The MCC Theater Playwrights’ Coalition, founded in 1999, is a unique fellowship providing development and support for emerging and mid-career playwrights. Through the Coalition, MCC goes beyond developing individual plays and makes a long-term commitment to supporting playwrights through their careers.
Each fall and spring, new work from the writers of the Playwrights' Coalition is presented in our public PlayLabs. Click here for more info.
Playwrights' Coalition
David Adjmi • Annie Baker • Mike Batistick • Stephen Belber • Brooke Berman
Adam Bock • Jason Chimonides • Cusi Cram • Anton Dudley • Stephen Adly Guirgis • Ashlin Halfnight • Ann Marie Healy • Dan LeFranc • Steven Levenson • Alex Lewin • Kara Manning • Rami Metal • Itamar Moses • Ed Napier • Mark Schultz • Julian Sheppard • Ranbir Sidhu • Blair Singer • Crystal Skillman • Matthew Stephen Smith • Gary Sunshine • Adam Szymkowicz • Lucy Thurber • Kathryn Walat
Alumni
Glen Berger • Julia Cho • Jorge Ignacio Cortinas • Daniel Goldfarb • Joe Hortua • Julia Jordan • Oren Lavie • Adam Rapp
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David Adjmi
David Adjmi’s play The Evildoers was developed at MCC, the Royal Court (UK), and Sundance; it received its world premiere at Yale Repertory Theatre. Stunning was developed at NYTW, Sundance/Ucross residency and Manhattan Theatre Club; it will be produced at Woolly Mammoth in March 2008. Marie Antoinette was developed at MTC, JAW/West, Soho Rep, Sundance and the Public/NYSF. Caligula was selected to inaugurate Soho Rep’s Studio Series in September 2007. Elective Affinities was produced at the RSC/Stratford-on-Avon in Fall 2005; it transferred the following sping to the Soho Theatre, London. Both productions were directed by Dominic Cooke. Other plays include Strange Attractors (Empty Space; Seattle Weekly Top 10 of 2003), Woody Allen’s Fall Project and 3C. Upcoming plays: Red Elvis, Bonifacius (or, The Do-Gooders), Washington Square and Broadway Boogie Woogie: a trilogy loosely based on Doblin’s Berlin Alexanderplatz. David has received numerous awards and honors, including commissions from Lincoln Center Theatre, the Royal Court Theatre, Yale Rep and Berkeley Rep, nominations for the Kesselring, Weissberger and Barrie Stavis Prizes, a McKnight Advancement Grant, the Marian Seldes-Garson Kanin Award, a Jerome Fellowship, a Royal Court Residency, the Helen Merill Award, Jon Robin Baitz’s Ovid Grant for New Writing, a Soho Rep W/D fellowship, a NYTW/Dartmouth Residency, the Lecomte du Nouy Award, the Cherry Lane Mentor Project Fellowship (w. Craig Lucas), an Atlantic Center for the Arts residency (w. Paula Vogel), and multiple fellowships from The MacDowell Colony. David attended Sarah Lawrence College, the Iowa Playwrights Workshop and the Juilliard School. He is a member of the Dramatists Guild, MCC Playwrights Coalition, Rising Phoenix Rep and Vinegar Tom Players. He is represented by Mark Christian Subias (US) and Curtis Brown Ltd (UK & Europe).
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Annie Baker
Annie Baker’s full-length plays include Body Awareness (Atlantic Theater Company, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle nominations), Circle Mirror Transformation (Playwrights Horizons, voted one of the top ten plays of 2009 by the New York Times, the New Yorker, and Time Out New York), The Aliens (Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, April 2010), The End of the Middle Ages (commission for Soho Rep) and Nocturama. Her work has also been developed and produced at New York Theatre Workshop, MCC, Soho Rep, the Orchard Project, the Ontological-Hysteric, Ars Nova, the Wilma, the Lark, the Magic Theater, the Cape Cod Theatre Project, the Bay Area Playwrights Festival and the Sundance Institute Theatre Lab in Utah and Ucross, Wyoming. Annie is an alumna of Youngblood and the Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab and a member of EST. Recent honors include a Susan Smith Blackburn Prize nomination, a Time Warner Storytelling Fellowship, a MacDowell Fellowship and commissions from Center Theatre Group and Playwrights Horizons. MFA, Mac Wellman’s playwriting program at Brooklyn College.
