The Playwrights Realm Announces 2022-2023 Cohort

The 2022-2023 Writing Fellows Are Andrea Ambam, Alyssa Haddad-Chin, Jesse Jae Hoon, and Alex Lin; 2022-2023 Scratchpad Playwrights Are Anamaria Guerzon, Ankita Raturi, and Christopher Washington; 2022-2023 Native American Artist Lab Participants Are Sean-Joseph Choo and Moki Bear Eagle

The Playwrights Realm (Founding Artistic Director, Katherine Kovner; Executive Director, Roberta Pereira) announces its 2022-2023 cohort for its Writing Fellows program (Andrea Ambam, Alyssa Haddad-Chin, Jesse Jae Hoon, and Alex Lin); Scratchpad Playwrights (Anamaria Guerzon, Ankita Raturi, and Christopher Washington) and the inaugural cohort of the Native American Artists Lab (Sean-Joseph Choo, Moki Bear Eagle), a new program offering support to Native artists.

Sustaining its status as a full-time playwrights service organization-which began during the pandemic shutdown, and yielded such positive results as to become the organization's current modus operandi-The Realm continues to evolve their approach to nurturing playwrights and breaking down theater's many barriers to entry. Recognizing their robust support for early-career playwrights through Writing Fellows and Scratchpad, in 2022, they have remodeled their Community Programming offerings into a new program, Aspiring Playwrights, open to anyone who's interested in writing for the stage. The program, which launches later this Fall, will offer free online articles and filmed classes covering the basics of playwriting, as well as a new round of Script Share-an opportunity for aspiring writers to engage in a one-hour discussion with a theatre professional about a particular script.

The Playwrights Realm Founding Artistic Director Katherine Kovner says, "As we proudly announce the incredible, dynamic artists that will be joining us in 2022-2023 in Writing Fellows, Scratchpad, and Native American Artists Lab programs, we're excited to simultaneously be expanding our support for aspiring playwrights. If someone says 'I'm interested in being a playwright,' we want The Realm to be their first resource. Our goal is to have a wealth of content generated by professional playwrights and theater artists and Realm staff, free-of-charge, and totally accessible-no need to apply or subscribe."

The Playwrights Realm Associate Artistic Director Alexis Williams says, "Across our open submissions for all three programs, we received 861 applicationss-a sobering reminder of just how many wonderful artists are in need of support. We can't wait to spend the year getting to know the 2022-2023 cohort, and getting their projects heard by, and introduced to, audiences. These are promising voices everyone who's interested in the future of theater should know about."

Submissions to the three cohort programs were all open and free-elements The Realm sees as fundamental to its dedication to early-career playwrights, its development of electrifying new work, and its creation of a pipeline of submission to production for the whole industry. The organization continues to expand the ways it can model supportive labor practices for the larger theater industry, and recognizes submission reading as key to its artist-serving mission; this year, The Realm paid submission readers $25 per script.

The Playwrights Realm Writing Fellowship Program

The Playwrights Realm Writing Fellowship Program awards four early-career playwrights with nine months of resources (including a $4,000 stipend), workshops, and feedback designed to help them reach their professional and artistic goals. Fellows develop a single new play, with monthly group meetings that provide a collaborative space for writers to share and refine their work, and one-on-one meetings with Realm artistic staff to support each writer's process. Fellows collaborate with a director, design consultants, and actors for two readings. Personalized professional development resources are tailored to the group: mentor opportunities, meet-and-greets, and professional seminars are designed to shed light on the business of theater, and empower the Fellows to be active, informed participants in their own careers. The program culminates with the INK'D Festival, featuring a public (either in person or virtual) presentation for each Fellow.

About Andrea Ambam/Fragile State

Andrea Ambam is a Brooklyn-based performance artist and writer whose roots sprout from Cameroon. As a politically engaged storyteller who believes in the art's potential for movement building and transformative justice, Andrea pulsates at the intersection of performance and truth-telling via the creation of embodied theatrical experiences. Currently, Andrea is a Brooklyn Arts Exchange (BAX) Artist-In-Residence and the Host/Programmer of "More To Talk About" at Level Forward. She has developed her multi-hyphenated practice as a PenAmerica Writing As Activism Fellow, an Artistic Fellow at Signature Theatre, a freelance dramaturg, an inaugural Artivism Fellow with Broadway Advocacy Coalition, an Artist-in-Residence for Anna Deavere Smith, an EmergeNYC Fellow at the Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics, and as a competitive public speaker/performer where she has been awarded 10 national championships including "Top Speaker in the Nation'' three times and gone on to debate conservative pundits on live TV.

