The Playwrights Realm Presents Interactive Fundraiser PLAY ON WORDS

The Playwrights Realm (Founding Artistic Director, Katherine Kovner; Producing Director, Roberta Pereira) presents Play on Words, a one-night live-streamed festival of short new plays that culminates an initiative in which donors get to have a hand in writing and creating work (March 28 at 7pm ET). With Play on Words, The Realm continues to innovate fundraising, interweaving it with the process of artistic creation from which it's so often divorced. The initiative inventively helps support the playwrights involved directly as well as The Realm in its many programs serving playwrights and other theater artists.

Play on Words evolves The Realm's initial idea to bring their community together in virtual fundraisers during the pandemic with their two Play-A-Thons in 2020 and 2021, which raised over $100,000 and were featured in The New York Times. With Play on Words, donors contributing $100 or more get to vote live on one of two endings for all of the plays during the event. Other donation levels offered at the beginning of the initiative gave contributors participatory opportunities in the creation of the works, including providing a stage direction to a play, becoming a cast member in a play, sitting for an interview with a playwright to include aspects of one's life story in a play, and more.

All levels get access to watch all of the new play readings and vote on each play's ending, either live during the event, or later in the week following.

The Play on Words includes What to Do if You Hit Turbulence by May Treuhaft-Ali, with donor collaborators Jacob Abramovich, Jen Bilik & Brian Rosenberg, Drew & Meera Gilbert, Sally Pritchard, and Sarah Young; The Great New York Dough-Off by Francisca Da Silveira with donor collaborators Soumi Eachempati, Anna May Feige, Ella Foshay, Bonnie Gale, and Mindy Stern & Jim Burnham; Untitled Chainsaw Circus Musical Pitch by Grace McLeod with donor collaborators Daniel Cohen & Tanya Goldfarb, Jim & Katie Marks, Evan & Kim Michael, Sharon & Bill Monahan, and an anonymous donor; Dead Divas' Dinner by Anton Dudley with donor collaborators Ella Foshay, Kathy & Geddes Parsons, Nathan Saint-Amand, Tina Sloan-McPherson, and The Waldins; and FAIRBNB by Don Nguyen with donor collaborators Valerie DiFebo, Jack Gindi, Husani Oakley & Jashiro Dean, Norma Rosenberg, and Bloomberg Philanthropies.

All works are directed by Mike Donahue, (Off-Broadway: Here She Is, Boys, The Moors) with video recording and editing by Caite Hevner (Broadway: In Transit, Derren Brown: Secret) with video associate Sydney Dye, and stage management from Kara Kaufman. The cast features Ashley Bryant (Broadway: The Play that Goes Wrong; TV: Younger, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel), Midori Francis (Off-Broadway: The Wolves, Usual Girls; TV: The Sex Lives of College Girls, Dash & Lily), Eric Lockley (Film: The Inheritance; TV: Luke Cage; Regional: Choir Boy, Black Odyssey), Susannah Perkins (Broadway: Network; Off-Broadway: Judgement Day, The Low Road, The Wolves), and Will Roland (Broadway: Be More Chill, Dear Evan Hansen; Regional: The Black Suits).

Anton Dudley's Off-Broadway productions include City of and Substitution (both at The Playwrights Realm), Getting Home (Second Stage Theater), 17 Orchard Point [co-written with Stephanie DiMaggio] (Theater Row featuring Tony-winner Michele Pawk), Honor and the River (Theater Row), and Slag Heap (Cherry Lane Theater). Other productions include Katie: Strongest of the Strong (Houston Grand Opera), A Dram of Drummhicit [co-written with Arthur Kopit] (LaJolla Playhouse directed by Tony-winner Christopher Ashley), Girlstar (Signature Theater), Honor and the River (Walnut Street Theater), Cold Hard Cash (Williamstown Theatre Festival), Letters to the End of the World (Finalist for 2012 Lambda Literary Award in LGBT Drama), Davy & Stu (Ensemble Studio Theatre), Marguerite (APAC featuring Tony-winner Cady Huffman), and The Lake's End (Adirondack Theatre Festival). His work has been commissioned by Manhattan Theatre Club, Playscripts, Cherry Lane Theater, Houston Grand Opera, Musical Stage Company, Stella Adler Studio, and Williamstown Theatre Festival, and is published by Samuel French, Playscripts, Smith & Kraus, Heuer, Heinemann Press, Backstage Books, and Vintage. The award-winning short film of Davy & Stu, directed by Soman Chainani, appears on Strand Releasing's Boys Life 6.