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Mike Batistick
Mike Batistick is a New York City-based playwright who grew up in New Jersey. He's received critical acclaim for his three Off-Broadway plays, Port Authority Throw Down (which was produced by the Working Theater and the Culture Project), Chicken, and Ponies (both of which were produced by Michael Imperioli's Studio Dante). His play Bodega Lung Fat was produced at the Hackney Empire in London, and will be remounted Off-West End later this year. Greenbox Films recently made Ponies into a feature-length film--for which he wrote the screenplay--starring John Ventimiglia, Kevin Corrigan, and Tonye Patano (dir. Nick Sandow). He is a graduate of the Juilliard playwriting program, a recipient of a NYSCA grant, and has been commissioned by both the Atlantic Theater and the LAByrinth Theatre Company. Ponies, Port Authority Throw Down, and Chicken are available through Dramatists Play Service.
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Stephen Belber
As a playwright, Belber’s work has been produced on Broadway and in over 25 countries. His plays include Match (Tony nomination for Frank Langella); Tape (Time Out’s Top Ten Plays 2001); McReele (Roundabout Theater); Geometry of Fire, (Rattlestick); Fault Lines (Cherry Lane)and A Small, Melodramatic Story (Labyrinth Theater Company). He was an Associate Writer on The Laramie Project (Drama Desk and Lortel nominations), and co-writer on the more recent Laramie Project Epilogue. Movies include Tape, directed by Richard Linklater; The Laramie Project (Associate Writer/Emmy Nomination for screenwriting); Drifting Elegant and Management, which he also directed, starring Jennifer Aniston and Steve Zahn. Currently developing screen adaptations of both Match and McReele. Television includes Rescue Me and Law and Order SVU (staff writer). He is a proud member of both Tectonic Theater Project and the Labyrinth Theater Company.
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Brooke Berman
Brooke Berman's play Hunting and Gathering premiered at Primary Stages and was named One of the Ten Best Plays of 2008 by New York Magazine. Her play Smashing premiered with The Play Company, directed by Trip Cullman. Her play A Perfect Couple, commissioned by Arielle Tepper Productions and developed at MCC, New Dramatists and the Royal National Theatre Studio in London premiered with WET in 2008. Other plays have been produced at Steppenwolf, the Humana Festival, Naked Angels and Second Stage Theater. Her plays have been developed at places including: The Royal Court Theatre in London, The O'Neill Playwrights Conference, The Childrens Theatre Company, ASK, SPF, Rattlestick, The Hourglass Group, The Womens Project, the Denver Center Theater Company, Soho Rep, and Williamstown Theatre Festival. She is the recipient of a Berilla Kerr Award, a Helen Merrill Award, two Francesca Primus Awards, ttwo LeCompte du Nuoy awards and a commissioning grant from the National Foundation for Jewish Culture. She has received support for her work from the MacDowell Colony and the Corporation of Yaddo and commissions from Arielle Tepper Productions and CTC in Minneapolis. . Brooke recently completed a seven-year residency at New Dramatists. She is a member of the Dramatists Guild and a graduate of the Juilliard School. Brooke’s short film All Saints Day, directed by Will Frears, won Best Narrative Short at the Savannah Film Festival and played at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2008.
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Adam Bock
Adam Bock's play Swimming in the Shallows was produced by Second Stage as part of their New Plays Uptown series in 2005. His play Five Flights, produced by Rattlestick in 2004 won the 2002 Will Glickman Award for best new play produced in the Bay Area, four Dean Goodman awards and was nominated for the American Theater Critics, the Osborn, and two BATCC awards. It was named in the SF Chronicle and Oakland Tribune's Top Ten Theatrical Events and the Chronicle's Top Ten Cultural Events for 2002. Shotgun Player's production of Swimming in the Shallows won the 2000 BATCC awards for best production, best ensemble and best original script. It was a Clauder Competition award-winner, a Weissberger award nominee, and has or will be produced in Boston, London, Toronto, Key West, Ithaca, Santa Cruz and the Edinburgh Fringe. The Typographer’s Dream has been produced in NYC and at the Edinburgh Fringe. These and other plays have been read and workshopped by New York Theater Workshop, Playwrights Horizons, Rattlestick, Naked Angels, Soho Rep, Clubbed Thumb, Underwood, Oregon Shakes and Printer's Devil, among others. He is the resident playwright at Encore Theater, a Shotgun Players Artistic Associate, and a member of the MCC Playwrights' Coalition. He is a NEA and CASH grantee, was a resident at Yaddo, a member of the Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab and is at work on his first commission, from Playwrights Horizons.
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Jason Chimonides
Jason’s full length plays include The Optimist, The Stone Age and The Bluest Water, in addition to numerous short plays and monologues. The Optimist was produced Off-Off Broadway in the Spring of 2008 by Ground Up Productions, directed by Jace Alexander and The Bluest Water, was produced in 2008 and 2009 by Endstation Theatre Company in Amherst, Virginia. His work has been developed at MCC, Ars Nova, Naked Angels, Baliwick Rep, Endstation Theater, Slippery Rock University and Florida State University. Jason has held residencies at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and the Blue Ridge Summer Theater Festival and holds an MFA in Directing from Florida State University. The Optimist is published by Dramatist Play Service (www.dps.com) and excerpted monologues will appear in two Smith and Kraus anthologies in December of 2010. An Assistant Professor of Theater at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania (IUP), Jason lives in Indiana, PA and Brooklyn, NY.
