YOGA WITH JILLIAN

by Lia Romeo
Directed by Andrew W. Smith
Performed by Michole BIancosino
Lighting Design by Elizabeth M. Stewart
Set Design by Yijun Yang
Stage Management by Sidney Rubinowicz
Co-produced by Richard Jordan Productions
In association with The pleasance

June 2-17th, 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 (Playwright) 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 (Jillian) 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 (Director) 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.

Elizabeth M. Stewart (Lighting Designer) is a New York based lighting designer and interdisciplinary artist whose work has been seen in New York, London, Philadelphia, and more, in venues ranging from art gallery basements to off-Broadway theatres. Recent credits include Gas (Theatre Row), The Chickens Have Come Home to Roost (Triskelion), Waiting for Lefty (Quintessence Theatre Group), Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story (Cape Fear Regional Theatre), Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812 (Hangar Theatre), Orlando (Barnard), and  Ritual (Witness). Elizabeth is a resident designer with both WWTNS? Theatre Company and The Arctic Group, and is a member of the art collective Smear Campaign. MFA Brooklyn College - Performance & Interactive Media Arts. BFA NYU Tisch. ElizabethMStewart.myportfolio.com 

Yijun Yang (Set Designer), a set designer and production designer based in New York City and Shanghai, is originally from China. She has an MFA in Scenic Design from Carnegie Mellon University, School of Drama, and the George Kimberly Award for Set Design.  Her set design credits: Women in Theater Festival 2023 (Project Y) Disney Gala Concert (China National tour), Jia Ge the Hip Hop Dance Show (Shanghai Grand Theater), Big Green Theatre, The Movie, (Bushwick Starr and Superhero Clubhouse), Stupid F**king Bird (The Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute), Detroit ’67 (Philip Chosky Theater, CMU). Her short film design credits: Rain Likely Today, Rapeseed Field, Runaway Father, Lottery Tickets, User Zero, etc.

Richard Jordan Productions is a TONY and Olivier Award-winning production company under the artistic leadership of British producer, Richard Jordan. Based in London, the company was founded in 1998 and enjoys associations with many of the world’s leading theaters and arts organizations. Described by The Stage newspaper "as one of the UK’s most prolific theatre producers" and named seven times in their annual list of the top 100 UK theater professionals, Richard Jordan Productions has produced over 260 productions (over 30 New York presentations) including 98 world premieres and 91 US, UK and Australian premieres by new and established writers, artists, and companies. Past productions have won a number of major awards including: Laurence Olivier Award; DORA; 17 Scotsman Fringe Firsts; 10 Total Theatre Awards; 2 Herald Angel Awards; Emmy Award; Off-West End Award; US Black Alliance Award; ; the Infallible Award for Creative Innovation in Digital Theatre; 2 Jeff Awards; Obie Award; 3 Helen Hayes Awards; John Gardner Award for Best New American Play; TONY Award (along with eleven other TONY nominations); and Drama Desk, Drama League, New York Critics, Broadway.com and Outer Critic Circle Best New Play Awards. Richard was the first recipient of the TIF/Society of London Theatre Producers Award. In 2013, Richard became the first British producer to have won every notable Broadway and off-Broadway Best New Play Award. A new writing specialist, Richard served for seven years as an Associate Artist of London's Bush Theatre, and in London’s West End as Creative Director of the Theatre Royal Haymarket and Artistic Consultant for the creation and inaugural season of the Theatre Royal Haymarket Company. He is the international Producing Partner of Chicago Shakespeare Theater and the Illawarra Performing Arts Centre (IPAC) in Wollongong, Australia. His past productions in New York include: Vanya, Sonia, Masha and Spike (John Golden Theater); Basic Training (Barrow Street Theater, Theater Row); Trump Lear (59E59 Theater); Once and for all we’re gonna tell you who we are so shut up and listen (New Victory); Dickens’ Women (Lincoln Center, Morgan Library); Nine Parts of Desire (Queens Theatre in the Park, Public Theater, Manhattan Ensemble Theater); an oak tree (Barrow Street Theater); Victor Spinetti: A Very Private Diary (Lincoln Center); A Behanding in Spokane (Gerald Schoenfeld Theater); Die Roten Punkte (Barrow Street Theater); BigMouth (Public Theater); Impressionism (Gerald Schoenfeld Theater); Goodness (PS122); My Name is Gideon (Rattlestick Playwrights Theater); In the Continuum (Perry Street Theater); Three Tales of Life and Death (E5959 Theater); Naughty (59E59 Theater); Stefan Golaszewski Speaks About a Girl He Once Loved (Barrow Street Theater); Shylock (Perry Street Theater); Gary Busey’s One Man Hamlet (59E59 Theater, The Pit); Trump Lear (59E59 Theater, The Pit); A Brimful of Asha (Pershing Square Signature Center); MacHomer: The Simpson’s Do Macbeth (Highline Ballroom); Rum and Vodka (Ohio Theater); Othello: The Remix (Westside Theater); The Planet of the Grapes (NY Digital Theatre); ArewenotdrawnonwardtonewerA (BAM/Public); Kafka and Son (Soho Playhouse); East 10^th Street (PS122); Funk It Up About Nothin’ (Public Theater); Roadkill (St. Ann’s Warehouse); Penny Arcade’s Bitch! Dyke! Faghag! Whore! (Public Theater).  In 2010 for his service to the UK and international arts industries, he was selected for lifetime inclusion in A & C Black’s annual publication, Who’s Who. For more information about our work and productions email: info@richardjordanproductions.com

