Page 73 to Present NEW PLAY BAKE OFF at 25th Anniversary Gala

Page 73 is bringing together artists within the Page 73 family to participate in its rollicking New Play Bake Off at tonight's 25th Anniversary Gala. A beloved Page 73 gala tradition, the New Play Bake Off this year gives playwrights prompts of three "ingredients" (this year all related to "25"), and an hour to each write a short play-all of which are then, on the day of the gala, performed by actors. The event, evoking Page 73's playwright-centric ethos in an evening of playful creation, takes place Monday, May 15 from 7-10pm at City Winery at Pier 17.

The gala celebrates the highlights of the last year and honors the playwrights who have graduated from Page 73's mission by receiving their Off-Broadway debuts this season. The organization looks back on 25 years of supporting more than 150 superbly talented playwrights, who have gone on to be produced around the country and recognized with the Pulitzer Prize, MacArthur and Guggenheim fellowships, and Tony, Obie, and Lucille Lortel Awards.

The New Play Bake Off is a family affair, a chance for Page 73's community of artists and supporters to enjoy one another's company and creativity while enabling the organization to continue its vital work bringing groundbreaking emerging voices into the Off-Broadway sphere. This year's New Play Bake Off features playwrights Jahna Ferron-Smith (Interstate 73 2021-22), Marvin González De León (2022 Playwriting Fellow), and Majkin Holmquist (2023 Playwriting Fellow)-whose rapidly written plays will be directed by Colette Robert (STEW, 2020) and performed by Crystal Dickinson (The Trees), Annie Henk (Man Cave), and Sam Breslin Wright (The Trees). Actress and comedian Auberth Bercy, who recently appeared in the Page 73 world premiere of Bleu Beckford-Burrell's La Race (directed by Taylor Reynolds), will emcee the Bake Off.

The gala is yet another example of Page 73's community building around multifaceted and continued engagement with artists-which often extends to the plays they produce: The organization most recently, with Playwrights Horizons, co-produced The Trees, by Agnes Borinsky (a participant in Page 73's 2014 Summer Residency), and directed by Tina Satter. At the end of 2022, Page 73 and Working Theater presented the world premiere production of 2021 Page 73 Playwriting Fellow Bleu Beckford-Burrell's La Race; and La Race followed Page 73's Spring 2022 production of 2017 Playwriting Fellow John J. Caswell, Jr.'s Man Cave.

About the Playwrights

Jahna Ferron-Smith

is a recent graduate of the Lila Acheson Wallace Playwriting Fellowship at the Juilliard School, and current member of the Obie Award-winning playwrights collective Youngblood (EST) and Page 73's Interstate 73. Her plays have been performed at Ensemble Studio Theatre and the Samuel French Off-Off Broadway Short Play Festival. Her plays include The Woods (Venturous Playwright Fellowship winner; support from SPACE on Ryder Farm), Running While Black (Ojai Playwrights Conference Foundry Project) and SIR (published by Samuel French).

Marvin González De León

is a first-generation Mexican-American who writes plays that incorporate a myriad of genres-from sci fi to horror-anchored in the traditions of Latin American literature. His work has been produced and developed at Teatro Bravo, Arizona State University, Texas State University, Teatro del Pueblo, Round House Theatre, SPACE on Ryder Farm, Page 73 Productions, The Playwrights Realm, and the Playwrights' Center. He is the recipient of the 2022 Page 73 Playwriting Fellowship. He is a Core Writer at the Playwrights' Center, where he was previously awarded the Jerome Fellowship, the McKnight Fellowship in Playwriting, and the Many Voices Fellowship. He was a member of the 2020/2021 Interstate 73 Writers Group at Page 73 Productions and was a 2020-2021 Virtual Realm Mentee with The Playwrights Realm. His plays include Madre de Dios, Pan Genesis, and Too Close to Earth, which he is currently developing with Page 73 and the Playwrights' Center. González De León received his MFA in Dramatic Writing in 2017 at Arizona State University. He has taught playwriting at Macalester College, Augsburg University, and ASU.

Majkin Holmquist

is a playwright originally from the Smoky Valley region in central Kansas where she was co-founder of The Next Stage Theatre Company. In January of 2023, her play Tent Revival will be produced by Paula Vogel's Bard at the Gate series in partnership with the McCarter Theatre Center. Other plays include Stargazers, Every Anne Frank, Quickmatch, The Dog Pack Play, and Skinflint. Credits include The Quonsets (co-written with Alex Lubischer, Yale Cabaret), Broken Melodies (WVIT Women in Theatre Festival), and Styx Songs (contributing writer, Yale Cabaret). Her work has been developed at New York Stage and Film, Woodshed Collective, Bay Street Theatre, Page 73, Ucross, and Roundabout Theatre Company. She has been a finalist for Colt Coeur, the Pacific Playwright's Festival, and PlayPenn. She is currently a member of Midnight Oil Collective and Page 73's Interstate 73 Writers Group, and is a Lecturer in Playwriting at the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale. She holds a BA in Secondary English Education from Bethany College and an MFA in Playwriting from the Yale School of Drama.

About the Director

Colette Robert is a director and playwright from Los Angeles, based in New York. She directed the world premieres of STEW by Zora Howard at Page 73 and Behind The Sheet by Charly Evon Simpson at Ensemble Studio Theatre, where she is a member. She recently directed the first New York revival of Crumbs From the Table of Joy by Lynn Nottage with Keen Company. Regional credits include City Theatre Company, Penumbra Theatre, and Williamstown Theatre Festival. Colette is an alumnus of The New Georges Jam, The Drama League's Beatrice Terry Residency, Lincoln Center Directors Lab, and The Public Theater's Van Lier Directing Fellowship. Her play The Harriet Holland Social Club Presents The 84th Annual Star-burst Cotillion In The Grand Ballroom of The Renaissance Hotel produced by New Georges and The Movement Theatre Company, is now running. She is the current SDCF Denham Fellow.

