YOGA WITH JILLIAN
by Lia Romeo
Directed by Andrew W. Smith
Performed by Michole BIancosino
June 3-18, 2023
In this immersive play, yoga teacher Jillian plans to take the audience through an amazing, incredible, fantastic, one hour yoga journey. But the past couple years have been tough, am I right? As Jillian tries to teach again in our changed world, the shiny, happy yoga teacher attempts to keep the class, and herself, from completely imploding.
Yoga With Jillian has been developed at Town Hall Theater in Middlebury, VT, Main Street Landing Performing Arts Center in Burlington, VT, and at Pittsburgh City Theatre as part of Momentum Festival 2022.
Lia Romeo is a playwriting fellow at Juilliard. Her plays have been produced off-Broadway at 59E59 and regionally around the country, and have been developed at the O’Neill Playwrights Conference, the Lark, and elsewhere. Four of her plays have been recognized by the Kilroys List. Her plays are published by Broadway Play Publishing, Playscripts, Dramatists Play Service, and Smith & Kraus. She is the associate artistic director with Project Y Theatre Company, and she teaches playwriting at Primary Stages/ESPA and in the M.A. program in creative writing at Fairleigh Dickinson University. She earned her B.A. from Princeton and her M.F.A. in playwriting from Rutgers/MGSA.
Michole Biancosino is the Co-Founding Artistic Director of Project Y Theatre Company, where she has developed and directed new work in Washington, D.C., New York City and internationally over the past 25 years. With Project Y, she has led various professional productions, as producer, director, creator and writer. Credits included the long-running shows, Trump Lear (co-created and directed) and the award-winning, David Carl’s Celebrity One-Man Hamlet (co-created and directed), both of which toured regionally and performed at Edinburgh Fringe, as co-productions with Richard Jordan Productions (UK), The Pleasance, and Underbelly. She directs solo artist Peter Michael Marino’s long-running solo shows, Show Up Kids! now running in Spanish- and Japanese-language versions. Her most recent ventures in digital theatre-making and hybrid theatre can be seen at tinybarntheatre.com. Other work includes both the digital and on-stage versions of the Infallible Award-winner PLANET OF THE GRAPES LIVE FROM NYC (Zoo Venues, Edinburgh 2021) and the cosmic raga opera, Waves of Gravity with Neel Murgai (LaMama CultureHub). She currently performs Lia Romeo’s Yoga With Jillian and is a producer of Project Y’s yearly Women in Theatre Festival. Recipient: SDC Gielgud Fellowship for classical directing. Her work has been supported by grants from The Puffin Foundation, ART/NY, NY Department of Cultural Affairs (DCA), The Dramatists Guild, and New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA). She holds an MFA in Directing from Rutgers University, Mason Gross School of the Arts. She is an Assistant Professor of Theatre at Middlebury College. For more information: www.micholebiancosino.com
Andrew W. Smith is the Co-Founding Artistic Director of Project Y Theatre Company, where she has developed and directed new work in Washington, D.C., New York City and throughout the Unites States. With Project Y, he has served as Producer, Company Manager, Director, Technical Director, and Actor over the 25 year producing history of the company. He is a professional Actor and Director whose work has been seen throughout New York City, regionally, and internationally. Selected regional acting work includes: Pittsburgh Public Theatre, Pittsburgh City Theatre, Quantum Theatre, Actor’s Theatre of Louisville, Seattle Repertory Theatre, Arena Stage, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, Roundhouse Theatre, Potomac Theatre Project, Ars Nova, Studio Theatre, and Olney Center for the Arts. He toured with The National Players on their 50th anniversary as Cyrano in Cyrano de Bergerac. Filmwork includes Lucid, Shooting Script, Death of a Nation (Winner: Best Short, IndieFest 2011; Best in Show, Best Shorts Competition 2011), Under-Ground. Television work includes GONE, Law and Order: Criminal Intent, One Life to Live, As the World Turns, Guiding Light. With Project Y, he has received grants funding for work from New York State Council on the Arts, New York Department Cultural Affairs, Alliance of Resident Theatres/New York, Brooklyn Arts Council, and The Puffin Foundation. Andrew is currently an Associate Professor of Acting at the Carnegie Mellon School of Drama. He is also graduate of the MFA Acting program at the University of California, San Diego, from which he received the Teaching Excellence Award upon graduation. www.smithandrewwilliam.com.
