The Playwrights Realm Announces 2018-19 Scratchpad Series Playwrights

Over the past twelve years, The Playwrights Realm, led by Founding Artistic Director Katherine Kovner and Producing Director Roberta Pereira, has continually produced work by brave new voices and expanded its commitment to providing holistic support to playwrights striving to make a life in the arts. With the second installment of its newest annual program, Scratchpad Series, The Playwrights Realm is proud to grant career-propelling developmental workshops to three promisingly talented, diverse and dedicated playwrights: Darren Canady, Keiko Green, and Jordan Ramirez Puckett.

Scratchpad Series jumpstarts The Realm's relationship with early-career playwrights by doing one of the things they do best: listening to what playwrights need, and giving it to them. Whether it's a place to hear a rough draft aloud for the first time, space to fine tune a more mature work, or time to focus on a particular aspect of a piece, The Realm aims to provide playwrights with what they need to thrive. Scratchpad is a chance for The Realm to continue to engage with a whole New Group of writers each year, erasing limitations of geography or access by working to identify playwrights from all across the country to participate. Scratchpad participants will receive a developmental workshop of up to one week in New York City, working with top-notch professional collaborators-director, cast, and The Realm's artistic staff. If the playwright is based outside of New York, The Realm will also facilitate the playwright's travel and housing for the workshop.

Last years' Scratchpad Series playwrights include MJ Kaufman, now a staff writer for Netflix's new series The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina; Benjamin Benne, who was recently accepted into Yale's MFA Playwriting Program; and Miranda Rose Hall, whose Plot Points in Our Sexual Development was just seen at LCT3.

"Last year we were thrilled by the response to our inaugural Scratchpad Series," said Founding Artistic Director Katherine Kovner. "The outpouring of talented writers from all over The United States was tremendous and this year the pool of playwrights grew further to nearly 650. This year's Scratchpad Series will enable us to work with three incredibly talented early-career playwrights from Kansas, Washington and Ohio. Each of them is taking on complicated questions of family, legacy and history in their own unique and thought-provoking ways and I'm honored to get to collaborate with them on their plays."

The writers selected for Scratchpad Series bring a diversity of story and perspective, as well as geography, to The Playwrights Realm. In Reparations, Darren Canady of Lawrence, Kansas explores a future where people can harness the power of their blood to re-live their ancestral history and receive reparations for past sufferings. When a young black woman signs up, has she finally found a way out or is she about to learn more than she can handle? Seattle-based Keiko Green's The Ballad of the White Tiger is a magical and poignant tale of two estranged bi-racial sisters haunted by a horrific car crash. As they each try to put their life back together they grapple with questions of identity, family, and finding your place in the world. In Las Pajaritas, Jordan Ramirez Puckett, a writer from Athens, Ohio, tells the story of three generations of Chicana women struggling to survive in LA, examining how language, colorism and opportunity can separate even the closet of family members.

In addition to the four selected playwrights, finalists for this year's Fellowship include: Preston Choi (Evanston, IL) - A Great Migration, Emily Feldman (New York, NY) - UNTITLED FAMILY TRAGEDY//THE BEST WE COULD, Franky Gonzalez (Frisco, TX) - Even Flowers Bloom in Hell, Sometimes, Dave Harris (La Jolla, CA) - Shitty Shitty Terrible Bad Remorse, Victor Lesniewski (Beverly Hills, CA) - Khardal, Anna Moench (La Jolla, CA) - Mothers, R. Eric Thomas (Baltimore, MD) - Safe Space, and Kit Yan and Simone Wolff (Hempstead, NY) - T(ESTOSTERONE).

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