Atlantic Theater Company Unveils 2024 Judith Champion Launch Commissioning Program Writers

Atlantic Theater Company has unveiled its Judith Champion Launch Commissioning Program writers for 2024, Stephen Brown, Stefani Kuo, and Arun Welandawe-Prematilleke.
 
Now in its 10th year, the Judith Champion Launch Commissioning Program offers early career playwrights support of writing a new play and facilitating relationships in the theater industry. Atlantic’s Literary Manager, Kalina Ko, runs the program, commissioning all writers and facilitating play development. Previous recipients of the commission include Paola Lázaro, Amy Staats, Abby Rosebrock, Tori Sampson, Sanaz Toossi, Lily Houghton, and Brian Otaño. Lázaro, Staats, and Toossi have all received productions at Atlantic since their commissions. The program is generously underwritten by Judith Champion.
 
Atlantic’s Artistic Director, Neil Pepe said, “We are proud to continue Judith Champion’s legacy of supporting new voices in the American theater. The Launch Commission has brought us many exciting writers and relationships. This year, we are thrilled to premiere Abby Rosebrock’s Launch Commission, Lowcountry.�

All of Atlantic’s new play and musical development activities are made possible, in part, by leadership support from the Howard Gilman Foundation, The Tow Foundation, and the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation with additional funding from the Max and Victoria Dreyfus Foundation and the National Alliance for Musical Theatre. Atlantic productions and programs are also supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council, as well as the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Hochul and the New York State Legislature.

Stephen Brown

recently graduated from The Juilliard School’s Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwrights Program. His play The Many Wondrous Realities of Jasmine Starr-Kidd won the Kendeda Award and was produced at The Alliance Theatre in Atlanta; it is currently being adapted into a film. His other work has been developed and received readings from New York Theatre Workshop, Primary Stages, MCC, Page 73, Ensemble Studio Theatre, The Road Theatre, Barter Theatre, Theatre Lab at FAU, and the Aurora Theatre. He’s been a Finalist for the Play Penn Conference, Seven Devil's Playwrights Conference, the Blue Ink Award, the Neukom Prize, The Aurand Harris Award, and the Working Farm at SPACE on Ryder Farm. He was a member of Youngblood at EST, Page 73’s playwriting group I-73 and has had residencies with the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and SPACE on Ryder Farm.
 

STEFANI KUO 郭佳怡

(she/her) is a poet/playwright/performer from Hong Kong and Taiwan. She received her B.A. from Yale University and her M.F.A. Candidate in Playwriting from the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale.

Fluent in Cantonese, Mandarin, French, and English, she is interested in crafting multicultural, multilingual narratives for an international audience. She has been an awardee of a MacDowell Fellowship, Jerome Fellowship at PWC, Dramatist Guild Fellowship, finalist for the National Playwrights Conference, Playwrights Realm Writing Fellowship, Jerome Fellowship at Lanesboro Arts Centre, Many Voices Fellowship at PWC, Van Lier New Voices Fellowship. She is currently under commission with Ensemble Studio Theater, and has received commissions from Rubin Museum, Roundhouse Theater, and Yangtze Repertory.

Her play on the Hong Kong protests, Final Boarding Call was the winner of the 2021 Leah Ryan Fund for Emerging Women Writers’ Prize. Her play Wake was presented as part of the Langston Hughes Festival 2022 at Yale. Her play Pearl’s Beauty Salon was produced in May 2024 as part of the Carlotta Festival at Yale. She was a member of Interstate-73, Page 73’s Writers Group, in 2019. Her work in creative non-fiction, poetry, and translation have appeared in The New York Times, China Hands, Electric Literature, and more. As a performer, she was most recently seen in Arlington by Enda Walsh, directed by Bobbin Ramsey, as well as her one-woman show Moonie at the Yale Cabaret.

ARUN WELANDAWE-PREMATILLEKE

is a Sri Lankan playwright, actor and director. Born in Helsinki, Arun has lived and worked in Colombo, London and New York and his work is representative of an international, intersectional world-view. He served as Associate Artistic Director at the Mind Adventures Theatre Company from 2011 to 2017. His Sri Lankan works include Paraya, Only Soldiers and, The One Who Loves You So, for which he received the Gratiaen Prize for Literature and was published by Perera Hussein books. 
In New York, his play The Present was performed at the Roundabout Underground Readings Series and he is a member of the Clubbed Thumb Emerging Writers Group. He received the John Golden Playwriting Prize upon graduating from NYU Tisch School of Arts, and his screenplay Rangoli is currently being developed with the Lower East Side Film Festival’s Stay Indie Project. He was also part of the Roundabout’s Space Jam Writers Residency. As an actor, his performance in The Joyous Farmer received the Best Actor Prize at the Amarcord Chicago Film Festival. 
His work focuses primarily on queerness, class and our relationships to national histories. 
 
 
 
 
ATLANTIC THEATER COMPANY (Neil Pepe, Artistic Director; Jeffory Lawson, Managing Director). At Atlantic, our aim is singular—to empower simple and honest storytelling that fosters greater understanding of our shared world. We are a family of artists dedicated to exploring essential truths onstage, be it a show at Atlantic Theater Company or a class at Atlantic Acting School. From our Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning productions to our community-based education programs, we are committed to uncovering and celebrating the stories of our varied human existence. Founded as an ensemble of impassioned artists in 1985, Atlantic Theater Company has grown into a powerhouse Off-Broadway company presenting world class theater across our two venues, the Linda Gross Theater and the intimate Stage 2 black-box. As a producer of compelling new works, we are committed to championing the stories from new and established artists alike, amplifying the voices of emerging playwrights through our deeply collaborative programs and initiatives. We have produced more than 200 plays and musicals including Tony Award-winning productions of Kimberly Akimbo (David Lindsay-Abaire, Jeanine Tesori), The Band’s Visit (David Yazbek, Itamar Moses), Spring Awakening (Steven Sater, Duncan Sheik), and The Beauty Queen of Leenane (Martin McDonagh); Pulitzer Prize recipients Between Riverside and Crazy (Stephen Adly Guirgis) and English (Sanaz Toossi); New York Drama Critics’ Circle winners for Best New Play The Night Alive (Conor McPherson) and Best Foreign Play Hangmen (Martin McDonagh); Obie Award winners for Best New American Play Guards at the Taj and Describe the Night (Rajiv Joseph); and Obie Award Special Citation recipient Skeleton Crew (Dominique Morisseau).

To post a comment, you must register and login.