The ALL HANDS ON DECK series is back with a new session! The festival shares new works by Female Playwrights of the African Diaspora. Featuring work by award winning playwrights Garlia Cornelia Jones, Judy Tate, Marie-Françoise Theodore and Shamar White, the short plays are directed by Tonia Anderson and Noelle LuSane. Conceived by Antu Yacob, the series explores different perspectives of the Black experience in America. This session's theme is "On Womanhood: Surrendering to the Goddess Within". What does it mean to be a woman in 2023? What does it mean to surrender to yourself? Join us in person as we explore.
Sunday, June 4th, 2023.
Garlia Cornelia Jones is a writer, producer, photographer and mother. 2008: Founded Blackboard Plays, monthly series devoted to Black Playwrights. One of founding producers, Harlem9, OBIE Award "48Hours in…™Harlem". Essays and articles -"The New York Times", "The Washington Post", "Salon.com" and "American Theatre". The Fire This Time Festival. Worked on MA- African American and African Diaspora studies, Indiana University; MFA in Playwrighting - The New School for Drama. Member- Dramatists Guild of America. Former Line Producer and Current 1st Dir, Innovation and New Media - The Public. Producing Director - PAAL; Executive Producer Black Motherhood and Parenting New Play Festival; Senior Creative Producer - Obsidian Theatre Festival; www.patreon.com/garliacornelia / Social: @garliacornelia
Shamar White is a Dramatic Writer hailing from Chicago, Illinois. She is a decorated Army Combat Veteran who often writes about her experiences. Her Ten-Minute Play DETAINED received its world premiere at the Obie award-winning The Fire This Time Festival in New York City. She is a two-time finalist for Adam Driver's Arts in the Armed Forces Bridge Award for Playwriting and Screenwriting. Her plays BACK TO BACK (formerly THE THANKSGIVING BEFORE) and BROOKLYN PATCHWORK have been Semi-Finalist for the Eugene O’Neil National Playwright’s Conference. She was a Staff writer on the military drama tv series VALOR. Shamar has an MFA in Dramatic Writing from NYU Tisch School of the Arts and is a proud member of the Dramatist Guild and Writer's Guild of America West.
Judy Tate, is a four-time Daytime Emmy Award-winning writer and WGAe award recipient. She has written scripts and story for several TV shows and her plays have been produced and presented in theatres around the country. She’s the Producing Artistic Director of The American Slavery Project, www.americanslaveryproject.org, a theatrical response to revisionism in American discourse around enslavement and its aftermath. She is also Founding Artistic Director of Stargate Theatre, www.manhattantheatreclub.com/education/stargate/ a work-readiness theatre program developed at Manhattan Theatre Club in which justice-involved young people are paid to write, rehearse and perform an original work on one of MTC’s stages. She teaches at NYU, Drew University, Manhattan Theatre Club, Theatre Development Fund, and Harlem Dramatic Writers Workshop. Masters NYU ‘22 Arts+Politics
Antu Yacob (Curator) is an Oromo, Ethiopian born, Bay Area and Minnesota raised actor, filmmaker, playwright, and producer. Her film Love in Submission was part of the Full Spectrum Features’ collection: Our Right to Gaze: Black Film Identities. It screened in various festivals including New York African Film Festival, Women of the Lens (UK) and Black Muslim Girl Fly Festival (Honorable Mention). She recently completed Cycle 4 of the Obie award-winning The Fire This Time Festival’s New Works Lab where she continued development on her original tv series. Her onscreen credits include Inventing Anna, The Other Two, Night Comes On, Daredevil, Gypsy, Law & Order: SVU, Adieu Lacan, Brooklyn Park, Signs of Aging and Love in Submission. Her solo show In The Gray was featured in United Solo Theatre Festival and the Symposium on African Global Migration. Her plays have premiered at Kampala International Theatre Festival (Uganda), Project Y Theatre, Theatre167, Mile Square Theatre, and Tiny Barn Festival. Her stage