Since 1985, the Pleasance Theatre Trust has become one of the most famous festival organisations in the world. With 23 venues at the heart of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and a year-round operation in Islington, London, with theatre, rehearsal and development spaces, the Pleasance has created a platform where the most established artists stand shoulder to shoulder with the rising stars of the future. www.pleasance.co.uk

A lobby installation project by Chen Wei Liao

June 3rd - 17th, 2023

Chen-Wei Liao is a New York City based scenic designer originating from Taipei, Taiwan. She has diverse experiences in theater, film and exhibition both in Taiwan and the United States. Growing up in a bilingual and multicultural environment, she is interested in observing and creating the dynamics between people, stories and space. She likes to read anything about psychology, neuron science, social studies and animal behavior studies. One of her daily meditation topics is the relativity between Freedom - Rights - Responsibility. She is a proud alumni of National Taiwan University and Carnegie Mellon University.

Her upcoming projects include the RING OF FIRE with the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park. Selected theatre credits include NYT critic's picks A GIRL IS A HALF-FORMED THING with the Irish Rep; the world premiere of ISLANDS OF CONTENTMENT, produced by The Tank and The Hypokrit Theatre Company; THE SKIN OF OUR TEETH and THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST with the Phoenix Festival in the beautiful town of Nyack in upstate New York. Regional credits include JERSEY BOYS with the Maltz Jupiter Theatre; MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS with the Cape Playhouse and THE THREE MUSKETEERS, 1941 with Project Y Theatre Company as a part of the Women in Theatre Festival 2019.

Sunday, June 4th, 2023  |  7pm

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 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. 

JUMP! by Shamar White

Directed by Noelle LuSane

CAST:

Brittany Davis: RADIANCE

Johnny Wu: MAJOR VU

Magaly Colimon-Christopher: ROCHELLE

Aidan Amster: Stage Directions

KAREN AND ME AND GODDESS MAKES THREE by Judy Tate

Directed by Tonia Anderson

CAST:

Magaly Colimon-Christopher: JANELLE

Nadhege Ptah: GODDESS

Tara Gadomski: KAREN

Amanda Kearns: Stage Directions

ORIGINAL LIGHT by Marie-Francoise Theodore

Directed by Tonia Anderson

CAST:

Brittany Davis: DARA

Johnny Wu: GUY and TOM and SAM

Tara Gadomski: SUSIE and NURSE

Atibon Nazaire: DESSALINE

Nadhege Ptah: MARENN

Sophie Butler-Rahman: Stage Directions

Live Musical Accompaniment for the evening will be provided by Kena Anae.

Shamar White (Playwright, JUMP!) 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 (Playwright, KAREN AND ME AND GODDESS MAKES THREE) 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

Marie-Françoise Theodore (Playwright, ORIGINAL LIGHT) is an interdisciplinary artist, actor, writer and filmmaker of Haitian descent. Marie-Françoise draws upon her boundary crossing multiple cultural identities, surviving foster care, extensive world travel and living abroad experiences in order to make the invisible visible and give voice to perspectives not often seen on the page or the screen.She is the writer/director, actor and producer of the award-winning short film, rebel in the soul. She has Guest Star TV roles in TV shows including Single Drunk Female, Only Murders in The Building, Station 19, The Orville and How To Get Away With Murder. She has graced the stages of Sacred Fools Theatre in World Premiere of The Art Couple with Brendan Hunt (co-creator/star of Ted Lasso) and starred in Rapunzel Alone at the Wallis Annenberg Theatre Beverly Hills. Regional theatre credits include Penumbra Theatre and the Guthrie. This reading marks Marie-Françoise's return to her playwriting roots. Originally from Chicago, Marie-Françoise resides in Los Angeles.