About the Emcee

Originally from Miami, FL, and now based out of NYC, Auberth Bercy graduated with her BFA from New World School of the Arts College. She's been seen Off-Broadway in the Chelsea Clinton musical She Persisted, based off the children's book of the same name. More recently, you may have seen her in Bleu Beckford Burrell's world premiere production of La Race produced by Page 73 + Working Theater. Auberth Bercy is also a comedian, having been featured as a finalist in The Black Women In Comedy Festival LA, and will be competing in this year's YAAAS Fest, New York's Queer Comedy Festival at Broadway Comedy Club! She also runs her own production company, AWRY Productions.

About the Performers

Crystal Dickinson

has performed on Broadway in the Tony Award-Winning Play, Clybourne Park, for which she received an illustrious Theater World Award and the Tony Nominated Play, You Can't Take It With You. She has also performed Off Broadway at Lincoln Center, The Signature Theater, The Public, Playwrights Horizons and Theater for A New Audience. Film and Television credits include: "This is Where I Leave You" and recurring roles on "The Chi" on Showtime and "For Life" on ABC. Currently Crystal is performing the role of Angel in Blues for an Alabama Sky at The McCarter Theater in Princeton.

Annie Henk

Off Broadway: World Premieres of California (Clubbed Thumb), Man Cave (Page 73), Blind Alley (Puerto Rican Traveling Theatre-NY debut), Pinkolandia, Lucy Loves Me (Intar), To The Bone (Cherry Lane), City of No Illusions (Talking Band), Cute Activist (New Saloon), The Rafa Play (The Flea), La Ruta (Working Theater), Enfrascada (Clubbed Thumb), Frank Dwyer, Sadly Missed (EST). Regional: Bad Dates (Portland Stage), Shape (Kitchen Theatre), Pinkolandia (Two River Theatre), Enfrascada (Renaissance Theaterworks). Voice: PBSKids Series "Alma's Way" (Mami), "How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents", Sunstroke. Podcasts: "Macbeth" (Play On), "The Bleeding Class" (Geva Theatre), "Junior Spacelords" (Kennedy Center). TV Guest Roles: "Bull" (CBS), "The Blacklist" (NBC), "Longmire" (Netflix), "Red Oaks" (Amazon). Film: PonyBoi (2023), Entre Nos, That's What She Said. Member of the Actors Center. IG: anniehenkisme

Sam Breslin Wright

Broadway: Macbeth. Selected Off Broadway: The Trees, Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play, The Temperamentals (Drama Desk Award, Best Ensemble), Coop, Bonnie's Last Flight, King Phillip's Head, Vendetta Chrome, Paris Commune. Selected Regional: We're Gonna Be Okay (Humana Festival), Bunny Foo Foo (Actor's Theater of Louisville), The Three Sisters (Berkeley Rep/Yale Rep), eight seasons at the Williamstown Theater Festival. Selected TV & Film: "Madam Secretary" (recurring), "Bull" (recurring), "Elementary," "Law and Order," "The Beaver," "Rescue Me." Upcoming: "The Crowded Room" (Apple TV). M.F.A. UCSD. Artistic Associate of The Civilians.

About Page 73

Since its founding in 1997, Page 73 has unwaveringly focused on nurturing early-career playwrights and expanding the theatrical canon. The organization has consistently sought to open new pathways to recognition for fresh, urgent, and daring voices, in part by mounting works solely by writers who have not yet had a New York City premiere Off-Broadway. In 2020, the organization was honored with an institutional Obie Award "for providing extraordinary support for early career playwrights."

Page 73 has become renowned for introducing playwrights with a distinct approach to theatricality and language into the larger theatrical ecosystem. Page 73 offers writers career guidance, financial assistance, and development opportunities through programs including the Page 73 Playwriting Fellowship, the Interstate 73 Writers Group, and writing retreats and residencies. The organization helps playwrights move their work toward premiere, in Page 73's own presentations or co-presentations with partner institutions, or by connecting writers to available opportunities at colleague theaters. Playwrights leave Page 73's programs having meticulously honed their crafts, formed kinetic new collaborative relationships, and been equipped to flourish as empowered, self-assured artists.

Page 73 developed and, with Playwrights Horizons, produced the world premiere of Michael R. Jackson's A Strange Loop, which won dozens of prestigious awards including the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Among Page 73's many other celebrated world and New York premieres are Zora Howard's STEW, which was named a Finalist for the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for Drama; Mia Chung's Catch as Catch Can, Leah Nanako Winkler's Kentucky, Max Posner's Judy, Clare Barron's You Got Older, George Brant's Grounded, and John J. Caswell, Jr.'s Man Cave. Diversifying the American theater and making space for voices theater audiences have not yet heard is at the core of Page 73's ethos. Page 73 has co-produced with eminent new play theaters including Soho Rep., Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, and Ensemble Studio Theatre. The organization produced the professional New York City debuts of Samuel D. Hunter (2015 MacArthur Fellow), Quiara Alegría Hudes (2012 Pulitzer Prize winner), Dan LeFranc (2010 New York Times Outstanding Playwright Award recipient), Heidi Schreck (2019 Pulitzer Prize finalist, Tony Award nominee), and Clare Barron (2019 Pulitzer Prize finalist). Close to two-thirds of the over 140 playwrights supported by the organization have subsequently received New York or regional theater productions, and the number grows each season.

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