credits include work with The Fire This Time Festival, American Slavery Project, Primary Stages, Project Y Theatre, Crossroads Theatre, Goodman Theatre, Luna Stage, Cincinnati Playhouse, Philadelphia Theatre Co, Mixed Blood Theatre, Pangea World Theatre and Pillsbury House Theatre. Her voice can be heard on the Druid Hills episode of Malcolm Gladwell’s Revisionist History and the audiobook Addis Ababa Noir by Maaza Mengiste. As an Associate Producer with Project Y Theatre, she conceived and curates All Hands on Deck, a reading series that shares new works by female playwrights of the African Diaspora, exploring select themes that expand on the multidimensionality of Black life in the U.S. She also served as a producer for Adrian Luke Sinclair’s Conjure, the winner of the 2017 Hip Hop Film Festival Vanguard award. She teaches at Baruch College and Rutgers University. She received her MFA in Acting from Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University. www.antuyacob.com
Our aim is to amplify and uphold each other. The creation of this group is an act of recognition that the particular demands on caregiver writers - especially during an unpredictable and ongoing pandemic - continue to hack away at our creative time in invisible and isolating ways. It is also a show of confidence that an artistic career does not have to be derailed by the demands of caregiving. We seek to support parent playwrights in the creation and presentation of original work, and are committed to foregrounding diverse points of view from historically underrepresented voices.
Our group has received financial and in-kind support from Project Y Theatre, New Georges, Juilliard, 5th Floor Theater's Groundbreaker's Grant, and others.
ADAM SZYMKOWICZ’s plays have been produced throughout the U.S., and in Canada, England, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Australia, Germany, Greece, Mexico, Turkey, South Korea, Thailand, Sweden, Austria, Slovenia and Lithuania. His work has been presented or developed at such places as Portland Center Stage, MCC Theater, Ars Nova, South Coast Rep, Playwrights Horizons, LCT3, LAByrinth Theater Company, The Lark, Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, Primary Stages and The New Group, among others.
Published plays include Deflowering Waldo, Pretty Theft, Food For Fish, Hearts Like Fists, Incendiary, Clown Bar, The Why Overhead, Adventures of Super Margaret, 7 Ways To Say I Love You, Rare Birds, Marian Or The True Tale of Robin Hood, Kodachrome, Mercy, The Book Store, Old Fashioned Cold Fusion, The Parking Lot, Night Children and Nerve. His plays are published by Dramatists Play Service, Samuel French, Playscripts, Broadway Play Publishing and Original Works Publishing, and featured in New York Theatre Review, the Dionysian, NYTE’s Cino Nights, Geek Theater, and numerous Smith and Kraus and Applause books.
He was the premiere Resident Playwright at The Chance Theater in Anaheim, CA and the first playwright to participate in Bloomington Playwrights Projects’ Square One Series. He has been to The Orchard Project and to JAW at Portland Center Stage, served twice as Playwright in Residence at the William Inge Center, and twice as a Dramatists Guild Fund’s Traveling Masters. Szymkowicz received two grants from the CT Commission on Culture & Tourism, and has been commissioned by South Coast Rep, Rising Phoenix Rep, Texas State University, The NOLA Project, Single Carrot Theater, Majestic Rep, The Chance Theater and Flux Theater Ensemble.
Adam received a Playwright’s Diploma from The Juilliard School's Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwrights Program and an MFA from Columbia University where he was the Dean’s Fellow. Szymkowicz is a two-time Lecomte du Nouy Prize winner, a member of the Dramatists Guild, Writer’s Guild of America, and was a member of Primary Stages’ Dorothy Strelsin New American Writer’s Group, the MCC Playwright’s Coalition and of the very first Ars Nova Play Group.
He has interviewed over 1000 playwrights on his blog.
For more, go to www.adamszymkowicz.com.