Tonia Anderson (Director, KAREN AND ME AND GODDESS MAKES THREE and ORIGINAL LIGHT) Born in South Carolina, polished at Harvard, distilled by New York City. Toni A. continues her journey to becoming the artist of her dreams, acting, writing, and occasionally directing to capture some of her southern, army brat, craft maven, sci-fi-geek-girl experiences for the boards. A proud member of SAG-AFTRA and AEA, she is wide awake and gripping the steering wheel. Toniaanderson.net

Noelle LuSane (Director, JUMP!) is an actor, writer and director. This is her second time directing a play during the Women in Theatre Festival. Originally from New Jersey, she is the granddaughter of brave souls who made the journey north as part of the Great Migration of African-Americans. Her work as an actor and creator are informed by her experiences as a black woman in America and particularly her time spent working for the U.S. House of Representatives as the Staff Director of the Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health which involved regular trips to the continent as well as Latin America, where she and colleagues helped make visible the plight of Afro Latinos in politics and social spaces.

Television credits include New Amsterdam, BULL, and The Endgame. She has also appeared in several national commercials. Theater credits include work at Theater for the New City, The Actor’s Temple Theater, and various regional productions.

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

Sophie Butler-Rahman (Stage Directions) is a rising junior at Middlebury College studying Arabic and Theatre from Cambridge, Massachusetts. She has acted in Which Way Is Up? (Krishna, Dolly, Wife), Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play (Nelson/Ensemble), The Moors (Marjory), and Somewhere (Kin) at Middlebury. Focusing on directing, she co-directed an acting senior thesis of Tennessee Williams plays this past Spring and will direct Beta Bitches by Emily Yuko Walborn as her intermediate project in the Fall. 

Aidan Amster (Stage Directions) is a San Francisco native and joint theatre and English major at Middlebury College. She has experience acting and directing at Middlebury, and is excited to complete her thesis in acting and appear as Anna in Greek Tragedy, by Lia Romeo this coming fall.

Amanda Kearns (Stage Directions) is a student at Syracuse University studying in the B.F.A. acting program. She grew up in Middlebury, Vermont exploring classical and contemporary theater and found her love for performing. She would like to thank Michole and Andrew for the opportunity to explore the non- performance side of theater!

Tuesday, June 6th, 2023  |  7:30pm

Join us for a reading of a new play by our first VISIONARY COMMISSION recipient, Amina Henry.  A new version of PIED PIPER by Amina Henry (Women’s Project, Jack, Kilroys List) will be unveiled in its work-in-progress form. We are thrilled to have Amina create another feminist fairytale for us. Her past productions with us include CINDY and SLEEPING BEAUTY.

Free!

CareGiver Reading

Thursday, June 8th, 2023  |  7:30pm

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.

Friday, June 9th, 2023  |  7:30pm

The Real Girls is a sci-fi, musical-comedy satire about celebrity culture and the entertainment industry, set in the not-so-distant future, and inside the audience’s brain. In this world, it is the norm to have a brainial implant called "The BOX", which directly feeds perfectly customized content into your mind, giving you what you want before you know you want it. Through our "feed" we follow the careers of "The Real Girls," a girl group made up of four sisters/former humans turned algorithmically programmed celebrity persona. This audio play explores our society’s relationship with celebrities and the culture that creates and defines them.

Annalisa is born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. A rising senior actor at Carnegie Mellon. She is a first generation American finding her love for her culture through her art. She is creating a foundation of love and care within her work. Annalisa has found her voice as a writer and director this year in her writing and directorial debut "Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood" a show about a black woman’s journey towards discovering self love. She is excited to be back with Project Y making her debut with them at Tiny Barn in Vermont in the summer of 2021. 

Julianna Austin is an actor and artist from the Hudson Valley of New York. A proud queer and Filipina-American artist, she is a recent BFA graduate of Carnegie Mellon School of Drama. They were fortunate to be a part of the original Real Girls cast during its premiere at CMU, and are so excited to continue with its development! Notable recent credits include: One Day Down (Marion, SheNYC award), You On the Moors Now (Elizabeth Bennet), Athena (Mary Wallace) Aside from performing, Julianna is also a pole aerialist, fight director, and casting assistant. Her interdisciplinary work can be seen with T Creatives Casting, Sordelet Inc., LaTiDo Productions, Clownz with Apple, and more.

