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The Dramatists Guild Fund Names 2016-2017 Fellows
By: BWW News Desk Sep. 20, 2016
The Dramatists Guild Fund and Program Chairs Michael Korie, Laurence O'Keefe, and Diana Son have announced the 2016-2017 class of DG Fellows James Christy, Khiyon Hursey, Patricia Ione Lloyd, Michael R. Jackson, C.A. Johnson, David Mallamud, Zoey Martinson, Madeline Myers, Nicole Pandolfo, and Len Schiff.
Five playwrights and five musical theater writers were selected from over 250 applications submitted.
The Dramatists Guild Fund also presented new work by the graduating 2015-2016 at Playwrights Horizons in New York on Monday, September 19, hosted by co-founders of the Fellows Program Lynn Ahrens & Stephen Flaherty.
Chisa Hutchinson, playwright and 2010-2011 Fellow received the inaugural Thom Thomas Award, presented by Janis Purins at Playwrights Horizons.
In memory of playwright and book writer Thom Thomas, his appreciation of the Dramatists Guild Fund's support to writers, the Dramatists Guild of America's protection of their work, and his endless passion for nurturing the next generation of dramatists The Thom Thomas Award of $10,000 is given annually to an alumnus or alumna of the Fellows Program.
This award is made possible through the generous support of longtime friends and colleagues, Iris Rainer Dart and Helen Lee Henderson.
The Fellows Program is a nine-month intensive designed to train the next generation of American Playwrights and musical theater writers. Theater writers selected for the program meet with Program Chairs, guest artists, and industry professionals twice a month for feedback on their works in progress. Fellows also have regular sessions with experienced dramatists for one-on-one mentoring and, when possible, are offered internships or observerships with dramatists involved in professional productions.
Former Fellows include Kristen Anderson-Lopez (Academy Award winner, Frozen), Rajiv Joseph (Pulitzer Prize finalist, Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo), Benj Pasek & Justin Paul (Tony nominees for Best Score, A Christmas Story), Deborah Zoe Laufer (ATCA Steinberg Award, End Days), Masi Asare (inaugural Billie Burke Ziegfeld Award), and Adam Gwon (Fred Ebb and Richard Rodgers Award winner).
For more information on the Fellows Program, visit dgfund.org/programs/#fellows.
About the 2016-2017 Fellows:
James Christy
Full length plays: A GREAT WAR: Production, Iron Age Theatre, September 2015, Barrymore Nomination, Best New Play; AT LIBERTY HALL: workshop production Premiere Stages, Fall 2014, 2nd place, Beverly Hills Theatre Guild Youth Play Competition; LOVE AND COMMUNICATION: Playpenn Playwrights Conference, July 2010, production by Passage Theatre in October 2010, winner, the Brown Martin Barrymore Award in 2011; EGYPTIAN SONG: finalist Eugene O'Neill conference 2016; NEVER TELL: Broken Watch Theatre Company, August 2006, published by Playscripts Inc., April 2007. PUT THEM AWAY: finalist, New Jersey Playwrights contest from William Paterson University, 2013.
Short plays: CREEP, winner, Actors Theater of Louisville's Heideman Award for best short play 2001, published in 10 Minute Plays for Two Actors; five other short plays finalists for Heideman Award.
Khiyon Hursey
Khiyon Hursey is a songwriter and musical theater composer based in New York City. A 2014 graduate of Berklee College of Music with a degree in Songwriting, he served as music assistant on the off-Broadway and Broadway productions of Hamilton, the American Repertory Theater production of Witness Uganda and its off-Broadway, retitled update Invisible Thread at Second Stage Theater.. In these and other positions, he has worked with Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, Alex Lacamoire, Diane Paulus, Matt Gould, and countless others. Recipient of the ASCAP Foundation's Irving Burgie Scholarship and Bart Howard Songwriting Scholarship, Khiyon has had his work featured in concert at the New York Musical Theatre Festival, 2014.