Deepa Purohit graduated from Brooklyn College with an MFA in Playwriting in 2020. She’s been a member of Ma-Yi Writers Lab since 2014 and co-founded and ran Rising Circle Theater Collective (www.risingcircle.org) for 12 years (2000-2012), overseeing the development of over 20 plays by writers of color. She also trained and worked as an actor, holds an MPH, from Columbia University, a BA from Northwestern University and is the mother of a ninth grader. Playwriting credits include: The In Between developed w/ NAATCO (2019-2021) Mothering: A collection of short form works for performance. Elyria: in partnership with Ma-Yi Theatre Company: 2018 Recipient of NEA ArtWorks Grant & 2018 Jerome Foundation Grant for research, 2018 SPACE on Ryder Farm two-week residency. Crushed Earth: 2017 Recipient of New Play Frontiers Residency and Commission at People’s Light Theatre – co-written w/Sanjit De Silva. M xx/perience (in development) The Wake: 2017 Ma-Yi Writers Lab/Andrew W. Mellon Creative Fellowship Residency at the University of Washington, Ma-Yi Writers Lab Fest 2015. A Valentine: 2017 Kilroys Honorable Mention, Ma-Yi Writers Lab Fest 2017. Have Sari. Will Travel!: Rising Circle’s June 2017 Refinery Workshop, 2016 Lilly Awards Foundation Family Residency at SPACE on Ryder Farm. Flight: Developed in 2011 w/Rising Circle Theater Collective’s 2011 InkTANK PlayLab. Short plays: LotusMart, Ohio (Desipina Productions 2003), Exiled (2001). Writing w/Sanjit De Silva and Rising Circle: Grace (2010), The American Family Project (2007), Pulling the Lever (2004, Published in Plays and Playwrights 2006, 2004 NYIT Award for Best Ensemble).
Deneen Reynolds-Knott’s outdoor play, SHOEBOX PICNIC ROAD SIDE: ROUTE ONE, had its World Premiere at Alabama Shakespeare Festival in Fall 2021. Deneen was awarded Farm Theater's 2022-3 College Collaboration Project Commission. Other plays include: BABES IN HO-LLAND (2020 Bay Area Playwrights Festival, 2022 Workshop at Shotgun Players), FLASHES & FLOATERS (2020 Playfest at Orlando Shakespeare Theater), BATON (2018 Premiere Play Festival and workshop reading at Premiere Stages, San Diego Rep’s 2021 Black Voices Reading Series, Orlando Shakes’ 2017 Playfest, finalist for the 2017 PlayPenn and Bay Area Playwrights conferences) and ANTEPARTUM (2020 Fire This Time Festival ‘s signature ten-minute play program). She contributed work to 24/6: A Jewish Theater Company’s Telephone Plays and True Colors’ 2022 Next Narrative Monologue Competition. Deneen was a member of Clubbed Thumb’s 2019-2020 Early-Career Writers’ Group and received the 2021 Clubbed Thumb Constitution Commission. Deneen is a New Georges affiliated artist and developed projects with Liberation Theatre Company, Project Y, Rising Circle and Frank Silvera Workshop. She received her MFA in film from Columbia University.
Eleanor Burgess’s play The Niceties has been produced at theatres across America, including Manhattan Theatre Club, Geffen Playhouse, McCarter Theatre Center, Huntington Theatre Company and Finborough Theatre. Her other plays include Wife of a Salesman, Sparks Fly Upward, Start Down, and Galilee 34, and have been produced or developed at Playwrights Horizons, The New Group, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Writers Theatre, Milwaukee Repertory Theatre, Alliance Theatre, and Merrimack Rep. She has been a member of the Dorothy Strelsin New American Writers Group at Primary Stages, Page 73's writers' group Interstate 73, The Civilians’ R&D Group, and New York Theatre Workshop’s 2050 Fellowship. She has also written for film and television including work on Perry Mason for HBO and WeCrashed for Apple TV. Originally from Brookline, Massachusetts, she studied history at Yale College and Dramatic Writing at NYU/Tisch, and is the proud mama to a rambunctious toddler.