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Cusi Cram
Cusi Cram's plays include, Landlocked, The End of it All, Lucy and rhe Conquest Fuente, Twenty Shadows, and All rhe Bad Things, in addition to numerous short plays, solo plays and adaptations. Her work has been performed and developed at the 2001 & 2003 O’Neill Playwrights Conference, New York Theater Workshop, South Coast Repertory, MCC, The Cherry Lane Alternative, The Atlantic Theatre Company, The New Group, The Humana Festival, The Echo Theater Company, The Miranda Theater, LAByrinth Theater Company, Naked Angels, Joe’s Pub, New Georges, The Lark Theater, PS 122 and The Dag Hammarskjöld Theater at the United Nations. Her musical adaptation of the children’s book, Corduroy, is currently touring nationally. Her play Fuente will premiere in the summer of 2005 at Barrington Stage. She has received commissions from South Coast Repertory, The Atlantic Theater Company, The Actors Theater of Louisville, The Echo Theater Company, New Georges and Theaterworks USA . She is a recipient of a fellowship and residency from the Lila Acheson American Playwrights Program at Juilliard, a fellowship from the Camargo Foundation in Cassis , France , two Le Comte du Nuoy Awards and most recently the 2004 Herrick Theatre Foundation New Play Prize for her play, Fuente. She has been nominated for a Humanitas Award and two Emmy awards for her work on the children’s animated program, Arthur. Her plays are published in Latino Plays from South Coast Rep (Broadway Publishing), The Best Short Plays of 2001 (Applause Books), and Women Playwrights: The Best Plays of 2000 (Smith & Kraus) as well as several other anthologies. She is a member of MCC Playwrights Coalition, Primary Stages New American Writer’s Program and The HB Playwrights Unit. She also sits on New Georges Artist Advisorary Board. Ms. Cram is a graduate of Brown University.
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Anton Dudley
Anton Dudley's Off-Broadway productions include Substitution (Playwrights Realm@Soho Playhouse), Getting Home (Secondstage Theatre Uptown), and Slag Heap (Cherry Lane Theatre). Other productions include Honor and the River (Walnut Street Theatre, Luna Stage, NYS&F, SPF), Cold Hard Cash (Williamstown Theatre Festival), Letters to the End of the World (At Hand Theatre Co@Theatre Row), Circumvention (Keen Company), BOB, Moving On, and Substitution (New York Stage & Film), Davy & Stu (Ensemble Studio Theatre Marathon, Directors Company, Bread & Water Theatre); Pleaching the Coffin Sisters (Ensemble Studio Theatre, Momentum Productions in TX, New Works/New Haven), Flight of Kings (Baryshnikov Arts Center@37Arts), The Lake’s End (Adirondack Theatre Festival), January 1, 2000 (Lincoln Center Theater@HERE), Antarctica (Cleveland Public Theatre, Vital Theatre), edWARd2 (FringeNYC), Slag Heap (Theatre Pro Rata in MN), and Spamlet (Cherry Red Productions in DC). His plays Honor and the River and Circumvention are published by Playscripts, Inc. Anton's work appears as well in PLAY A Journal of Plays Vol. II (Paper Theatre), Monologues for Men by Men,Vols. I+II (Heinemann Press), New American Short Plays 2005 (Backstage Books) edited by Craig Lucas, The Theatre Audition Book II (Meriwether Publishing), and Actors Choice: Monologues for Teens (Playscripts, Inc.). Anton is a fellowship recipient of Manhattan Theatre Club, the Dramatists Guild of America, Cherry Lane Mentor Project, New York Theatre Workshop, the Playwrights Center of San Francisco, First Look Theatre Company, Williamstown Theatre Festival, and Quebec's Centre des Auteurs Dramatiques which translated his play Substitution into French. The award-winning short film of Davy & Stu is distributed by Strand Releasing on Boys Life 6, and was an Official Selection of 60 International Film Festivals on 5 continents. An Assistant Professor at Adelphi University, Anton is a member of NYTW's Usual Suspects, MCC's Playwrights Coalition, a three-time alumnus of Arthur Kopit's Playwrights Workshop at the Lark Play Development Center and was the Lark's Playwright-in-Residence for 2007. He is currently developing the books to three musicals: Tina Girlstar (lyrics by Charlie Sohne, music by Brian Feinstein) with Olympus Theatricals, LLC; Kissing the Underworld (commissioned by the Cherry Lane Theatre), and The Re-hydration of Edith Pilaf (lyrics by Charlie Sohne, music by Keith Gordon).