Patricia Ione Lloyd
Patricia Ione Lloyd (Playwright) is a writer on the AMC television show HAP and Leonard. She is a 2016 Playwrights Realm fellow. She was a Sundance resident playwright 2016 theater lab Morocco and New York Theater Workshop fellow. Her Play Pretty Hunger was a part of the studio workshop series at the Joseph Papp Public Theater in NYC. Ione is an alumni of the 2015 Emerging Writers Group at The Public Theater. She was a resident playwright at the University of Mumbai, Brown University (through the Africana Studies Department) and the International Theatre and Literacy Project in Tanzania. Her work has been developed by The Public Theater, The Labyrinth Theatre, New York Theater Workshop, Red Bull Theatre, Dixon Place, Classical Theatre of Harlem, Downtown Urban Theatre Festival, New York LGBTQ Center, Fire This Time Festival and others. Recipient of New Professional Theatre's Emerging Playwright Award, and best play award from DUTF for her play Train Bound for Glory.
Michael R. Jackson holds a BFA and MFA in playwriting and Musical Theatre Writing from the NYU Tisch School of the Arts. As a songwriter, he has seen his work performed at The Barrington Stage Company, Merkin Hall, The Laurie Beechman Theater, Feinstein's/54 Below, The Triad, Ars Nova, Joe's Pub, The Musical Theatre Factory, The Metropolitan Room, The Bruno Walter Library, and ACT in Seattle. He wrote book, music, and lyrics for the musical A Strange Loop. He wrote book and lyrics for the musical Only Children with composer Rachel Peters and is currently writing lyrics and co-writing book for the musical adaptation of the 2007 horror film Teeth with co-bookwriter and composer Anna Jacobs. He is an alum of the Sundance Theatre Institute, Johnny Mercer Writers Colony and Ars Nova Uncharted Writers Group. He is a 2016 Jonathan Larson Foundation Grant Finalist. www.thelivingmichaeljackson. com. https:// thelivingmichaeljackson. bandcamp.com.
C.A. Johnson
C. A. Johnson is a Louisiana native currently working and writing in Queens, New York. Her plays include GOSSAMER (Winner 2012 Floyd Gaffney Playwriting Award), BY AND BY (2016 Goldberg Play Prize Finalist), THIRST (NYU Tisch), and THE CLIMB (developed at Open Bar Theatricals). Her work has received readings at NYU Tisch, Duke Ellington School of the Arts, Smith College, and UC San Diego. C.A. is The Lark's 2016 Van Lier Playwriting Fellow, a 2016 First Round Fellow at Open Bar Theatricals, and a proud member of the Dramatists Guild. BA: Smith College MFA: NYU
David Mallamud
David Mallamud's music has been performed in venues ranging from from Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center to Off-Broadway, where his music for the recent production of Flight School: The Musical was lauded by Laurel Graeber of the New York Times, saying: "The production's biggest boon, however, may be its score. Here, Mr. Mallamud has written music worthy of bigger stages, variously embracing classical lyricism, pulsing pop, the poignant ballad and at least one all-out, Alice Cooper-style rock rant."
Recently Mallamud was thrilled to work with Mike Mills (of R.E.M. fame), arranging and composing additional music for his Concerto for Rock Band and Violin, written for violinist Robert McDuffie, who premiered it with Mills and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra in June 2016. A recording of the piece will be released on Philip Glass's label, Orange Mountain Music, in October 2016. Mallamud is currently working with playwright Philip Dawkins on a stage adaptation of Dr. Seuss's The Sneetches for the Children's Theatre Company in Minneapolis, opening in February. His CD, The Wild and Whimsical Worlds of David Mallamud, which will be released on September 30th, 2016 by Broadway Records, features theater pieces and song cycles written over the course of a decade for Dogs of Desire, the Albany Symphony's rock-inspired new music ensemble, with an all-star cast of singers and performers from Broadway and beyond.
He earned his bachelor's degree from the Eastman School of Music and master's degrees from both Juilliard and NYU's Tisch Graduate Musical Theater Writing Program, and pursued additional graduate studies at Yale with Ned Rorem and Evan Ziporyn.
Please visit www.davidmallamud.com for more info.