Enid Graham is a writer and actress living in New York City where she is a fellow in the Lila Acheson Wallace Playwriting Program at Juilliard. Most recently, her short play for Zoom, Do Not Go, My Love was performed in the Hudson Stage Company’s online reading series. Also, her play Golden was presented in audio format for The Falconworks Theater Company. In 2019, What Martha Did received a preview production in the Launch Pad series at UCSB. Her play Ruth was recently seen at the 2018 National Playwrights Conference at the O’Neill Center, the New TACTics 2017 New Play Festival in NYC, and the Sacred Monsters Summer Reading Series in Los Angeles California. What Martha Did, was a finalist for the 2015 National Playwrights’ Conference and a semi-finalist in the Blue Ink Playwriting Festival in Chicago. Other plays include: Pathological Venus (2020 finalist NPC), Golden, Something Unrecognizable, A Long Time Ago in a Dark Yard at Night, For I Know the Plans I Have for You, and The Astonishing and Improbable Adventures of Ann Lee. As an actress, her credits include numerous Broadway and off-Broadway productions such as The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, and Honour (Tony Award nomination), and Television/Film including The Sinner, Boardwalk Empire, Margaret, The Glorias and most recently she portrayed Dawn in HBO’s Mare of Easttown.
ERIN MALLON is a playwright, author, and narrator of over 550 audiobooks with a special affinity for the romance genre. She is a six-time Earphones Award Winner and a five-time Audie Award Nominee. Her audio play These Walls Can Talk is a 2021 Independent Audiobook Award Winner for Humor. The Natural History Series is Erin’s debut trio of romantic comedy novels: Flirtasaurus,(July 2020) Lovebug, (February 2021) and Sharkbait (coming Spring 2022). Erin’s plays have been presented with Urban Stages, New Georges, Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, The Collective, Cherry Picking, Great Plains Theater Conference, Samuel French #OOB Short Play Festival, Project Y Theater, Dreamcatcher Rep, Mile Square Theatre and more. Erin’s play Branched (dir. Robert Ross Parker) premiered with InViolet Theater at HERE Arts Center in NYC and is in print with Original Works Publishing. Her play, The Net Will Appear had its Off-Broadway Premiere at 59E59 Theaters in NYC starring the great Richard Masur and is now available on Audible.com as an audio drama co-starring Matilda Lawler (Disney Plus’ Flora & Ulysses, Broadway’s The Ferryman). Erin’s Other full-length plays include: Good Riddance, Soft Animals, Hand Me Down, Stunning Displays of Prowess, Skin Hungry, The Other White Meat, Come Find Me and These Walls Can Talk 2: The Narwhal Strikes Back!Along with writer Bixby Elliot, Erin is the founder and co-curator of The Brooklyn Generator (a playwriting engine that creates "plays in less-than-30-days") and one half of The Theater Husband / Theater Wife Project. Currently, she is partnering with Blackstone Audio to bring Pale Blue Dot(s), an otherworldly piece about an all-female astronaut team (with special appearances by Elon Musk and David Bowie) to audio. Erin lives in a little yellow house on the outskirts of NYC with her husband and Three J's. www.erinmallon.com
Lia Romeo is a playwriting fellow at the Juilliard School. Her play The Forest was developed at the O’Neill Playwrights Conference, and was scheduled for a NNPN rolling world premiere (cancelled due to the coronavirus). Her play Sitting and Talking, starring Dan Lauria and Wendie Malick, premiered at Mile Square Theatre, and has subsequently been presented by Laguna Playhouse, New Jersey Rep, Seven Devils New Play Foundry, and other companies. Other plays have been produced off-Broadway at 59E59 and regionally around the country. Four of her plays have been recognized by the Kilroys List. She was the winner of City Theatre’s National Short Playwriting Award, and has been a nominee or a finalist for the Heideman Award, the L. Arnold Weissberger Award, the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, the Kesselring Prize, and the Steinberg Award. Her plays are published by Broadway Play Publishing, Playscripts, Dramatists Play Service, and Smith & Kraus. She is the associate artistic director with Project Y Theatre Company, and she teaches playwriting at Primary Stages/ESPA and in the M.A. program in creative writing at Fairleigh Dickinson University. She earned her B.A. from Princeton and her M.F.A. in playwriting from Rutgers/MGSA.