As a performer, writer, and facilitator, she's worked with Broadway Advocacy Coalition, Level Forward, Classical Theatre of Harlem/Playbill, gal-dem, Abrons Arts Center, NYU Prison Education Program, Artists' Literacies Institute, Centre for Social Innovation, and others. Her plays include: Rehearsing Justice: A One-Woman Show (Presentations at Brooklyn Arts Exchange & Broadway Advocacy Coalition's Fellowship Hall), R(estoration) I(n) P(rogress) (Ashland New Plays Festival Semifinalist 2021, NYU New Plays for Young Audiences Development Series 2021), Angelina Weld Grimke (Classical Theatre of Harlem/Playbill, Broadway Podcast Network) and Fragile State.

Andrea holds a Master's degree in Art & Public Policy from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts.

Fragile State

For Manny, being a first-gen, gen-z, radical Black organizer in a world where every day brings "unprecedented times" was already causing enough of an identity crisis. So when Manny's Grandma arrives, making her first visit from Cameroon in over 15 years, the shocking family secrets and unspoken histories she brings along with her completely flip Manny's life upside down. In this afro-surrealist coming-of-age story, generations collide and diasporas dance as Manny reckons with where she comes from to make peace with who she is.

About Alyssa Haddad-Chin/The Ancestry Dot Com Play

Alyssa Haddad-Chin (she/her) is a Brooklyn-based playwright and teaching artist of Lebanese and Italian descent. She is currently a member of Under Construction at The Road Theatre. Plays include Off-White; Or The Arab House Party Play (2021 Bay Area Playwright's Festival Semi Finalist, 2022 Lanford Wilson New American Play Festival Semifinalist, 2021 Playwright's Realm's Writing Fellowship Finalist), The Newlywed Game (2020 NAPseries Semi Finalist, 2021 Youngblood EST Finalist, 2021 Athena Project Plays in Progress Winner), and The Ancestry Dot Com Play (2019-2020 Art House Productions INKubator Play Lab, 2022 Bay Area Playwright's Festival Semi Finalist). Her plays have been developed at Art House Productions, The Workshop Theater, Centenary Stage Company, and more. She has taught writing workshops with Art House Productions, Circle World Arts, In Full Color Productions, and is a graduate of the Teaching Artist Project. She is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild. MFA: NYU Tisch School of the Arts.

The Ancestry Dot Com Play

When a group of friends takes a DNA test, they grapple with how it affects their identity, specifically Samia, an Arab-American woman who never knew her father.

About Jesse Jae Hoon/Somebody is Looking Back At Me

Jesse Jae Hoon is a playwright, actor, and organizer. Plays include Somebody is Looking Back At Me, Dong Xuan Center (2022 Princess Grace Award Finalist, 2019 O'Neill NPC Finalist), On the Clock, I've Got A Sinking Feeling in the Pit of My Stomach, The House of Billy Paul, Emergency Wine & Cheese Fundraiser of the Amagansett Democrats' Association (2022 O'Neill NPC Semifinalist), and 12 Chairs. Short plays include Chicken is Condemned to be Free and I'm Going To Make an Academy Award-Winning Movie. CRNY Resident Playwright at Ma-Yi Theater Company; 2022 semifinalist, Clubbed Thumb Biennial Commission; inaugural member, Orchard Project Adaptation Lab; member, The TANK NYC's LIT Council, Page Break. MFA in Playwriting from Hunter College, BFA in Drama from NYU Tisch (Playwrights Horizons). Organizer with Democratic Socialists of America and Equity Next.

Somebody is Looking Back At Me

In this time-jumping fever dream satire, best-selling Asian American author Olivia returns to a gentrifying Chinatown. As her new successful friends transform the neighborhood, she must confront the district's troubled past and her own allegiances.

About Alex Lin/LASTHUNTER

Alex Lin is just a girl from Jersey. Her work as a playwright has been developed with Ma-Yi, Magic Theatre, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Theater Mu, Union College, Alleyway Theatre, The COOP, and Central Square Theater. As a producer for A24's Supercluster, she's collaborated with NASA, SpaceX, Boeing, Apple TV+, and Netflix to bridge the gap between scientific discovery and the culture it inspires. She is currently under commission at South Coast Rep. Accolades: 21/22 ANPF Pass the Pen nominee, 2022 New Harmony Project finalist, 2022 O'Neill Conference finalist, 2022 Elizabeth George commission, 2023 Weissberger New Play Award nominee.