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Stephen Adly Guirgis
Stephen is a longtime member of NYC's LAByrinth Theater Company. His plays have been produced on five continents and throughout the United States. They include: The Last Days of Judas Iscariot (LABrynth in collaboration with The Public Theater), Our Lady of 121st Street (10 best plays of 2003; Lucille Lortel, Drama Desk, and Outer Critics Circle Best Play Nominations), Jesus Hopped the A Train (Edinburgh Festival Fringe First Award and Detroit Free Press Best Play of the Year, as well as a Laurence Olivier Nomination for Best New Play), In Arabia We'd All Be Kings (10 Best of '99, TimeOut New York). All four plays were originally produced by LAByrinth and directed by Philip Seymour Hoffman. They are published by Dramatists Play Service as well as by Faber and Faber in the anthology Three Plays By Stephen Adly Guirgis. Stephen was awarded a 2004 TCG fellowship and attended the 2004 Sundance Screenwriter's Lab. He is the recipient of new play commissions from Manhattan Theatre Club and South Coast Repertory, and is a member of New Dramatists, MCC Theater Playwrights’ Coalition, New River Dramatists, and The Actor's Studio Playwright/Directors Unit. He developed and directed Liza Colon Zayas' Sistuh Supreme for Danny Hoch's Hip Hop Theater Festival, and Marco Greco's award-winning Behind the Counter With Mussolini in New York and Los Angeles. Television writing credits include “NYPD Blue”, “The Sopranos”, David Milch’s CBS drama “Big Apple”, and NBCs “UC: Undercover". He is currently developing a pilot for HBO and Mos Def, and writing his first screenplay. As an actor, he most recently appeared in Brett C. Leonard’s Guinea Pig Solo produced at the Public Theatre in New York last season, and has leading roles in two films to be released in 2005: Todd Solondz's Palindromes, and Brett C. Leonard's Jailbait opposite Michael Pitt.
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Ashlin Halfnight
Ashlin Halfnight’s plays include Balaton, Good Pictures (Outstanding New Play – Summer 2008 – Talkin’ Broadway), God’s Waiting Room (Best Play, 2005 NYFringe Festival), Diving Normal (Plays and Playwrights 2007), and Artifacts of Consequence. He is a Fulbright Award winner, and is the recipient of a TCG Travel Grant, a Ludwig Volgelstein Artist Grant, and the Howard Stein Playwriting Fellowship. He was an artist in residence at the National Theater of Hungary in 2005/2006, was member of The Royal Court’s New York Residency, and is a member of MCC’s Playwrights’ Coalition. Ashlin received a BA from Harvard and an MFA from Columbia. He is currently the Artistic Director of the award-winning theater company, Electric Pear Productions.
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Ann Marie Healy
Ann Marie Healy’s play What Once We Felt was a finalist for the 2009 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize and a recent finalist for the Jane Chambers Playwriting Award. It will be produced at Lincoln Center’s LCT3 venue this fall, directed by Ken Rus Schmoll, and at About Face Theater in Chicago in Winter 2010. Her play The Legend of Minnie Willet was developed at the National Playwrights’ Conference (Eugene O’Neill Theater Center) last summer. Have You Seen Steve Steven was developed at the Sundance Theater Institute in the summer of 2007 and subsequently produced by 13P, the Obie-award winning collective, directed by Anne Kauffman. (TimeOut NY and FlavorPill picks). The Night that Roger Went to Visit the Parents of His Old High School Girlfriend premiered in the 2006 EST Marathon of One-Acts plays (directed by Andrew McCarthy). Now That's What I Call a Storm was the recipient of a development fellowship with MCC Theater (directed by Jo Bonney), and produced by Edge Theater Company in 2004, directed by Carolyn Cantor and featuring Marylouise Burke (TimeOut NY picks). Dearest Eugenia Haggis was developed at LAByrinth Theater’s 2004 summer intensive and The Cape Cod Theater Project and published in the anthology: Funny, Strange, Provocative: Seven Plays by Clubbed Thumb. Ann Marie’s plays are published through Samuel French, Smith & Kraus, Playscripts, PLAY: A Journal of Plays, and The Kenyon Review. She is an affiliated artist with the Obie-Award winning theater company Clubbed Thumb; a member of MCC's Playwrights’ Coalition; a member of 13P, a former member of the Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab, a former member of EST’s Youngblood and a writing fellow at New River Dramatists. Ann Marie was awarded a 2006/07 Sloan Commission for her new play exploring the life and work of evolutionary biologist Robert Trivers. She is currently working on commissioned plays for Clubbed Thumb/NYSCA, Yale Rep and Playwrights Horizons. She recently completed her MFA with Paula Vogel and Bonnie Metzgar at Brown University (through the Lucille Lortel Fellowship.)