Liz Appel is a playwright originally from Toronto now based in New York. Her play BELLS LIKE HOOVES was featured in the 2022 Roundabout Underground Reading Series, and she is a 2022 Ucross Fellow. She has been a Finalist for the Princess Grace Award, the Leah Ryan FEWW Emerging Playwright Prize, PlayPenn, BAPF, Ashland New Plays Festival and the Playwrights’ Center’s Core Apprentice Program. She was a winner of the Henley Rose Playwright Competition for Women, and an Honorable Mention for the Annual Parity Commission (Parity Productions), and The Hearth Theater’s Virtual Retreat. Her short play, SNOW, was produced at the Old Red Lion Theatre in London, and her play MOONSHINE, received a staged reading at the Cherry Lane Theater through Primary Stages, ESPA Drills. Her one-act play, REMEMBER, is published in Blackbird. She has developed work at the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, the Kennedy Center, the Banff Centre, the Flea Theater, the Tank, and is a New Georges Affiliate Artist. MFA in Playwriting from Hunter College (Dec '21) where she was awarded a Roberts Foundation Fellowship. She holds an M.A. and MPhil from Yale University (English) and an MPhil from the University of Cambridge (European Literature). Parent of Mina (7) and Emmy (5) who get up way too early.
Mary Elizabeth Hamilton was a Lila Acheson Wallace Fellow at The Juilliard School and a Jerome New York Fellow at The Lark. She has participated in The O’Neill Theater Conference, Ars Nova, Youngblood, I-73, New Georges’ The Jam, and Play Penn. Mary holds her MFA in playwriting from The University of Iowa. Her play 16 Winters won the American Shakespeare Center’s New Contemporaries Award in 2018. She is developing her Sloan Commission Smart with EST. She has developed work with Clubbed Thumb, Rattlestick, Studio Theater, EST, Page 73 and Ars Nova. Mary is a Story Editor on the Marc Cherry Show "Why Women Kill" and is writing a pilot for AMC based on her play. She's a resident playwright with New Dramatists and lives in Brooklyn with her daughter.
Mathilde Dratwa’s play Milk and Gall opened at Theatre503 in London this November, and is currently an "Offies" finalist (Most Promising New Playwright). Mathilde’s other plays include A Play about David Mamet Writing a Play about Harvey Weinstein, and Dirty Laundry, an Audible commission. Mathilde’s work has been developed and presented by the Ground Floor at Berkeley Rep, Rattlestick, LAByrinth Theater Company, the Great Plains Theater Conference, the Playwrights’ Center, and in London at the Young Vic. Mathilde is a 2021-2024 Core Writer at the Playwrights’ Center, a member of Dorset Theater Festival’s Women Artists Writing Group, and a two-time Pulitzer center grant recipient. Recently, she was a Dramatists Guild Foundation Playwriting Fellow, a member of New York Foundation for the Arts’ Immigrant Artist Program and a member of the Orchard Project’s Greenhouse. Mathilde also writes for Film/TV. She has worked for Picturestart, Endeavor, LuckyChap, FX, Dirty Films, Red Wagon, Sony/TriStar, Chernin and Wiip.
Ying Ying Li earned a Juris Doctorate from Yale Law School and practiced law for five years before restarting her life as a writer and performer. She is a member of The Public Theater's 2020–2023 Emerging Writers Group, and alumnus of The Tank Writer’s Group and The Tank’s TV Writers Group. Her plays include Dance Moms (semi-finalist for the 2020 Premiere Play Festival, NEA grant recipient), mh, Nectarine Girl, Mimi and Derrick on the Highline, Doctor Mao, and Baskin Robbins at a Mall. Her work has been developed or seen at The Tank, Boomerang Theatre, Rule of 7x7, Decent Company, Yes Noise, The Brick, and on The Highline. Her humor writing and videos have appeared in publications such as the NYT, Buzzfeed, Wired, MSN, Lifehacker, Men’s Health, and Mental Floss. She is a member of Actors’ Equity and SAG/AFTRA. Ying Ying was born in Beijing and grew up in Winnipeg, Manitoba. She has two delicious small children.
