New Dramatists Welcomes Alumni Sharon Bridgforth And Qui Nguyen To The Board

New Dramatists, an artistic home and developmental laboratory for professional playwrights, is proud to announce two new board members, Sharon Bridgforth and Qui Nguyen. Both Bridgforth and Nguyen are playwrights and alumni of New Dramatists, where each held a seven-year residency. The board voted unanimously in favor at the last board meeting held on March 18, 2021; the two will be joining the board for their first meeting on June 17, 2021. Their detailed bios can be found below.

SHARON BRIDGFORTH, a Doris Duke Performing Artist, is a writer that creates ritual/jazz theatre. A 2020‐ 2023 Playwrights' Center Core Member, Sharon is a New Dramatists alumna, and has received support from Whitman Institute, Creative Capital, MAP Fund, and the National Performance Network. Her work has been featured at: New York's SummerStage Festival; Rites and Reason Theatre's Black Lavender Experience at Brown University, Links Hall, allgo: a Texas Statewide QPOC Organization, and The Performing Blackness Series at The University of Texas at Austin's John L.Warfield Center for African and African American Studies. Sharon's dat Black Mermaid Man Lady/Home ‐ a Creative Capital ‐ project launched in Minneapolis, MN May 2018 in partnership with Molly Van Avery, City of Lakes Community Land Trust and the Powderhorn Park Neighborhood Association. dat Black Mermaid Man Lady/The Show premiered at Pillsbury House Theatre in Minneapolis, MN in June 2018, and dat Black Mermaid Man Lady/Performance Installation premiered at allgo in Austin, TX in August 2018. Sharon has served as Artist In‐Residence for: The NoVo Foundation; Thousand Currents; allgo, a Texas Statewide QPOC Organization; Brown University's MFA Playwriting Program; University of Iowa's MFA Playwrights Program; The Theatre School at DePaul University; and The Department of Performance Studies at Northwestern University. Sharon was a writer and performer in Amara Tabor‐Smith's REVIVAL: Millennial Remembering in the Afro NOW. She served as a dramaturg for: the Urban Bush Women Choreographic Center Initiative's Choreographic Fellowship program; Maria Bauman‐ Morales', Desire: A Sankofa Dream; Ni'Ja Whitson's, Dark Matter Cypher Residency of The Unarrival Experiements; and Rebecca Mwase & Ron Ragin's workshop of Vessel's at June Bug Productions. Sharon was writer, dramaturg and voice over performer for Ananya Chatterjea Dance Theatre's, Dastak: I Wish You Me and she served as Embedded Writer for Marjani Forte‐Saunders's Memoirs of a...Unicorn residency at Florida State University in Tallahassee at the The Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography in partnership program with the Urban Bush Women Choreographic Center Initiative's (CCI) Choreographic Fellowship program. Sharon is Executive Producer and host of Who Yo People Is, a podcast series that gives space to artists whose Work and artistic practices are rooted in serving our communities through healing/Spiritual and cultural traditions ‐ centered in Love. Sharon's publications include: love conjure/blues and Lambda Literary Award winning, the bull‐jean stories. Sharon is co‐editor, with Omi Osun Joni L. Jones and Lisa Lynn Moore, of Experiments in a Jazz Aesthetic: Art, Activism, Academia, and the Austin Project. Sharon's River See Theatrical Jazz Performance Installation script is published in Obsidian Literature & Arts in the African Diaspora, Issue 43.1; delta dandi, is published in solo/black/woman: scripts, interviews and essays; and The love conjure/blues Text Installation is in Blacktino Queer Performance.

QUI NGUYEN is a playwright, TV/Film writer, and Co‐ Founder of the OBIE Award‐winning Vampire Cowboys, who are often credited for being the pioneers of "Geek Theatre." He and his work, known for its innovative use of pop‐culture, stage violence, puppetry, and multimedia, has been called "Culturally Savvy Comedy," "Tour de Force Theatre," and "Infectious Fun" by The New York Times, Time Out New York, and Variety, respectively. Plays include Vietgone (South Coast Rep, Manhattan Theatre Club, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Denver Center, ACT, and others) , Poor Yella Rednecks (South Coast Rep), Revenge Song (Geffen Playhouse), Krunk Fu Battle Battle (East West Players), Trial by Water (Ma‐Yi Theater Company), and the critically acclaimed Vampire Cowboys productions of Soul Samurai, The Inexplicable Redemption of Agent G, Alice in Slasherland, Fight Girl Battle World, Living Dead in Denmark, and She Kills Monsters (subsequently produced in over 800 college and high school productions around the world). For TV/Film, Qui's written for Dispatches from Elsewhere (AMC), The Society (Netflix), Incorporated (SyFy), Peg+CAT (PBS), and Marvel Studios. He's currently a screenwriter for Walt Disney Animation Studios where he just recently penned the upcoming Raya and the Last Dragon starring Kelly Marie Tran and Awkwafina (premiering March 5th, 2021). He's currently developing new plays with Manhattan Theatre Club/Geffen Playhouse, The Atlantic, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and Center Theatre Group/The Goodman. His past scripts are published by Concord Theatricals/Samuel French, Playscripts, and Broadway Play Publishing. Notable honors include a 2016 Daytime Emmy Award (Peg+Cat), 2016 Steinberg New Play Award (Vietgone), 2015 NY Community Trust Helen Merrill Playwriting Award, 2014 Sundance Institute/Time Warner Fellowship; 2013 AATE Distinguished Play Award (She Kills Monsters); and 2012 & 2009 GLAAD Media Award nominations for his plays She Kills Monsters and Soul Samurai. He is a proud member of the WGA, Dramatists Guild of America, Ensemble Studio Theatre, The Ma‐Yi Writers Lab, and an alumnus of New Dramatists, Youngblood, and the Marvel Studios Writers Program.