Dipti Bramhandkar Named The Farm Theater's 2023-24 Playwriting Fellow

Now in its tenth season of supporting emerging writers The Farm Theater has awarded their 2023/24 College Collaboration Project Commission to playwright Dipti Bramhandkar (American Rookie with Luna-Stage/">Luna Stage;  Islands of Contentment with Hypokrit Productions/The Tank). As The Farm Theater's 2023/24 Playwriting Fellow Ms. Bramhandkar will be in residence at Centre College in February 2023, for the World Premiere of her play Soft Launch. This new play, which explores those crucial months just after graduation as a group of college friends try to navigate their dreams and anxieties, is written specifically for the university students who will be performing it.

As the 2023/24 Playwriting Fellow, Dipti Bramhandkar, will also be awarded The Farm Theater's College Collaboration Project Commission. Ms. Bramhandkar will be in residence at Shenandoah University in November 2023, Austin Peay in February 2024, and Middle Tennessee State University in April 2024 for the production of her College Collaboration Projection Commission Play.

The College Collaboration Project has multiple schools commission an early career playwright to write a play that each school will independently produce throughout the academic year. The faculty, students, and playwright collaborate throughout the year in the development of the text. The script will be a full-length play with a minimum of five characters. The majority of the characters will be under thirty years of age so that undergraduate actors can successfully play the roles. The play will reflect the students' thoughts on the theme suggested by the playwright.

This will be The Farm Theater's eleventh installment of the College Collaboration Project. Past seasons have featured playwrights Lindsay Joy, Micheline Auger, Morgan McGuire, Jan Rosenberg, Kimberly Belflower, Erin Mallon, Judith Leora, Lia Romeo, Jake Brasch, and Deneen Reynolds-Knott. Lindsay Joy's In The Event of My Death, which was developed in the first year of the program, was produced Off-Broadway by Stable Cable and had a sold out run. The 2017/18 collaboration commission, In the Cotton by Morgan McGuire was awarded the Mark David Cohen National Playwriting Award by the Kennedy Center. Kimberly Belflower's play John Proctor is the Villain received its World Premiere in March 2022 at the Studio Theatre in D.C. and was featured on The Kilroy's List.

Dipti Bramhandkar is a Mumbai-born, NY-based playwright, filmmaker and Labyrinth Theater Company member. Her recent work includes Is There Even Porn in India?, which was workshopped in London and presented at Labyrinth Theater Company's Barn Series (Sarita Choudhary, Kevin Corrigan, Ajay Naidu) and Islands of Contentment (Daphne Rubin-Vega, Danny Pudi, Laura Gómez and more) produced by Hypokrit Productions and The Tank. WNYC featured her pandemic inspired audio story collection. Her solo show American Rookie had a sold out run at Luna-Stage/">Luna Stage and is currently on tour. She has a B.A. from Cornell and M.A. from Cambridge in Literature.

The Farm Theater The name is inspired by the "farm" system of baseball whose role is to provide experience and training for developing players. The Farm Theater develops early career artists that may not have the support system afforded others, through workshops, productions, and mentoring. The centerpiece of our programming is The College Collaboration Project. This program is in its tenth year and has so far commissioned eleven playwrights, worked in collaboration with twenty colleges, and been featured in American Theatre Magazine and Howl Round. The Farm Theater has produced numerous solo shows including Artistic Director Padraic Lillis' show on suicide awareness Hope You Get To Eleven or What are we going to do about Sally? which was awarded Best Solo Show and Planet Advocate Award at the Planet Connections Theatre Festival. In 2017 The Farm Theater partnered with Planet Connections Theatre Festival to produce Alex Riad's The Floor Is Lava. The play was awarded Best New Play and Best Production of a New Play and The Farm Theater was awarded The Planet Advocate Award for raising money and awareness for Girls Who Code. The Farm Theater also hosts a popular podcast, The Bullpen Sessions, which features working artists talking about how they built their careers. www.thefarmtheater.org