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Dan LeFranc
Dan LeFranc’s plays include Sixty Miles to Silver Lake, Origin Story, Bruise Easy, Night Surf, In The Labyrinth, The Big Meal, The Fishbone Fables, Backyard, Kill The Keepers, and Catgut. The world premiere of Sixty Miles to Silver Lake was produced last season by Page 73 Productions and Soho Rep, directed by Anne Kauffman. The Studio Theater in Washington DC will produce Sixty Miles this spring. Dan’s work has been seen or developed across the country at The Public Theatre, Actors Theatre of Louisville, The Vineyard Theater, MCC, The Kennedy Center, Sundance Institute Theatre Lab, American Repertory Theatre, Portland Center Stage, Woolly Mammoth Theater Company, American Theatre Company, ArsNova, Rattlestick, Clubbed Thumb, The Magic Theater, Milwaukee Repertory Theater, Perishable Theater, foolsFury, Babel Theatre Project, Kitchen Dog Theater, Circle X Theater, Contemporary Arts Center of Cincinnati, UCSB Summer Theater Lab, and the Page 73 Summer Residency at Yale, among others. He is a proud member of New Dramatists, the MCC Playwrights Coalition, and a former member of the Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab. Awards include the Whitfield Cook Award, the John C. Russell Fellowship in Playwriting, a Djerassi Resident Artists Program Fellowship, a MacDowell Colony/Alpert Foundation Residency; and commissions from Yale Rep, Berkeley Rep, and American Theatre Company in Chicago. A graduate of the MFA playwriting program at Brown University, Dan served as visiting faculty in Literary Arts at Brown and head playwriting instructor of the Brown/Trinity Rep Consortium. Sixty Miles to Silver Lake is published by Samuel French and his short play Hippie Van Gumdrop is published in The Backstage Book of New American Short Plays 2005, edited by Craig Lucas. He was born and raised in Southern California.
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Steven Levenson
Steven Levenson's plays include The Language of Trees (Roundabout Underground, published by Dramatists Play Services), Seven Minutes In Heaven, Almost Stuck, and Girls Day. His work has been seen and developed by Roundabout, Lincoln Center Theater, MCC, Ars Nova, Ensemble Studio Theatre, New York Stage & Film, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, New Dramatists, and Brown/Trinity Playwrights Repertory Theatre. A graduate of Brown University and the 2010 Artist in Residence at Ars Nova, Steven is currently working on new play commissions for Roundabout, Lincoln Center, and Ars Nova.
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Alex Lewin
Alex Lewin’s plays have been developed at Arena Stage, Geva Theatre Center, MCC, The New Group, Ensemble Studio Theatre, the O’Neill Playwrights Conference, the Lark, Emigrant Theatre (Minneapolis), Bailiwick Rep (Chicago), and New York Theatre Workshop, where he is an Artistic Associate. He is the recipient of the Ted & Adele Shank Professional Playwriting Fellowship, and a commission from Ensemble Studio Theatre and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and he’s been a finalist for the L. Arnold Weissberger Award. Alex has held residencies at EST’s Lexington Center for the Arts, the O’Neill Playwrights Conference, the Chautauqua Theatre Company, and New York Theatre Workshop’s summer development program at Dartmouth College. Alex holds an MFA in Playwriting from the University of California at San Diego. He is 2009–10 Playwrights Realm writing fellow, and a member of the 09–10 Interstate 73 writers group, the MCC Playwrights’ Coalition, and the Dramatists Guild. He lives in Manhattan with his cat, Charlie Chaplin.
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Kara Manning
Kara Manning’s plays, including Mind the Gap, Killing Swans, afterdark and Sleeping Rough, have been performed or developed via the Royal Court Theatre, Hampstead Theatre, the O'Neill Playwrights Conference, Playwrights Horizons, MCC Theater, Rattlestick, NYTW, LAByrinth Theater, the 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 Theatre, Makor, Expanded Arts, Theatre for the New City and the Bloomington Playwrights Project. She is the 2007-08 recipient of the Princess Grace Award in playwriting and a member of the 2008-2010 Women’s Project Playwrights Lab and MCC Theater’s Playwrights Coalition. Kara was a playwright-in-residence with the Royal Court Theatre’s International Residency, Page 73 Productions’ 2008 Yale retreat and Women's Project's 2009 Envision Lab retreat via Voice & Vision. She was a recipient of the 2000-2001 Jerome Foundation, Affiliated Writers Program grant in association with American Theatre magazine, a 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.” In addition, she is a web editor/on-air interviewer for WFUV/The Alternate Side and wrangles musicians for Vin Scelsa's "Idiot's Delight" on WFUV and John Wesley Harding’s Cabinet of Wonders. Graduate of Columbia University's M.F.A. program in playwriting.