Grace McLeod is a queer playwright and screenwriter currently based in New York City. She was a 2017-2018 Trellis playwright-in-residence at Chicago's Greenhouse Theater Center, where she developed her play Herland, which received a 2018-2019 National New Play Network Rolling World Premiere at MOXIE Theatre in San Diego, Redtwist Theatre in Chicago, and Greenway Court Theatre in Los Angeles. Grace's plays have been presented, developed, and/or commissioned by Goodman Theatre, Actors Theatre of Louisville, First Floor Theater, The New Colony, Commission Theatre, The 24 Hour Plays, and Millikin University, among others, and she is a 2020 winner of the Ashland New Plays Festival. As a 2013-2014 Tribeca Film Fellow, she wrote and directed the short film "Under the Table," which premiered during the 2014 Tribeca Film Festival, and co-conceived and produced "Local/Express," an experimental short film that screened across Times Square as part of the Midnight Moment Series, the world's largest, longest-running digital art exhibition. Grace is a graduate of the University of Chicago, where she was the recipient of the 2018 Olga and Paul Menn Foundation Prize for Playwriting.

Don Nguyen's full length plays include: Sound (Azeotrope/ACT Seattle), Red Flamboyant (Firebone Theatre Company), The Commencement of William Tan (Yale Cabaret), The Man From Saigon (ACT New Strands Festival), The Supreme Leader(Roundabout Underground Reading Series). Don is the recipient of the 2015 GAP Prize from the Aurora Theatre, a New York Stage & Film Founder's award and has been a finalist for The O'Neill National Playwrights Conference, The Princess Grace Award, and The Woodward International Playwriting Prize. Don is a member of the Ma-Yi Writers Lab, an alumni of The Public Theater's Emerging Writers Group and The Civilians R&D Group, and a co-founder of Mission to (dit)Mars, a Queens based theatre arts collective.

Francisca Da Silveira is a Cape Verdean-American playwright and Boston native who holds a BFA in Dramatic Writing from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts and an MSc in Playwriting from the University of Edinburgh. She has been featured in ArtsBoston, The LA Times and American Theatre Magazine. Her plays have been developed with Theatre503 (London), The Traverse Theatre (Edinburgh), TC Squared Theatre Company (Boston), Company One Theatre (Boston), Flat Earth Theatre (Boston), Fresh Ink Theatre Company (Boston), The Fire This Time Festival (New York), and Horse Trade Theater Group (New York). She has been a finalist for SpeakEasy Stage's 2018 and 2019 Boston Project Residency, Space of Ryder Farm's 2020 Creative Residency and has been a semi-finalist for the Dennis & Victoria Ross Playwrights Program, the 2019 Papatango New Play Prize and the 2019 Theatre503 International Playwriting Award. Fran's play CAN I TOUCH IT? was featured in the National New Play Network's 2020 National Showcase of New Plays in November 2020. In addition to writing, Fran also identifies as a playwright dramaturg. From 2016-2018, she was a company dramaturg and Literary Manager at Company One Theatre and co-ran their emerging writers PlayLab program with Andrew W. Mellon Artist-in-Residence Kirsten Greenidge. Fran serves as an At-Large Ambassador and Affiliated Artist with the National New Play Network and has dramaturged for NNPN, The Kennedy Center, The Playwrights' Center, and Salt Lake Acting Company. She is currently the Assistant Literary Director at Geva Theatre Centre in Rochester, NY. She was a 2020-2021 Playwrights Realm Writing Fellow, and is a member of The Public Theater's 2020-2022 Emerging Writers Group and is under commission from Colt Coeur Theatre in Brooklyn.

