Ensemble Studio Theatre Announces New Youngblood Members

Ensemble Studio Theatre's Youngblood has announced new members for the 2024-2025 season: Morgan Barnes-Whitehead, Stefani Kuo, Abigail C. Onwunali,  Fernando Buzhar Segall, and Matt Shvyrkov. 

Now in its 31st year, Youngblood serves as a creative home for the next generation of theatre artists.  Youngblood provides artistic guidance, peer support, regular feedback and a fertile development  environment, which allows member playwrights to hone their skills and explore their craft. The group  also provides exposure to the public and the press, professional outreach to the industry, and  opportunities for production and publication. 

“We were blown away by the demand for spots this year - there are so few opportunities for writers at  the beginning of their careers, and it's a heartbreaker that we can't work with more of them. But after  processing a record 275 applications, we're so excited to start working with these five incredible writers  and can't wait to see what they bring to the group over the next few years,” said RJ Tolan, Program  Director of Youngblood.

The new writers will be joining the returning Youngblood members: jose sebastian alberdi, Lyndsey  Bourne, Brysen Boyd, Libby Carr, Edison Ventura Mata Diaz, K'yana Faulkner-Smith, Dylan Guerra,  Justice Hehir, Lily Houghton, Renae Jarrett, Anchuli Felicia King, Nadja Leonhard-Hooper, kaia lyons,  Hanna Novak, Charlie Oh, Ife Olujobi, Phanésia Pharel, Audley Puglisi, Nia Akilah Robinson, Eliana  Theologides Rodriguez, Holly Settoon, Marissa Joyce Stamps, Graham Techler, Danny Tejera, May  Treuhaft-Ali, Susan Yassky, and Celeste Yim. 

The graduating playwrights, who will complete their tenure in the group this month, are Harron Atkins,  Ava Geyer, Miz Hashimoto, and Sam Mueller. Several recent grads will have one more chance to have  their work seen in November's installment of the Youngblood Sunday Brunch, a recurring short play  series by the writers of Youngblood. This year's Brunch season will kick off on Sunday, November 3rd,  and continue on one Sunday a month throughout the season. There will be additional readings and  workshops from the collective during the 2024/25 season to be announced at a later date. 

Playwrights whose professional careers began in the Youngblood program have gone on to success at  the highest levels of the industry, including recent accolades for Annie Baker, Martyna Majok, Sanaz  Toossi, Lloyd Suh, Sylvia Khoury, Will Arbery, Clare Barron, and Amy Herzog. Youngblood playwrights  have been honored with Pulitzer Prizes, Obie Awards, MacArthur Fellowships, Tony Award  nominations, Outer Critics Circle Awards, Drama Desk Awards, and Oscar, Emmy, and Golden Globe  Award nominations. 

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Morgan Barnes-Whitehead is a playwright, dramaturg, and educator originally from  Ann Arbor, Michigan and now based in New York City. She received her BA and MA from Bard College  ('21 and '22), studying playwriting and teaching respectively. As a theatre administrator, she has  worked at Page 73 and National Black Theatre. Her work has been produced by New Perspectives  Theatre as a member of their Women's Work Short Play Lab and by Harlem 9 as a 2024 cohort member  of 24 Hours in Harlem. 

Stefani Kuo 郭佳怡 is a poet/playwright/performer and native of Hong Kong and Taiwan. She received  her B.A. from Yale and her M.F.A. in Playwriting from the Yale School of Drama. Her play on the Hong  Kong protests, Final Boarding Call, was the winner of the 2021 Lead Ryan Fund for Emerging Women  Writers' Prize. Her play Wake was presented in the Yale Langston Hughes Festival 2022. Her play Pearl's  Beauty Salon was produced in May 2024 as part of the Yale Carlotta Festival. She has been commissioned  by The Atlantic Theater, Ensemble Studio Theater, Roundhouse Theater, Yangtze Repertory  Theater. Her work in creative non-fiction has appeared in The New York Times. 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.  

Abigail C. Onwunali. Acting - Broadway: JaJa's African Hair Braiding (Manhattan Theater Club). Off Broadway: The Half-God of Rainfall (New York Theater Workshop), Bloodwork (National Black Theater).  Regional: Sojourners (The Huntington) Education: The David Geffen School of Drama at Yale; also, an  acting fellow of Lena Waithe's Hillman Grad Mentorship Program. Awards: Recipient of the 2022  Princess Grace Award. Onwunali is a multifaceted Nigerian-American artist known for her versatility  and passion. Her play, Jewel, was one of Red Bull Theater's Short New Play Festival winners, and her  slam poems have been viewed worldwide. She is currently a playwriting resident at Liberation Theater  Company.

Fernando Buzhar Segall is an NYC-based writer from Brazil, where he spent his formative years  working as a clown and actor. His writing has been described as “hiding the veggies”, using farce and  clown traditions to explore deeper social and political issues. Full length plays: Saudades (readings/workshops at: American Stages, The NYC Brazilian Embassy, LPAC, BrickLab. Grants: NYC  City Artist Corps, Brooklyn Arts Fund. World premiere at JACK summer of 2023), The World's Most  Boring Murder (world premiere at The Players Theatre, summer of ‘24), The Devil and The Candlemaker (finalist at “Druids New Writing Scripts 2024”, “Playwright's First 2024” and at Emerson's play  development program ‘24, Reading at Valdez Theatre Conference 24). His short plays have been  performed at over a dozen theatres across NY, Illinois, and Texas. Fernando has two screenplays in  development with Brazilian production company Nexus Cinema & Video and is the official translator of  Lynn Nottage and Itamar Moses' works to Portuguese. He holds two BFAs from NYU and an MFA from  Columbia University. 

Matt Shvyrkov is a playwright originally from a double-wide trailer deep in the swampy backwoods of  deep red North Florida. His work has been produced/supported/otherwise recognized by The Barrow  Group, Dixon Place, The Tank, The Strides Collective, Monument Theatre Company, and Austin Film  Festival, among others. He is a current member of EST/Youngblood and teaches  playwriting/screenwriting at Tusculum University. MFA: NYU Tisch School of the Arts; BA: University  of South Florida. 

ABOUT Ensemble Studio Theatre 

Ensemble Studio Theatre (Estefanía Fadul and Graeme Gillis, Co-Artistic Directors) is a Hell's Kitchen based, Off-Broadway theatre focused on the development of new work and voices since its founding by  Curt Dempster in 1968. For over 55 years, EST has developed thousands of new American plays and  has grown into a company of over 600 actors, directors, playwrights, designers, and stage managers.  EST's mission is to develop and produce original, provocative, and authentic new work. A dynamic  community committed to a collaborative process, EST is dedicated to inclusion across all aspects of  identity and perspective, including but not limited to race, ethnicity, gender, age, religion, sexuality,  physical or mental ability, physical or mental health, and recovery, while acknowledging and working  to end systemic marginalization and oppression at all levels of its organization. EST discovers and  nurtures new voices and supports artists throughout their creative lives. This extraordinary support  and commitment to inclusivity are essential to yield extraordinary work. 

ABOUT EST/YOUNGBLOOD 

Youngblood (RJ Tolan, Program Director) is EST's Obie Award-winning, Drama Desk-cited collective of  emerging professional playwrights, providing artistic guidance, peer support, regular feedback and a  fertile production environment which allows playwrights to hone their skills and explore their craft. Since 1993, Youngblood has fostered dozens of playwrights who've gone on to acclaimed careers  in theatre, television, and film, and the group continues to serve as a creative home for the next  generation of theater artists. 

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