LASTHUNTER

When NASA interns Reggie Nielson and Elisa Yang discover that their employer's greatest aerospace hero was a former Nazi, the unlikely pair embark on a time-traveling multiverse adventure to do one thing and one thing only: kill the motherf*cker. A tale of radical revenge, LASTHUNTER investigates the fragility of nationalism, what makes a person good, and the grayness of morality when living within the bounds of rigid systems.

The Playwrights Realm Scratchpad Series

The Scratchpad Series opens The Realm's doors to early-career playwrights and deepens the company's ability to do what it does best: listening to what playwrights need, and giving it to them. Scratchpad is a chance for The Realm to engage with an entirely new group of playwrights each year, erasing limitations of geography or access by identifying and inviting playwrights from across the country to participate.

The series supports playwrights with a paid developmental process of up to one week culminating in a reading (internal or public, at the writer's discretion) of the play. It connects them with professional collaborators, such as a director, casting director, cast, and The Realm's artistic staff-who offer dramaturgical development and discussion prior to and following each reading, as well as professional development guidance and industry introductions.

About Anamaria Guerzon/SKIN

Anamaria Guerzon (She/They) is a Filipina-American theatre artist and musician based in Seattle. A recent graduate of Pacific Lutheran University, her work centers and uplifts Filipino diaspora stories, queer narratives, and more. SKIN, her play in development with Scratchpad, was previously developed with Tacoma Little Theater's Page to Screen workshop. She was an Artist in Residence with Village Theatre's Northwest Creators Program (2022 cohort), where she developed Filipina Rock Song, her original musical. As an early career playwright, she is thrilled to call SKIN her NYC playwriting debut!

SKIN

Spanning 400 years and the Pacific Ocean, SKIN weaves together the stories of Zora, a modern day Tattoo Apprentice finding their way in the industry, and Jeoly, a man in the 1600's being trafficked for his full body cultural tattoos. When both young Filipinos find themselves pitted against White oppressors, will they be able to maintain their dignity and dig deeper into their identity? As echoes of the past inform the future, this play explores pain across time and space which, like tattoo, leaves physical reminders as it heals.

About Ankita Raturi/Nobody Plays Badminton in America

Ankita Raturi (she/her) is a bisexual, bicultural, bilingual writer currently living in southern California. She grew up in and around New Delhi, Jakarta, and Washington D.C., and has spent many years living and working in New York City. Ankita writes in Hindi/Urdu and English about the impossibilities of language, living between cultural identities, and the ongoing legacies of colonialism. Her plays are often populated with queer characters navigating new and unfamiliar territory. Her audio play, Backwaters, is available to listen on Spotify and Apple Podcasts as part of the 2021 Wagner New Play Festival. Commissions: Artists at Play & Asian Pacific American Friends of the Theater, E.S.T/Sloan, Cygnet Finish Line. New play development: UCSD, NYU, Artist at Play, The COOP, Atlantic Pacific Theatre, Theater Masters, Hypokrit Theatre Company, New York Shakespeare Exchange, Pete's Candy Store, Natyabharati. Devised work with Charlotte Murray: Fresh Ground Pepper, Corkscrew Theater Festival, Dixon Place. B.F.A. in Drama: NYU/ Tisch. M.F.A. Candidate in Playwriting: UCSD (Friends of the International Center Endowed Fellowship Recipient).

Nobody Plays Badminton in America

Citra and Melati are highly ranked youth badminton players, ready to represent Indonesia internationally. But while Melati starts traveling to play in major tournaments on her own, Citra immigrates with her family to Washington D.C. where she has to give up her badminton dreams. They both have what the other wants - Citra has her family and all the opportunities America has to offer, but she feels lost without her sport and the future she saw in it; meanwhile Melati is on the path to playing professionally and representing Indonesia on the global stage, but she's alone now and not sure she can live up to all these expectations. A play about young athletic excellence, young long-distance friendship, and young love (mostly hormones). Above all, No One Plays Badminton in America is a love letter to badminton that asks what it means to figure out who you are away from where you're from.

About Christopher Washington/The Facts are as Follows:

Christopher Washington is a Black queer actor and writer who grew up in the suburbs of Austin, Tx. He is a graduate of the University of Michigan's Department of Musical Theater. Christopher currently attends Harvard Law School. His play "touch." has appeared at the University of Michigan Playfest as well as the All Out Arts Fresh Fruit Festival in NYC. He is passionate about creating theatre that propels the human narrative forward in a thought-provoking, compelling, and entertaining way.