May Treuhaft-Ali is a playwright and new-play dramaturg. After graduating from Wesleyan University, she completed an M.Phil in Theatre and Performance Studies at Trinity College Dublin on a George J. Mitchell Scholarship. She is a Writing Fellow at The Playwrights Realm, an alumna of Clubbed Thumb's Early-Career Writers' Group, and a recipient of two commissions from Adventure Theatre MTC. She has worked as a dramaturg at Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Ars Nova ANT Fest, and Haven Theatre Chicago. Her dramaturgical essays have been published in Playwrights Horizons' Almanac and Table Work Press' Two Plays. May is currently the Literary Fellow at Playwrights Horizons.

Ashley Bryant (she/her) is an actress and voice over artist living and working in New York City. As an "Army Brat", she grew up throughout the U.S. and Europe. After earning her bachelor's degree from the University of Utah, Ashley received an M.F.A from The Yale School of Drama. Favorite credits include: The Play That Goes Wrong (Broadway) and television series 4400, Younger, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Blue Bloods, The Knick, Nurse Jackie, and Gossip Girl. Ashley lives with her husband Dave, and their two kids, age 2 and under, in Brooklyn. More information can be found at ashleybryant.net or IG: @ashleybryantmiller

Midori Francis is an Emmy nominee for her portrayal as Lily in the Netflix/21 Laps series Dash and Lily. Critics and fans alike marveled at Francis's ability to craft a three dimensional portrait full of layers, depth, and contradictions. It's in the theater world where Midori got her start. She's a Drama Desk and Obie Award recipient for her work in the play The Wolves. She received another Drama Desk nomination for her critically acclaimed performance in Usual Girls. In the feature world, Midori had a hilarious turn in the summer Universal blockbuster Good Boys. Midori can currently be seen in Netflix's Afterlife of the Party and the Mindy Kaling HBO MAX series The Sex Lives of College Girls.

Eric Lockley is an OBIE award-winning actor, writer, filmmaker, producer and podcast host. As an actor, on-screen and stage credits include: The Inheritance, Luke Cage, First Reformed, Choir Boy, How We Got On, Black Odyssey. Lockley operated as both actor and writer in his comedic web series Blacker and in his inspirational short film, The Jump, both of which received acclaim from various national and international film festivals. Eric also performs sketch and musical improv and is a featured cast member of The Homemade Sketch Show (on TubiTV). Lockley is a founder of and produces with Harlem-based orgs, The Movement Theatre Company & Harlem9, creating opportunities for artists of color. Eric's inspirational podcast, The 180 features guests from numerous industries discussing a moment when they turned their lives around and is available on all streaming platforms. Eric's Afrofuturistic play, Sweet Chariot, has had excerpts shared in the Under the Radar Festival at The Public Theater, and Lockley looks forward to sharing the full production in 2023. @iamericlockley

Ashley Bryant (she/her) is an actress and voice over artist living and working in New York City. As an "Army Brat", she grew up throughout the U.S. and Europe. After earning her bachelor's degree from the University of Utah, Ashley received an M.F.A from The Yale School of Drama. Favorite credits include: The Play That Goes Wrong (Broadway) and television series 4400, Younger,The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Blue Bloods, The Knick, Nurse Jackie, and Gossip Girl. Ashley lives with her husband Dave, and their two kids, age 2 and under, in Brooklyn. More information can be found at ashleybryant.net or IG: @ashleybryantmiller

Susanna Perkins (any pronouns) Broadway: Network. Off-Broadway: Judgment Day (Park Avenue Armory), The Low Road (The Public), The Wolves (The Playwrights Realm/Lincoln Center), The Rape Of The Sabine Women... (The Playwrights Realm). TV: The Politician, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. Film: Lapsis, Enclosure. BFA: NYU Tisch. Obie and Drama Desk awards.

Will Roland (he/him) is a Brooklyn-based actor/singer/human. He can currently be seen in Billions on Showtime. Recent Broadway: Be More Chill (Jeremy), and Dear Evan Hansen (Jared). Regional: The Black Suits at Barrington Stage Company and Center Theatre Group. For over 10 years, Will has been a proud member of Joe Iconis & Family, the repertory company of punk-rock musical theatre artists led by Joe Iconis. Since the start of the pandemic, he has frequently collaborated with fellow Dear Evan Hansen alums Andrew Barth Feldman and Alex Boniello on charity streaming events including Broadway Jackbox and Supporting Rolls. These streams have collectively raised over $100,000 for a host of charities including The Actors Fund, Feeding America, and I Need Diverse Games.

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