Zoey Martinson works at the crossroads of Arts & Advocacy and started as a humanitarian aid worker/ teacher with refugee's in West Africa. She has organized and produced an Arts Mission for the U.S. Consul General to South Africa's informal settlements. She is a 2016/17 Directing Fellow at Manhattan Theater Club. The recipient of the 2013/14 Artistic Mentor Fellowship at Lincoln Center through the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and has directed across the globe. She is currently a HARP Fellow at HERE Arts Center where she is working on her new piece The Black History Museum According to the United States of America. Her play Olityelwe (formally Ndebele Funeral) ran off Broadway, South Africa and Edinburgh Fringe Festival after winning the Overall Excellence Award for Best Play in the NYCFringe. Her work has been published, nominated for the Amnesty International Freedom of Expression Award, and she has been featured on BBC World Service. She has written short plays for The Fire This Time Festival, and 48 Hours in Harlem, NYC. She is the writer and director of the Web Series A Minority Report and True Believers. She co-created and directed Skype Duet which won the 100 Grand award at the HAU2 Theater in Berlin, Germany then toured throughout Europe and Australia. As an actress she has performed Off Broadway at The Public Theater, 59E59 Theater and regionally at Cleveland Playhouse, Repertory Theater of St. Louis, the Guthrie, Shakespeare On The Sound, Syracuse Stage, Theatre in the Muz, South Africa, the National Theatre of Ghana. She is the Co-Artistic Director of Smoke & Mirrors Collaborative and holds an MFA New York University Grad Acting.
Madeline Myers is a composer and lyricist for musical theater based in New York City. Placing first in the 2014 inaugural Ken Davenport Songwriting Competition, her songs have been featured in concerts and cabarets including 54 Below, the 2014 and 2013 New York Musical Theatre Festival (NYMF), Joe's Pub, Don't Tell Mama NYC, the Metropolitan Room, the Laurie Beechman, and the Signature Theater.
Madeline is currently writing a new musical, MASTERPIECE, with director Emily Maltby and playwright Meridith Friedman, which was developed in residence at the Johnny Mercer Foundation Writers Colony at Goodspeed Musicals (2015). Additionally, Madeline is co-writing THE RUMOURED LYFE AND CERTAIN DEATH OF DELIA BACON with Elise LeBreton, Zdenko Martin, Ted Moller, and Matthew Russell.
Madeline's musical LEGENDS & LORE was named the winner of the NMI & Disney Imagineering New Voices Project (2015) and has been workshopped at the Musical Theatre Factory (2015), the New York Theatre Barn (2014), and the Fingerlakes Musical Theater Festival (2013).
A semi-finalist for the inaugural Billie Burke Ziegfeld Award for female composer-lyricists, Madeline received her education in composition at Vanderbilt University's Blair School of Music, New York University's Tisch School of the Arts Musical Theatre Writing Program, and the Royal Academy of Music in London. She was selected to participate in the 2014 New Dramatists Composer-Librettist Studio and in the 2014 and 2015 Johnny Mercer Foundation Songwriters Project.
A passionate advocate for arts education, social action, and service through music, Madeline is the founder of Music in the Clinic at the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center & Children's Hospital (Nashville, TN), the Chair of Education Through Music-Los Angeles Associates Board, and a new volunteer with Musicians on Call in New York City. When not writing music, Madeline enjoys volunteering, reading, running, and cooking. Madeline is a proud member of the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theater Workshop, ASCAP, and the Dramatists Guild. She is represented by Katie Gamelli at Abrams Artists Agency.
Nicole Pandolfo
Nicole Pandolfo recently graduated with her MFA from Hunter College where she studied with Tina Howe, Arthur Kopit, and Mark Bly. She was most recently selected for a 2017 commission with the NJPAC Stage Exchange with Premiere Stages at Kean University. Her work has been developed through the Jerome Foundation, The Actors Studio, the Lark, and NJ Rep among others and she was a finalist for the Edward Albee Foundation Fellowship and the Leah Ryan Fund for Emerging Women Writers. She is a member of The Actors Studio in the Playwright/Director Unit directed by Lyle Kessler. She has had plays published and produced throughout New York City and the United States as well as in Sydney, Melbourne, London, Singapore, Toronto, and more. Thank you to everyone at the Dramatist Guild.