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Rami Metal
Rami lives in Long island City, writes in fits, and every so often finishes something. He has written a play called Lullabye and is finishing up a play called Betty My Love, Betty My God. He is a recipient of a commission from The National Foundation of Jewish Culture for his unfortunately titled play The Language of Dirt, a play he never finished.
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Itamar Moses
Itamar Moses is the author of the full-length plays Outrage, Bach at Leipzig, Celebrity Row, The Four of Us, Yellowjackets, Back Back Back, and Completeness, and various short plays and one-acts. His work has appeared Off-Broadway and elsewhere in New York, at regional theatres across the country and in Canada, and has been published by Faber & Faber, Heinemann Press, Playscripts Inc., and Vintage. He has received new play commissions from The McCarter Theater, Playwrights Horizons, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, The Wilma Theater, and Manhattan Theatre Club. Itamar holds an MFA in Dramatic Writing from NYU and has taught playwriting at Yale and NYU. He is a member of the Dramatists Guild, MCC Playwrights’ Coalition, Naked Angels Mag 7, and is a New York Theatre Workshop Usual Suspect. He was born in 1977 in Berkeley, CA. He now lives in Brooklyn, NY.
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Edward Napier
Edward Napier's first play produced in New York, Junior Prom, was directed by the late Herbert Berghof at the H.B. Playwright's Foundation. Off-Broadway credits include 'Til the Rapture Comes at the W.P.A. speeches of which appear in both The Best Men's and The Best Women's Stage Monologues of 1998 published by Smith and Krauss and The English Teachers, produced at MCC and published by Dramatists Play Service. Before working Off-Broadway, Ed worked extensively Off-Off-Broadway at the West Bank Café, Trocadero Café, the Ensemble Studio Theatre, Theatre Nada, Alice's Fourth Floor, P.S. 122, the Salon, and the Workhouse Theatre, where he was Playwright in Residence. He graduated from Columbia University cum laude with a concentration in Literature/Writing and was the recipient of the Writing Program Award (departmental prize). He received a Berrilla Kerr Award for Playwriting in 1996 and has been a Columbia Senior Writing Fellow for the past four years. For the past three years, Ed has been on the staff at MCC Theater as a Teaching Artist in the New York City public schools and serves on the faculty of the Columbia University High School Summer Program as a creative writing and performance instructor. Ed is also a member of the Playwright's Unit at H.B. Studio. He recently finished his first screenplay, The Lord in Kenova.
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Mark Schultz
Plays include: The Gingerbread House (the stageFARM); Deathbed (Apparition Productions); Everything Will Be Different: A Brief History of Helen of Troy (Soho Rep/True Love Productions) for which he won the 2005 Oppenheimer Award and the 2006 Kesselring Prize; Polar Bear (commissioned and produced by Birmingham Rep, UK) Gift (Rising Phoenix Rep / NY Fringe Festival); and various one-acts including, most recently Fun (commissioned and produced by the StageFARM). Everything Will Be Different was produced by the Actors Touring Company with Theatre Royal Plymouth under the title A Brief History of Helen of Troy at the Soho Theatre in London after a UK tour. Other plays include Magic Kingdom; Brightness. He has received a Sloan Commission from MTC, as well as commissions from Playwrights Horizons and The Exchange. Readings and workshops: MCC Theater; The Vineyard; Rattlestick; MTC; New York Theater Workshop; The Public; Studio Dante; Woolly Mammoth. He was selected for a 2006 Royal Court Residency. He is a member of Rising Phoenix Rep, and is coordinator of MCC Theater’s Playwrights’ Coalition. He holds an MFA in playwriting from Columbia University.
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Julian Sheppard
Julian Sheppard's play Buicks was produced by the Underwood Theater at the McGinn/Cazale in March, 2003. The production received 2 Drama Desk nominations, including one for Outstanding Play. Regionally, Love and Happiness was produced in July 2001 by the Barrington Stage Company and Los Angeles was produced in September, 2002 by the Pacific Resident Theatre in L.A. Buicks and Love and Happiness are both forthcoming from Dramatists Play Service, which earlier published his first full-length play, Whatever. Julian's plays have been produced in New York at Soho Rep, Miranda Theatre, Blue Heron Arts Center, the Lincoln Center Directors' Lab at the Salon, Juilliard, The Cherry Lane Alternative, MCC Performance Lab, New York Performance Works, and Nada; his work has also been developed at numerous theaters, including New York Theatre Workshop, New York Stage & Film, Arena Stage, Woolly Mammoth, Manhattan Theatre Club, Primary Stages, MCC, WPA, Rattlestick, Bat Theatre Company, and the Workhouse Theatre. Other full-length plays include After America, A Hole In the Earth and From Now On. Julian has been a resident at the MacDowell Colony, the Millay Colony, Blue Mountain Center, and the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center. He has twice received the Le Comte de Nouy Award and three times has been a finalist for the Actor Theatre of Louisville's Heidemann Award for Rollie & Fitch, Everything Else, and Smile, which was written originally for MCC. Julian was the head writer on ESPN's "2-Minute Drill". Julian is a member of MCC Theatre's Playwrights Coalition, and is a graduate of the Lila Acheson Wallace Playwrights program at the Juilliard School, where he studied with Chris Durang and Marsha Norman.