Aimed at reclaiming and celebrating the history of women in theatre, these plays are commissioned adaptations of a play by the first woman playwright, 10th century abbess, Hrosthwitha of Gandersham. This is part of a 5 year project to adapt all 6 of these historical plays and bring more awareness to this unknown female writer who deserves a place in theatre history.
This year we've commissioned 5 playwrights to write free adaptations of the play, Paphnutius or The Conversion of the Harlot Thaïs.
Playwrights Liz Appel (Bells Like Hooves, Roundabout Underground reading series), Enid Graham (Ruth, O'Neill National Playwrights Conference), Ying Ying Li (Emerging Writers Group at the Public Theatre), Colleen O'Doherty ("Missing Ingredient," Project Y Theatre) and Deepa Purohit (Elyria, Atlantic Theatre) are writing new short plays to be staged in readings as part of Women in Theatre Festival 2023.
Ying Ying was born in Beijing and grew up in Winnipeg, Manitoba. She practiced corporate law in NYC before restarting her life as a writer and performer. She is a member of The Public Theater's 2020–2023 Emerging Writers Group and the Parent/Caregiver Playwrights Group, sponsored by Project Y Theatre. She is an alumna of The Tank’s Playwrights Group, The Tank’s TV Writers Group, and Harvardwood’s TV Writers Group. Her plays include Dance Moms (Premiere Play Festival semi-finalist, NEA grant recipient), Nectarine Girl, Doctor Mao, and Baskin Robbins at a Mall. Her work has been commissioned by Project Y, Rule of 7, Decent Company, Yes Noise and developed or seen at The Tank, Boomerang Theatre, The Brick, and on The Highline (so many helicopters, lesson learned). Her humor writing and videos have appeared in publications such as the NYT, Buzzfeed, Wired, MSN, Lifehacker, Men’s Health, and Mental Floss. She has two delicious small children.
Liz Appel’s play BELLS LIKE HOOVES was featured in the 2022 Roundabout Underground Reading Series. She’s a 2022 Ucross Fellow, 2022 Tofte Lake artist resident, and a 2021-2022 5th Floor Groundbreaker Grant recipient with Lia Romeo. She’s been a Finalist for the Princess Grace Award, Leah Ryan FEWW Prize, PlayPenn, BAPF, and the Ashland New Plays Festival. She was a winner of the Henley Rose Playwright Competition for Women, an Honorable Mention for the Annual Parity Commission (Parity Productions), and The Hearth Theater’s Virtual Retreat. Her short play, SNOW, was produced at the Old Red Lion Theatre in London, and her play, MOONSHINE, received a staged reading at the Cherry Lane. Her play, REMEMBER, is published in Blackbird. MFA in Playwriting from Hunter College where she was awarded a Roberts Foundation Fellowship (Dec ’21). Liz is a member of the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop and interviews playwrights and directors for Vogue.com.