The Facts are as Follows:

With a perfect memory and perfect LSAT score, James Ezekial Williams has just arrived on the East coast for his very first day of law school. Navigating a seductive, insidious curriculum designed by the genius Professor, James attempts to juggle microaggressions, critical race theory, and love. The Facts are as Follows: is about the consumption of whiteness, the folly of exceptionalism, and the creation of one's own personal apocalypse.

Native American Artist Lab

The Native American Artist Lab builds on The Realm's work with playwrights from international nations to reach out to artists from Domestic Nations to support the development of their work.

The Native American Artist Lab focuses on both developing a specific project and on professional development. The Playwrights Realm offers individualized attention to program recipients and provides further support depending on the desires of participants including but not limited to: design consultations, individualized mentorship, and industry networking. The program culminates with an in-person reading in New York City for both projects-and The Realm defers to the artists on whether or not these presentations are public. In addition to stipends for the playwrights, all housing and transport costs for participation in readings will be paid by The Playwrights Realm.

This program is open to both aspiring and emerging artists in order to support both people who are considering theater as a career and those who have begun their careers already. The program's resources will be tailored to the generative artists' interest and needs, in order to best support people at both stages of this journey.

From an open submission process, finalists were chosen by a panel of Native American artists including Madeline Sayet, Vickie Ramirez and Rhiana Yazzie.

About Sean-Joseph Choo/The Isle is Full of Noises

Sean-Joseph Choo is a multi-ethnic, multi-hyphenate Hawai'i-based artist, from Honolulu. He's the Lead Steward and Head Jester of Kamamo House, an artist cultivation organization, theatre collective, and podcast. Sean's play, otou-san was aided in development by mentor, director and playwright Chay Yew. The play won highest marks in the 2021 Creative Lab Hawai'i Playwrights Immersive Program. His dark comedic one-act play, tourist shell shock, based on the Urashima Taro myth, was developed in partnership with The Skeleton Rep, and had a premiere in New York, June 2022. Sean's one-man show, i love my AAPI grandparents! premiered at Pan Asian Repertory Theatre's NuWorks 2022 earlier this summer.

As a company actor at Honolulu Theatre for Youth, Sean has helped devise numerous shows over the six seasons he worked with the company including co-producing, co-writing, composing, and co-directing "Da Holidays" episode of The HI Way, which won a Regional Emmy in the category of Arts/ Entertainment-Long Form Content.

His sketch, improv, and musical comedy work has been featured at the Hawaii Comedy Festival. Sean regularly performs his one-man musical improv show, Sean Choo's CD Release Party with improvhi. He also recently gotten into clowning, and has taken workshops with Aitor Basauri, Noah Bremer, and Virginia Scott.

Sean's other dramatic work on the page and with composition & sound design have been featured in productions put on by Playbuilders of Hawai'i, Kumu Kahua Theatre, and Hawaii Shakespeare Festival.

He is a member of the Dramatists Guild, ASCAP, the Consortium of Asian American Theaters & Artists, improvhi, and is founder of Kamamo House.

The Isle is Full of Noises

The Isle is Full of Noises is an identity play following William "Billy" Ka'iliha'o, a young Kanaka Maoli (Hawaiian) painter and university drop out. After having increasingly intense dreams where elemental spirits speak to him, Billy returns home to seek out answers from his culture and his 'ohana. But home becomes a place of conflict, when Billy inherits a portrait that everyone wants for their own. Legacy, colonization, and the artists' connection with nature are explored in this dreamy family drama.

About Moki Bear Eagle/IGMU kiŋ na PAHA kiŋ

Hau mitakuyepi [hello relatives].

My name is Moki Bear Eagle, and I am an Oglala Lakota, raised from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation of South Dakota. I am currently a professor at our tribal college. I originally began performing arts to overcome social anxiety, and I instantly found a love for performing. Yet I struggled to find stories and roles representative of my community from our own voice, so I decided to write them myself. I have performed these stories through theater in my community, and I am now on a journey to see these stories come to life not only in theater, but TV, film, and animation as well.

IGMU kiŋ na PAHA kiŋ

Tensions are skyrocketing in 1890 as the United States looks to make a statement against a peacefully surrendering band of the Lakota tribe. Amidst this, a young black cat is befriended by a young Lakota girl and finds himself intertwined with an important destiny.

To post a comment, you must register and login.