Bryanna Felipe was raised in the sunny city of Miami, FL. Growing up, storytelling and connection was mainly fostered through song and dance (influenced by her family's Cuban culture). Yet, that quickly evolved after her first experience in a musical: 101 Dalmations Jr., 10 years old at summer camp! 

Her curiosity and love for theater was ignited, so she studied musical theater in both middle and high school. Then, when college auditions came around, she was accepted into Carnegie Mellon University's Acting program. She has been so grateful to attend the last four years here.

Bryanna has found deep care for stories about finding resilience, love and community in difficult times. When not on stage, you can find her journaling or meditating, making coffee for her and her roommates, or talking to her mom on the phone following a family recipe she’ll later share with her friends. She intends to continue to nourish her sense of community one way or another each day. Through acting, song, dance, and maybe even a delicious home cooked meal! 

B Kleymeyer is a transgender director of theatre, performance, and film. She is currently a John Wells Directing Fellow at Carnegie Mellon University. Her work focuses on creating harmony out of contradiction, the mechanical and the human, the infinitesimal and the gigantic, the beautiful and the grotesque. Selected Credits: Adult Things (Carnegie Mellon University), i’m not done with this body and i never will be (Kelly Strayhorn Theatre), Kiss Me Mr. Musk (Single Carrot Theatre), we broke up. (Rochester Fringe Festival), Safe Space (Single Carrot Theatre). Upcoming: The Real Girls (Project Y Theatre), i’m starting to want to be a Mother (Carnegie Mellon University). B’s work is a collective prayer, a model of the world we wish to build, and a place of transformation.

Sophia Power is a recent graduate of Carnegie Mellon University where she received a BFA in Acting. She also trained at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama for a semester pursuing Musical Theatre. Some favorite credits include Athena in Athena and Asha in Blood at the Root. Sophia is so grateful to be acting with Project Y again, her first time being the Tiny Barn project in 2021. She wants to thank her family and mentors for their continuous love and support for her work!

Beth Ann Powers is an award-winning playwright, comedian, screenwriter, theater artist, and snarky little rascal. In 2015, Beth Ann helped co-found her production company, Slap Happy Studios, for which she now serves as Artistic Director. Her work as a playwright has been produced regionally with such companies as The Playwrights Center, Phoenix Theater, Theater Unbound, Raw Sugar, and Umbrella Collective.  She holds an MFA in dramatic writing from Carnegie Mellon University, and a BA in theater arts, performance creation from the University of Minnesota. Beth Ann’s screenplay, Saving Little Hope, was named a winner of the 2022 Alfred P. Sloan Script Competition. Also in 2022, she received the Mary Marlin Fisher Award for stage/ audio play, The Real Girls. Beth Ann is currently a company member of Rails Comedy in Washington DC.

PENGUIN IN YOUR EAR

a work-in-stand-up-comedy process  

written and performed by Eliza Bent

directed by Jess Barbagallo

Saturday, June 10th, 2023  |  7:30pm

on a doublebill with YOGA WITH JILLIAN

Eliza Bent is the love-grandchild of Lily Tomlin, Pee Wee Herman, and Mr. Peanut, whose Bentertainments have been produced at the Abrons Arts Center, JACK, the New Ohio, the Atlantic Theatre, the Bushwick Starr and New York Theatre Workshop’s Next Door Series. Residencies: MacDowell Fellow, SPACE on Ryder Farm, New Georges, Target Margin Institute Fellow, Goodman Theatre Playwrights Unit, Casa Zia Lina, and Pilot Balloon. As an actor Bent has performed in pint-sized New York theatres, regionally in Omaha and Louisville, and toured internationally with the Obie-award winning ensemble Half Straddle. Bent’s short film Summer’s Last Swim was recently awarded Best LGBTQ+ by Chicago Filmmakers. Bent has a BA in philosophy, an MFA in playwriting from Brooklyn College, and is currently on faculty at Northwestern University's Radio TV & Film department.

Sunday, June 11th, 2023  |  7pm

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.  Directed by Rachel Dart and Kimille Howard.

The Adaptations:

The Gay Agenda (or Homo Indutus) by Colleen O’Doherty

The "F" Word by Deepa Purohit

YES by Liz Appel

The Conversion by Enid Graham

But Is She Sorry by Ying Ying Li

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).  