Colleen O'Doherty is a Chicago-based playwright. Her short plays have been part of many festivals. For some examples, Ricky and Ready has been in Secret Theater's Act One: One Act Festival, NYC, February 2020 and Warner Theatre International one-act festival in October 2022. Her Zoom-based play, Missing Ingredient was selected for NYC's Project Y Theatre Company's Zoom series and was released in November 2020. It was also nominated for best short in the first annual Young-Howze Theatre Awards, February 2021. Her full-length, Stripped, was a 2022 Austin Film Festival Screenplay Competition 2nd Rounder, a quarterfinalist for ScreenCraft's 2018-19 stage play competition and a 2018 Henley Rose Playwright Competition for Women Finalist. It was part of TheatreMidwest's Fresh Produce Concert Reading Series in October 2020 in Des Moines, IA and a 2020 semi-finalist for UP Theater’s Renewal Reading Series in NYC. Find her here: https://colleenodoherty.com/
Enid Graham is a 2022 graduate of the Lila Acheson Wallace Playwriting Program at Juilliard. Her plays A Long Time Ago in a Dark Yard at Night and Do Not Go, My Love were performed in the new play reading series at the Hudson Stage Company. Her audio play Golden was presented for The Falconworks Theater. In 2019, What Martha Did received a preview production in the Launch Pad program at UCSB. Her play Ruth was developed at the 2018 National Playwrights Conference at the O’Neill Center and the New TACTics 2017 New Play Festival in NYC. What Martha Did, was a finalist for the 2015 National Playwrights’ Conference and a semi-finalist in the Blue Ink Playwriting Festival in Chicago. Other plays include: Smoke (2022 NPC finalist), Pathological Venus (2020 finalist NPC), Something Unrecognizable, The Plans I Have for You, and The Astonishing and Improbable Adventures of Ann Lee.
Deepa Purohit is a New Georges Audrey Resident (2022). She made her Off- Broadway debut at The Atlantic Theater Company in New York City with the World Premiere of her play, ELYRIA in February/March 2023. She joined Ma-Yi Writers Lab in 2014 and is now a Legacy Labbie. She received her MFA in Playwriting at Brooklyn College in Deepa also co-founded and ran Rising Circle Theater Collective for 12 years (2000-2012), overseeing the development of over 20 plays by playwrights of color. She’s a trained actor, has a Masters in Public Health from Columbia University, and a BA in History from Northwestern University. Born in the UK, with familial roots in Ohio, East Africa, and India, she lives in NYC with her husband and son. Full Length Plays: Elyria: Feb-March 2023 Off Broadway World Premiere (The Atlantic Theater Company, NYC) 2018 NEA ArtWorks Grant & 2018 Jerome Foundation Grant for play development w/Ma-Yi Theater Company. 2018 SPACE on Ryder Farm Creative Residency. M xx/perience: New Georges Audrey Residency (2022). The In Between: A Love Story developed in part w/NAATCO (2019-2021). The Wake: 2017 Ma-Yi Writers Lab/Andrew W. Mellon Creative Fellowship Residency at the University of Washington. A Valentine: 2017 Kilroys Honorable Mention. Have Sari. Will Travel!: Rising Circle’s 2017 Refinery Workshop Production, 2016 Lilly Awards Foundation Family Residency at SPACE on Ryder Farm. Flight: Rising Circle Theater Collective’s 2011 InkTANK PlayLab. Short Form Plays: Mothering: A collection of 11 short works for performance (2022). LotusMart, Ohio (Desipina Productions 2003), Exiled (2001).
Two Hander
by Julia Blauvelt
a new play reading
on a doublebill with YOGA WITH JILLIAN
Saturday, June 17th Matinee
About the Play:
Therapy first-timer Claire feels immediately understood by the sharp and aloof Diana, and begins the difficult work of learning how to ask for the help she badly needs. But there are other obstacles in the room far less obvious than Claire's learning curve. As patient and doctor come to rely on each other in a way that transcends the office, hidden truths become devastating omissions, resulting in a blowup fueled by the innate human need to be understood-- no matter the cost.
Julia Blauvelt (Playwright) holds her MFA in Dramatic Writing from NYU Tisch School of the Arts, where she was the recipient of a Tisch School of the Arts Graduate Scholarship and the Graduate Award for Television Writing. Residencies include the 2021 Orchard Project Performance Lab and 2021 Athena Film Festival Writers Lab. Semi-finalist/finalist for: 2022-24 WP Theater Lab, 2021 Neukom Institute Literary Arts Award for Playwriting, New American Voices Festival, Cinequest TV Fellowship, and NYU Fusion Film Festival. Her play F.I.R.E. received a production in 2021 at New Normal Rep.
June 14th Wednesday
7:30pm
We are partnering with Honor Roll! to feature an evening of writing by women playwrights 40 or over. Through a submission and selection process, we'll choose an evening of monologues to be read by the playwrights and a company of actors.
