been developed at Women’s Project, Soho Rep, Empty Space Theatre, and The Playhouse in Northern Ireland. She was a member of the Soho Rep’s Writer/Director Lab and her play Little Miss 1565 was developed through their Phase 2 Program. She’s an affiliated artist with New Georges and was a 2006-08 member of the Women’s Project Playwright’s Lab. Current projects include the book for Sunrise at Hyde Park with lyrics and music by Tom Weinberg; The Jewel Casket, a new play based on a Joseph Cornell box; and the stage adaptation of Marguerite de Angeli’s Newbery Award winning children’s book, THE DOOR IN THE WALL. Peggy studied playwriting with Maria Irene Fornes, Mac Wellman, and Paula Vogel through Pataphysics at The Flea Theater and holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Bennington College. She has been awarded fellowships from the MacDowell Colony; a recipient of Northern Ireland Arts Council Travel Grant, Rain City Project Sweetness Grant; and is a proud member of the Brooklyn-based experimental writer's collective Machiqq, as well as The Dramatists Guild.

 

 

SAVIANA STANESCUSaviana Stanescu
Contact: www.Saviana.com

Saviana Stanescu is a Romanian-born multi-award-winning playwright.  Her work has been widely presented internationally and in the US.  Recent New York productions include: Aliens with Extraordinary Skills off-Broadway at Women’s Project (published by Samuel French), Waxing West (2007 New York Innovative Theatre Award for Outstanding Full-length Script), YokastaS Redux at La MaMa Theatre, Suspendida and Vicious Dogs on Premises (with Witness Relocation) at the Ontological Theatre, Polanski Polanski and Aurolac Blues at HERE Arts Center, The E-Dating Project at Strasberg Institute for Theatre & Film, and the site-specific I want what you have produced by Women’s Project at the World Financial Center. Aliens with Extraordinary Skills (Inmigrantes con Habilidades Extraordinarias) has been successfully produced in Mexico City at Teatro La Capilla, May-July 2010. Bucharest Underground won the 2007 Marulic Prize for Best European Radio-Drama.  In Stockholm, Sweden, White Embers produced by Dramalabbet made it in the TOP 3 of Best Plays in 2008 and in NYC is published by Samuel French as one of their 2010 OOB festival winners. Saviana has published books of poetry and drama including “The New York Plays”, “Aliens With Extraordinary Skills”, “Waxing West”, "Google me!", "Black Milk", and "The Inflatable Apocalypse” (Best Play of the Year UNITER Award in 2000). She co-edited the anthology of plays “Global Foreigners” (with NYU professor Carol Martin) and “roMANIA after 2000” (with CUNY professor Daniel Gerould). Her plays have received readings and workshops at The Lark, Long Wharf Theatre, New York Theatre Workshop, New York Stage & Film, Baryshnikov Arts Center, Playwrights' Foundation, Traveling Jewish Theatre, Immigrants Theatre Project, LaGuardia Performing Arts Center, Origin Theatre Company, PS122, HERE, etc. Saviana is a new member of EST (Ensemble Studio Theatre) and a Usual Suspect with NYTW. She was a 2005-2007 TCG fellow with the Lark Play Development Center, where her plays Waxing West and Lenin’s Shoe had barebones productions.  She also was a 2007-2008 NYSCA playwright-in-residence with Women’s Project and writer-in-residence for Richard Schechner’s East Coast Artists. Saviana holds an MA in Performance Studies (Fulbright fellow) and an MFA in Dramatic Writing (John Golden Award for excellence in playwriting) from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts where she has been teaching in the Drama Department for the last 7 years. Currently Saviana is the Director of Eastern European Exchange for The Lark Play Development Center and the Curator of playgroundzero – the works-in-progress series of undergroundzero festival of experimental theatre at PS122.

 


ANDREA THOME Andrea Thome
Contact: Andrea Thome

Andrea Thome is a Chilean-Costa Rican, Wisconsin-born mutt who grew up navigating the multiple lanscapes and languages that now inhabit her plays. Her dramas, absurd comedies, play translations and video satires have been presented at theaters, galleries and universities around the U.S. and Latin America. She became a playwright by necessity in San Francisco, where her tiny Red Rocket Theater company avoided eviction by writing and producing a new play every 6 weeks. Andrea currently co-directs FULANA, a New York-based satire collective (and 2009 Ford Foundation grantee) that creates cutting political/cultural parodies (www.fulana.org).  Andrea has received fellowships from NYFA, the City of Oakland, Lark Playwrights Workshop, INTAR, New York University (MFA Fellow), and the Women’s Project. Past collaborators include Culture Clash, Latina Theatre Lab, Campo Santo and Guillermo Gómez-Peña. Andrea has taught at various universities, schools and cultural centers nationwide, and directs the Lark Play Development Center’s U.S.-México Playwrights Exchange. She is a member of New Dramatists.



JOY TOMASKOjoy photo
Contact: Joy Tomasko

Joy Tomasko, current member of the Women’s Project Playwrights Lab, recently earned an M.F.A. in playwriting from California Institute of the Arts. While at CalArts, she developed several plays including Arden; My End; The Tragedy of Kelly Green; Underbelly, Underheart; and Unfold Me. She also wrote the short narrative screenplay The Dinner Hour, which was produced as part of CalArts' Flixus and co -created the installation Up Against the Wall for the Interactive Media Art show. For playwright Thersya Lukito, she directed The Moment Before at HERE's American Living Room Series. Prior to CalArts, Joy worked at The Public Theater/ NYSF for six years in the Producer's office. Among her obsessions is amassing frequent flyer miles to help fuel her wanderlust. Recent voyages oversees include the Czech Republic, Serbia, Rwanda and Uganda. She is currently working on a new piece titled The Closest Farthest Away with composer Sage Lewis, videographer Aleigh Lewis and Director Chi-wang Yang that once again is sending her flying.



KATHRYN WALAT

Contact: Seth Glewen, Gersh Agency

Kathryn Walat’s Victoria Martin: Math Team Queen premiered Off-Broadway at the Women’s Project in 2007, and has appeared in Dramatics magazine and New Playwrights: The Best Plays of 2007.  Other plays include Bleeding Kansas (Hangar Theatre), awarded a Francesca Primus Citation; Know Dog (Salvage Vanguard); and Johnny Hong Kong (Perishable Theatre).  Her work has been commissioned and produced by La Jolla Playhouse and Actors Theatre of Louisville, and developed at such places as The Public Theater, Manhattan Theatre Club, Playwrights Horizons, MCC, McCarter Theatre, Ars Nova, Sundance Theatre Lab, New Georges, Voice & Visions, Electric Pear, and Bay Area Playwrights Festival. She is the author of two plays for young audiences, Miss Electricity and Androcles and the Lion, both published by Playscripts, and has co-written the libretto (with composer Gregory Spears) for the opera Paul’s Case, being developed by American Opera Projects.  Her new play Creation was commissioned by Yale Repertory Theatre and will be developed at the National Playwrights Conference at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center, summer 2010. Kate is an affiliated artist with New Georges, where she is creating new piece for The Germ Project, and a member of MCC’s Playwrights Coalition, where she has been working on her latest play, entitled Greedy. She received her BA from Brown University, and MFA from the Yale School of Drama.