Kimille Howard is an Assistant Stage Director at the Metropolitan Opera, Artistic Director of the Lucille Lortel Theatre’s NYC Public High School Playwriting Fellowship and co-founder of the Black Classical Music Archive. Select directing credits: The Passion of Mary Cardwell Dawson (Glimmerglass/Washington National Opera), Songs in Flight (Sparks and Wiry Cries/Met Live), The Italian Girl (Tulsa Opera), American Apollo (Des Moines Metro Opera), B.R.O.K.E.N Code B.I.R.D Switching (Berkshire Theatre Group), Quamino’s Map (Chicago Opera Theater), Highway 1, USA (IU Opera), Night Trip (Opera NexGen), The Visit (ECU), L’Amant Anonyme (Wolf Trap Opera), Death By Life: a live virtual opera (White Snake Projects), In The Open (WCSU), Soil Beneath (Primary Stages/59E59), $#!thole Country Clapback (Loading Dock Theatre), The Fellowship Plays (Lucille Lortel Theatre Foundation), A Light Staggering by Jeesun Choi (EST), Low Power (EST), Skeleton Crew (TheatreSquared) and TRIGGERED (Cherry Lane Theatre). Her work has also been seen at Playwrights’ Horizons, 59E59, The Tank, Theatre Now, The Circle in the Square Theatre Circle Series, Queens Theatre, Juilliard, The Flea, The Lark, JAGFest, NYU, Sea Dog Theater, and Atlantic Acting School, CLASSIX/The Lewis Center, among others. Broadway: Ain’t Too Proud (Assistant Director) Met Opera: Porgy And Bess and Tosca (Assistant Stage Director) Recent Fellowships: NYTW 2050 Fellowship, MTC Jonathan Alper Directing Fellowship, current member of The New Georges Directors Jam, and a participant in New York Stage and Film’s inaugural NYSAF NEXUS project. Kimille was the Series Producer for the first season of American Opera Project’s Music As the Message. She and her design team are 2023 recipients of OPERA America’s Robert L. B. Tobin Director-Designer Prize, generously funded by the Tobin Theatre Arts Fund.

Rachel Dart is a New York-based director and educator. Recent credits include Coming Soon (featured on SF Chronicle's Best of Theater 2022 list), the regional premiere of Dance Nation at Nashville Story Garden; and two Princeton University Triangle Club shows at McCarter Theatre Center. New plays, musicals, and classics at Actors Theatre of Louisville, Williamstown, Ensemble Studio Theatre/Youngblood, the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University, and The Atlantic Alumni Workshop and Acting School. Assistant directing includes The Vineyard, BAM, Roundabout Theatre Company, and on Broadway at Manhattan Theatre Club.

Rachel is also an educator, who, since 2008, has facilitated over five hundred workshops on sexuality and relationships with Sex Discussed Here and the NYC Mayor's Office to End Gender-Based Violence. She is the founder of Let Us Work, an advocacy group that combats sexual harassment in theater by effecting change in policy and culture, and is passionate about voting rights, having knocked 5,000 doors in Pennsylvania and Georgia in the 2020 elections.

Wednesday, June 14th, 2023  |  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 have chosen an evening of monologues to be read by the playwrights and a company of actors.

The Hoodie Play, by Liz Amadio
Sugar & Spice, by Caytha Jentis
I am a Dyke, by Anne Valentino
Starring America, by Julie Weinberg
You're My Last Little Girl, Mae Mobley, by Yvette Heyliger
Pandora Monologue from "In the Cervix of Others", by Alice Eve Cohen
Tamar from 3 Sisters, 3 Witches, 3 Ghosts, by Dana Leslie Goldstein
The Assistant, by Ashley Minihan
The Quality of Respect, by Shellen Lubin
Dreaming, by Angela Page
Dr. Bob, by Serena Norr
Toppings and Sides, by Jessica Feder-Birnbaum
Open Palms, by J. Lois Diamond

Thursday, June 15th, 2023  |  7:30pm

on a doublebill with YOGA WITH JILLIAN 

Written by Chris Reisig

Directed by Amanda Whiteley

Chris Reisig (Playwright) (she/they) is a New York based theatre maker whose writings include Karla, Sam, and Mel (Are Going Straight to Hell) and Oopsie Doopsie I Did a Bad, both of which have had readings with Spokehouse Productions. They are a member of Breaking & Entering's Writers Group. They graduated from the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in 2020, studying acting, stage management, and dramaturgy. Insta: @chrisreisigactor