Len's musical SIGNS OF LIFE (music by Joel Derfner, book by Peter Ullian) opened off-Broadway in 2010 at the Marjorie S. Deane Theater and went on to a run at Chicago's Victory Gardens Theater. THE GOLEM OF HAVANA (2015 Independent Reviewers of New England Nomination, Best New Play; music by Salomon Lerner, book by Michel Hausmann) premiered at Barrington Stage's New Musicals Lab, later enjoying a record-breaking run in Miami; it will next play the Phoenix Theater in Indianapolis. Other works include the musicals ÆTHERNITY (music: Chris Sidorfsky) ZACH IN PROGRESS (music: Georgia Stitt) and the one act opera USHER FALLING (music: Randall Eng). Current projects include a rock biography of Daniel Ellsberg with composer David Mallamud, an adaptation of the Ellen Kushner novel SWORDSPOINT with Joel Derfner and Peter Ullian, and an adaptation of G.K. Chesterton's THE MAN WHO WAS THURSDAYwith Chris Sidorfsky and Austin Grossman.
Len holds an MFA in Musical Theater Writing from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts and is an alumnus of the BMI Musical Theater Advanced Workshop. He lives in Little Neck, NY with his wife, their son, and entirely too many board games.
Thom Thomas Award
Chisa Hutchinson has earned a B.A. in Dramatic Arts from Vassar College and an M.F.A. in Playwriting from NYU. She's landed some pretty cool gigs since then, such as writing and performing with the New York NeoFuturists and being a Staff Writer for Blue Man Group. She is also a proud member of New Dramatists, a Humanitas New Voices Fellow and a Resident at Second Stage Theater in New York thanks to the generosity of the Tow Foundation. As Chisa tends to write plays about underrepresented folks that require a minimum of five actors, she doubts that you'll see any of her plays on Broadway any time soon, but encourages you to support the intrepid companies that have presented her work, which include the Lark Play Development Center, City Parks' Summerstage, the New York NeoFuturists, Partial Comfort, Mad Dog Productions, Atlantic Theater Company, the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, New Dramatists, Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, the Contemporary American Theater Festival, Midtown Direct Rep, Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey, Second Stage Theater, Forward Flux Theater, the Working Theater and FilmGym.
Thom Thomas was a writer for theater and film. He began his career as a director at a number of Pittsburgh theaters. He received the Cameron Overseas Grant from Carnegie Mellon University to study in Europe where he joined the Young Vic theater. Upon returning to America in 1967, he joined the faculty at Point Park University in Pittsburgh, where he led the theatre department from 1974 to 1977. He became Artistic Director at the Pittsburgh Playhouse and also was the Artistic Director for the Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera in 1972.
His first play, The Interview, premiered at the Pittsburgh Playhouse and in 1976 had an Off-Broadway production starring Louis Edmonds. He moved to New York City in 1976 to concentrate on writing for the stage, and several of his plays were produced Off-Broadway and in London including Without Apologies (Hudson Guild - NY; The Open Space - London); The Ball Game (Playwrights Horizons - NY); and Approaching Zero (LaMaMa ETC - NY).
Thom's play A Moon To Dance By received several regional productions including a critically acclaimed 2009 production at the Pittsburgh Playhouse and reprised at The George Street Playhouse in NJ. The play was named "2009 Best Play" by The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, was nominated by the American Theatre Critics Assn. as "Best Play", and was short listed for the 2009 Pulitzer Prize in Drama. Other plays that were produced Off-Broadway were Without Apologies and The Ball Game. In L.A., Set In Motion had a well-reviewed premiere in 1995 at the Group Repertory Theatre and was nominated for ADA Best Play). The Interview and Without Apologies are published by Samuel French, Inc.
Thomas has been the recipient of a number of grants from such prestigious organizations as the Ford Foundation (1969) and the National Endowment for the Arts (1978). Recently Thomas co-wrote with Iris Rainer Dart the book for Beaches, The Musical, adapted from Dart's popular novel. Beaches had a tryout in Chicago at the Drury Lane Theatre in 2015, and a Broadway transfer is pending availability of a theater.
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