Cayenne Douglass And Reid Pope Given 2023 Awards By Parity Productions At Seventh Annual Awards Ceremony And Celebration

Parity Productions, the New York based theatre company dedicated to producing new work by women, trans, and gender-expansive playwrights and filling at least 80% of the creative positions (playwrights, directors, and designers) with women, trans, and gender-expansive artists, has awarded the two annual Parity Development Awards (previously the Parity Commission) to Cayenne Douglass for Some Body Will Pay and Reid Pope for Cuntboy and Dickgirl: or, biology play. The ceremony took place on Wednesday, October 25th as a hybrid event over zoom and in person at the Maker's Studio in Chelsea Market.

The awards were presented by playwright and director Katelynn Kenney and Parity's Literary Manager, Jaye Hunt. 

"Parity promotes equality by empowering women, trans, and gender-expansive artists to tell their stories and in doing so aims to change the landscape of American theatre. I'm honored to be aligned with and a part of this legacy,” said Douglass of receiving the award. 

Each year, Parity awards two Development Awards to women, trans, or gender-expansive playwrights who have demonstrated a singular talent for storytelling. The selected playwrights receive $2,500 each, extensive development support from Parity, including at least one public reading, with an option for Parity to produce their work. 

 "It means the world that Parity supports emerging artists. It's rare. And needed. I'm so excited by the new work that has come out of this organization, and I can't wait to work on my new play in a room full of smart, funny, insightful people! In a time when trans media tends to be legislation-centric, I wanted to write about trans teens playing sports and falling in love with ease,” said Pope during their speech on Wednesday evening.

Parity has not yet announced an application period for the 2024 Commission, but that information will appear on their website when details are determined.

During a wonderful evening filled with spooky lights, pumpkins, and delicious catering from Eat Offbeat in Chelsea Market, Parity also pre-screened the filmed stage production of 2018 Parity Development Award Winner Liz Kerin's multimedia tragicomedy Stop-Motion, which Parity filmed during the second year of the pandemic. 

“We are thrilled with the two latest additions to our Development Award winning plays by women, trans and gender expansive playwrights,” says Parity Founder and Artistic Director, Ludovica Villar-Hauser. “We look forward to developing these two extraordinary works that function so beautifully in harmony with our mission. We are also beyond grateful this year, which is so challenging for so many, to award not only our 13th and 14th Parity Development Awards, but also to have pre-screened our 2018 Parity Development Award winning play, filmed during Covid at the end of 2021, Stop-Motion by Liz Kerin. Sign up on our website here and be among the first to know when Stop-Motion is available for viewing. Filming productions benefits our artists by having their work seen by a far wider audience.”

Those interested can support this year's Development Award winners and other Parity artists by donating here. All funds raised support their work with women, trans, and gender-expansive theatre artists.

Parity Productions identifies, develops, and produces new work exclusively by women, trans, and gender-expansive playwrights. At all phases of development and production, our creative teams are comprised of 80-100% women, trans, and gender-expansive artists. Our work unrelentingly centers the experiences of women, trans, and gender-expansive individuals onstage and off to provide urgent perspective to our audience and the industry, and to create greater momentum in achieving gender parity within the American theatre.

Cayenne Douglass (she/her) (select) credits and development opportunities include Ensemble Studio Theatre (One Act Marathon 2019, Sloan Project Commission 2023), Theatre Masters (Take Ten 2020, Visionary Playwright Award 2022) Boston Playwrights' Theatre, Fresh Ink, New Perspectives, Company One Theatre, Exquisite Corpse Company, Letter of Marque, Dixon Place, The Tank, Tofte Lake, The Kennedy Center and BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop. Cayenne has been published by Concord Theatricals and was recently awarded the NYC Women's Fund/NYFA grant to produce her play, Maiden Voyage which will be mounted in NYC 2024. MFA in Playwriting, Boston University. Website: www.cayennedouglass.com IG: bruteful_theatre.

Reid Pope (they/them) is a comedian, playwright, and Jew who's been featured in Vulture, PAPER, and Boys With Plants Magazine. They were a finalist for the 2023 Terrence McNally Incubator and have developed plays with Jewish Plays Project, Normal Ave, Primetime Theatre, The 24 Hour Plays: Nationals, and Edinburgh Fringe. Their television pilot Old Queens won the 2023 ATX TV Festival Pitch Competition and they were named a 2022 New York Comedy Festival Content Creator To Watch. Reid is a New Georges Affiliated artist. B.A. Brown | M.F.A. NYU Tisch

Ludovica Villar-Hauser (she/her) Ludovica Villar-Hauser is the Founder, Artistic Director and Executive Director of Parity Productions. At Parity, her directing credits include the world premieres of Charlie's Waiting by 2017 Commission Winner Mêlisa Annis, Mirrors by 2018 Commission Winner Azure D. Osborne-Lee, Stop-Motion by 2018 Commission Winner Liz Kerin, and the award-winning She Calls Me Firefly by Teresa Lotz. Prior to founding Parity Productions, Ludovica directed many critically acclaimed plays in the U.S. and U.K., including Final Analysis by Otho Eskin (Signature Theatre); The Countess by Gregory Murphy (Lamb's Theatre) and in London's West End (The Criterion Theatre); Leaves of Glass by Phillip Ridley (Peter Jay Sharpe Theater); As It Is in Heaven by Arlene Hutton (The Cherry Lane); The Brightness of Heaven, (The Cherry Lane) and This Will All Be Yours (The Barrow Group Theatre) by Laura Pedersen; and Long Day's Journey Into Night by Eugene O'Neill in London's West End (The Arts Theatre).  The filmed stage production of Stop-Motion by Liz Kerin in 2021 marks Ludovica's directorial film debut. In 1984, at the age of 23, with her production of O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night, Ludovica became the youngest woman ever to simultaneously produce and direct in London's West End. In the New York theatre industry, she was also one of the few women to own and operate her own theatre — The Greenwich Street Theatre — which she ran for 17 years.  Ludovica served on the Board of the League of Professional Theatre Women from 2009-2018, is currently the Producer of the League's Oral History Project at the NYPL for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center and was the League's Co-President July 2022-July 2023. 

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