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Ranbir Sidhu
Ranbir Sidhu is the author of the plays True East..., Sangeet, and Conquistadors. His plays have been developed and supported by MCC Theater, LaMama, Disha, The Matrix Theater, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Swingspace Program, the September 11th Fund, and CUNY's Prelude Festival. He is a member of the MCC Theater Playwrights Coalition and the Dramatists Guild. He is a recipient of 2010 new theater commission from the New York State Council on the Arts. Ranbir is also a novelist and is a 2008 recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in Fiction and winner of the Pushcart Prize. His stories have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies and he has been awarded residencies by the Atlantic Center for the Arts, Florida, and Villa Montalvo Center for the Arts, California. He was the 2006-07 writer-in-residence at the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and a 2007 Edward F. Albee Fellow at The Barn in Montauk, NY.
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Blair Singer
Blair Singer's play, Matthew Modine Saves the Alpacas, received its world premiere in September, 2009, at The Geffen Playhouse under the direction of John Rando and starring Matthew Modine as "Matthew Modine". Other productions include Meg's New Friend and The Most Damaging Wound, directed by Mark Armstrong for The Production Company (NY); Placement, directed by Matt Shakman at The Black Dahlia; Mackerels are Me Life directed by Richard Feldman at the Chautauqua Theater Company. Other plays include Notice Me, No Reason to Run, and his trilogy about Jewish Assimilation, Once and For All. On television, Blair has written for "Weeds", "Monk", and "The Book of Daniel." On the internet, Blair created the hit webseries "The Suffersons" for rocketboom.com starring Michael Chernus and Susan Pourfar. He also wrote for the third season of "lonelygirl15". Blair is the recipient of the 2009 Edgerton Prize and is the 2009-10 Playwright-in-Residence of The Production Company (NY). He is a member of the MCC Playwrights' Coalition and a faculty member at Primary Stages. He graduated from The Juilliard School Acting Division.
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Crystal Skillman
Crystal Skillman is the author of the recent plays Birthday, Nobody and The Telling Trilogy (Rising Phoenix Rep, Dir. Daniel Talbott) as well as Hack (Vampire Cowboys). Her play The Sleeping World, a finalist for the Yale Drama Series,wasdeveloped at the Lincoln Center Directors Lab, Rattlestick, Side Project, and will be read at Woodshed Collective. Productions in Chicago include Kiss and Agony, produced at The Side Project last year. Musicals include That’s Andy, in development with conceiver Bobby Cronin (The Beaten Path) and composer Kevin Carter, directed by Clayton Phillips at the York Theatre Company this past fall. Crystal is an Innovative Theatre Awards Nominee, finalist for the Yale Drama Series, and a member of the MCC Theater Playwrights’ Coalition, E.S.T, Rising Phoenix Rep, and Dramatists Guild, among others. You can find her plays at Smith & Kraus this winter and she is published in Plays & Playwrights. Crystal is pleased to announce she has been commissioned by the Vampire Cowboys to write a new full length play that will be developed and produced by the company in NYC in their upcoming seasons. As well Birthday was named one of the Top Ten Plays of 2009 at http://jamespeak.blogspot.com/2010/01/top-10-of-2009.html. You can learn more about her by clicking here.
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Matthew Stephen Smith
Matthew Stephen Smith's plays Endoftheworld Lovesong, A Fear of Being Eaten By Your Lover In the Dark, Night In the Land of Gracious Living, The Hostage Play, and Daedalus/Myth have been performed through The Flea Theater (NYC), Prospect Theater (NYC), Chicago's Remy Bumppo Theater Company, Panoply Performance Laboratory, The University of Michigan, and Northwestern University. Matthew received his MFA in playwriting from Northwestern Unviersity where he also taught screenwriting. He is a member of Panoply Performance Laboratory, The Dramatists Guild, and MCC's Playwrights' Coalition.