Amanda Whiteley (Director) is so thrilled to finally be staging one of her favorite Chris Reisig plays. She would like to thank Chris for their friendship, their brilliance and their ability to find humor and joy in life’s toughest moments. She would also like to give a huge shout out to the cast for all of their incredible work on this project.  A recent nominee for the Barbara Whitman Award for early career directors, Amanda obtained a BA in Directing & History from Middlebury College in 2019 and a certificate in Classical Peformance from RADA. Post grad, she began working as a commercial producer for Epiq Media, filming some of the company’s highest ranking commercials for The Intrepid Museum, Cider, Aveda & Elephant Drive while also directing music videos for The Tony Awards, Billy Recce and Niamh Collins. In July of 2021, she founded her own site specific theatre company, Spokehouse Productions after directing/producing a sold out, extended run of Romeo & Juliet at The House of the Redeemer. Since, she has directed several more site-specific productions including, Hamlet, Color & Light and Stupid F**king Bird. She is very excited to be launching Spokehouse’s Blue Series this summer, a monthly reading and happy hour staged in an unconventional theatre space that celebrates theatre rituals new & old. Message her instagram @amandawhiteley for more information about their kick-off benefit concert on June 22. 

Friday, June 16th, 2023  |  7:30pm

on a doublebill with YOGA WITH JILLIAN 

The sonic journey of a young woman’s attempt to reconnect with her body. When memory isn’t enough, she turns to music, movement, bodies, puppets, loved ones, cameras, and ancient myths as she unravels the tangled web of repressed trauma. 

Timiki Salinas is thrilled to be back presenting work at Project Y’s WIT Festival. He’s a co-founder of the Bellwether Project and primarily an actor,devisor, and writer. They’ve worked at Lincoln Center, Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, 59E59, Ivoryton Playhouse, and The Acting Company. Original work has also been shared at Ars Nova’s ANT FEST, FringeCLUB, FoolsFury Fury Factory. 

Aubyn Heglie is a nature lover, actor, creator, and activist. She has worked at Milwaukee Repertory Theater, the Arizona Theater Company, and the Drama League, and created and produced for Ars Nova Ant Fest, foolsFury’s Fury Factory, and Project Y. BFA Carnegie Mellon University, 2017-2018 Carnegie Mellon Women’s Association Award CFA recipient, Best Producer 2021 Madrid International Short Film Festival.

Jack Dentinger is a bicoastal director, writer, and producer of Film and Theatrical projects, and co-founder of The Bellwether Project. With Bellwether, he has directed and produced over a dozen independent projects, many of which have been featured in past WiT and Tiny Barn Festivals with Project Y. Other credits include Dr. Rees Ziti's Pageant... at Ars Nova's ANT Fest, Aquamarine - an award-winning short film featured in over 30 festivals worldwide, Timing (music video, Emilia Suarez), (in)alienable (web series), and presently has three short films nearing release. As a Producer with Bellwether, Jack is dedicated to the set up of creative spaces that challenge hierarchy and promote open, communal collaboration. 

The Bellwether Project is a collaborative company of artists who are passionate about telling inclusive stories through the exploration of new forms. The company first produced a show in 2015 while attending Carnegie Mellon University. Since then the company has presented work in NYC at Ars Nova’s ANT FEST, Project Y’s Women in Theater Festival, and for FringeCLUB at Nuyorican Poet’s Cafe. They’ve also produced work at CollaborAction Studios (Chicago) and FoolsFury’s remote Fury Factory Festival during the pandemic. They are currently developing the second season of their webseries, (in)alienable, and a new play, Dr. Rees Ziti’s Pageant For a Better Future. 

The Two Hander

by Julia Blauvelt

a new play reading

Saturday, June 17th, 2023, Matinee 

on a doublebill with YOGA WITH JILLIAN 

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.

Tasha Gordon-Solmon (Director) is a playwright, director and lyricist. Her plays and musicals have been seen at the Humana Festival, Clubbed Thumb, Northern Stage, New Georges, Sun Valley Center for the Arts, The Playwrights Realm, Ars Nova, and The Flea. Tasha’s directing credits include EST, Dixon Place, The Tank, The Flea, INTAR, The Brick, Brooklyn Museum, Project Y, Pipeline, InViolet, Brooklyn Museum, HB Studios, Boomerang Theater, Fire This Time Festival, Columbia University and NYU Graduate Playwriting programs.