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Gary Sunshine
Gary Sunshine has been the recipient of a NYFA fellowship and a Helen Merrill Award for Emerging Playwrights. His play Sweetness was produced in the Summer Play Festival (SPF); Mercury was produced at HERE in association with Eve Ensler; The Names of Foods was produced by the eXchange; other recent productions include Kahn & Kant (Drama League Directors Project), Al Takes a Bride (Actors Studio; Sydney Mardi Gras Festival; King’s Theater) and My President (Echo Theater Company). His work has been seen/developed at the Royal National Theatre Studio, New York Stage & Film, Playwrights Horizons, NYTW’s Just Add Water Festival, Theatre of Note, P73 Productions, Rattlestick, the New Group, the New Company (London), Underwood Theater, MCC Theater, the Actors Studio, and Rising Phoenix Rep. His one-act play Al Takes a Bride was published in “The Best American Short Plays of 2001” (Applause), and by Playscripts, Inc. Gary wrote, co-created, and co-produced the documentary What I Want My Words To Do To You (Freedom of Expression Award, Sundance Film Festival; Audience Award, Lake Placid Film Festival; Crystal Award, Heartland Film Festival; HBO Audience Award for Top Documentary, Provincetown International Film Festival), which premiered nationwide on PBS’s “P.O.V.” He is a staff writer on HBO’s “Hung” and has written for CBS’s “As the World Turns” (WGA Award nomination). His first screenplay, Moscows, is currently in preproduction with Starry Night Entertainment. He received an A.B. from Princeton and an M.F.A. from NYU’s Dramatic Writing Program, and is a resident playwright at New Dramatists.
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Adam Szymkowicz
Adam Szymkowicz graduated in May of 2007 from The Juilliard School's Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwrights Program. In 2004, he received his playwriting MFA from Columbia University where he was the Dean’s Fellow. His work has been produced throughout the U.S., and in Canada, England, The Netherlands and Lithuania. His plays have been presented or developed at such places as MCC Theater, Ars Nova, South Coast Rep, Playwrights Horizons, The Lark, Kitchen Dog, HotINK, Theatre of Note and Studio Dante among others. Plays include Deflowering Waldo, Open Minds, Anne, The Art Machine, Pretty Theft, Food For Fish, Herbie, Incendiary, Old Fashioned Cold Fusion, Bee Eater, Temporary Everything, Susan Gets Some Play and Nerve. Several of his plays have been published by Dramatists Play Service. Szymkowicz is a two-time Lecomte du Nouy Prize winner, a member of the Dramatists Guild, the MCC Playwright’s Coalition and of the Ars Nova Play Group. He is currently working on a commission from South Coast Rep. For more, go to www.adamszymkowicz.com.
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Lucy Thurber
Lucy is the author of seven plays, Where We’re Born, Ashville, Innocence is a Sin, Killers and Other Family, Stay, Bottom of the World and Monstrosity. She was the recipient of the 2000/2001 Manhattan Theatre Club playwriting fellowship. Her play Bottom of the World was produced by WET in the winter of 2005 and was workshopped at The Eugene O'Neill Playwrights' Center this summer. Bottom of the World was part of The Tribeca Theater festival this fall and received a workshop at The Public Theater. She attended New River Dramatists in North Carolina. Her play Where We're Born was produced at Rattlestick Theater in the fall of 2003. Killers and Other Family was produced at Rattlestick Theater in 2001. Also in 2001 she was commissioned by The Keene Theater company to write a short piece called The Kool Aid Smile, which was presented in "Keene America". She was a guest artist at The Perseverance Theater twice, where she helped to adapt both Moby Dick and Desire Under the Elms. She has had readings and workshops at Manhattan Theatre Club, The New Group, Primary Stages and SOHO Rep. Her ten-minute play Dinner is published in a collection called, Not So Sweet, 16 plays from Soho Rep's 10-minute play festival. She is a member of MCC Playwrights' Coalition, Primary Stages writing group, 13P and New Dramatists.
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Kathryn Walat
Kathryn Walat’s play Bleeding Kansas premiered in summer 2007 at the Hangar Theatre (Ithaca), and her Victoria Martin: Math Team Queen premiered earlier that year at the Women’s Project in New York. Other plays include Connecticut, Greenspace, Know Dog, and her newest project, Smile. Her work has been produced at Actors Theatre of Louisville, Salvage Vanguard Theater, and Perishable Theatre; and developed at Manhattan Theatre Club, Playwrights Horizons, Ars Nova, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, Boston Theatre Works, Lark Play Development Center, and New Georges, where she is an affiliated playwright. Victoria Martin was recently published by Samuel French, and will appear in New Playwrights: The Best Plays of 2007 (Smith & Kraus). Kate received her BA from Brown University and her MFA from Yale Drama School.
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