New York Theatre Workshop Announces 2022/23 2050 Artistic Fellows

New York Theatre Workshop has announced the playwrights and directors selected for the 2022/23 Season 2050 Artistic Fellowship. The 2022/23 Artistic Fellows are Miranda Cornell, Thaddeus McCants, Aileen Wen McGroddy, Attilio Rigotti, Andrew Rodriguez and Minghao Tu. NYTW Usual Suspect and former 2050 Directing Fellow Miranda Haymon will serve as advisor to the 2022/23 Fellows, working directly with each fellow to build their individual fellowship experience as well as with the cohort and NYTW Artistic Staff to create community. Full information about the fellowship program is available at nytw.org/artist-workshop/2050-fellowships.

"We are deeply humbled to welcome these six artists as 2050 Artistic Fellows for the 2022/23 season. Miranda, Thaddeus, Aileen, Attilio, Andrew and Minghao were selected from hundreds of applicants for their boundless curiosity and distinctive visions, and we look forward to supporting their growth as artists and building community throughout the year," says Literary Director & Dramaturg Aaron Malkin and Director of Project Development, Workshops & Residencies Rachel Silverman. "We are equally excited to be welcoming Miranda Haymon, a former 2050 Fellow and Usual Suspect at NYTW, as the 2050 Fellowship Advisor. We've long been moved by their artistry and leadership and look forward to continuing to build the year alongside them."

The 2050 Fellowship is named in celebration of the U.S. Census Bureau's projection that by the year 2050, there will be no single racial or ethnic majority in the United States. This projection provokes thoughts at New York Theatre Workshop about the transformations that will take place in the American landscape - demographically, technologically, environmentally, and artistically - now and in the future. They are a catalyst for broader questions about our ever-transforming field. How can theatre challenge our conceptions of storytelling? How can we push aesthetic boundaries in the 21st century? What is the power of theater today?

Each year we're honored to invite a cohort of 2050 Artistic Fellows to join us in making art, engaging in deep conversation, and being in community. The 2050 Artistic Fellowship embodies our values of nurturing and cultivating an artistic community that challenges dominant paradigms and amplifying those whose experiences are not often heard. The 2050 Artistic Fellows are early career artists who, with their unique voices, give us perspective on the world in which we live and who inspire us all to contend with this changing world.

The 2050 Artistic Fellows gather monthly with artists from the NYTW community to discuss craft, aesthetics and artistic development. Fellows are awarded a stipend as well as an artistic development fund to support their fellowship. They receive access to rehearsal space and opportunities to share works-in-progress with the NYTW staff and entire fellowship cohort. Fellows receive mentorship from the NYTW staff and contemporary theatre artists and an invitation to participate in the artistic life of the theatre by attending staff meetings, developmental readings and other NYTW special events.

Past Fellows include Tara Ahmadinejad, Melis Aker, Michael Alvarez, Elena Araoz, Jeff Augustin, Nissy Aya, Matt Barbot, Hilary Bettis, Lileana Blain-Cruz, Eleanor Burgess, Jade King Carroll, Tearrance Arvelle Chisholm, Jeesun Choi, Shayok Misha Chowdhury, Nana Dakin, Josiah Davis, Nathan Alan Davis, Will Davis, Mashuq Deen, Reginald L. Douglas, Jackie Sibblies Drury, Kareem Fahmy, Sanaz Ghajarrahimi, Noelle Ghoussaini, Simón Adinia Hanukai, Michel Hausmann, Miranda Haymon, Kimille Howard, Phillip Howze, Ed Sylvanus Iskandar, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Hansol Jung, Seonjae Kim, Patricia Ione Lloyd, Matthew Lopez, Kareem Lucas, Martyna Majok, Divya Mangwani, Adil Mansoor, Julián J. Mesri, Alexandru Mihail, Janine Nabers, Beto O'Byrne, Matthew Paul Olmos, Brian Otaño, Tatiana Pandiani, Ming Peiffer, Francis Weiss Rabkin, Danny Sharon, Ruth Tang, Danya Taymor, Tyler Thomas, Stevie Walker-Webb, Gabriel Vega Weissman, Whitney White, Nia Ostrow Witherspoon, Tamilla Woodard, Zhu Yi, Pirronne Yousefzadeh, Catherine Yu, David Zheng and Mo Zhou.

Past 2050 Fellows have had their work produced and have directed throughout New York and the country. Recent credits include The Skin of Our Teeth by Thornton Wilder, directed by Lileana Blain-Cruz (Lincoln Center Theater); Sanctuary City by Martyna Majok, directed by Rebecca Frecknall (NYTW); The Inheritance by Matthew Lopez, directed by Stephen Daldry (Young Vic, West End, Broadway); Wolf Play by Hansol Jung, directed by Dustin Wills (Soho Rep); Exception to the Rule by Dave Harris, directed by Miranda Haymon (Roundabout Theatre Company); On Sugarland by Aleshea Harris, directed by Whitney White (NYTW).

New York Theatre Workshop empowers visionary theatre-makers and brings their work to adventurous audiences through productions, artist workshops and education and community engagement programs. We nurture pioneering new writers alongside powerhouse playwrights, engage inimitable genre-shaping directors, and support emerging artists in the earliest days of their careers. We've mounted over 150 productions from artists whose work has shaped our very idea of what theatre can be, including Jonathan Larson's Rent; Tony Kushner's Slavs! and Homebody/Kabul; Doug Wright's Quills; Claudia Shear's Blown Sideways Through Life and Dirty Blonde; Paul Rudnick's The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told and Valhalla; Martha Clarke's Vienna: Lusthaus; Will Power's The Seven and Fetch Clay, Make Man; Caryl Churchill's Mad Forest, Far Away, A Number and Love and Information; Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen's Aftermath; Rick Elice's Peter and the Starcatcher; Glen Hansard, Markéta Irglová and Enda Walsh's Once; David Bowie and Enda Walsh's Lazarus; Dael Orlandersmith's The Gimmick and Forever; Heidi Schreck's What the Constitution Means to Me; Jeremy O. Harris's Slave Play; and eight acclaimed productions directed by Ivo van Hove. NYTW's productions have received a Pulitzer Prize, 25 Tony Awards, 2 Grammy Awards and assorted Obie, Drama Desk and Lucille Lortel Awards. NYTW is represented on Broadway with Anaïs Mitchell's Hadestown developed with and directed by Rachel Chavkin, and the upcoming Sing Street, based on the motion picture written and directed by John Carney, with a book by Enda Walsh, music and lyrics by Gary Clark & John Carney, directed by Rebecca Taichman.

Alongside its artistic and community engagement activities, NYTW is engaged in the essential, sustained commitment of becoming an anti-racist organization in support and affirmation of Black people, Indigenous people and People of Color in its community. In June of 2020, NYTW published its Core Values statement and initial action and accountability steps. In an effort to provide greater transparency, NYTW shares progress updates, further commitments and next steps at nytw.org/accountability.

2050 ARTISTIC FELLOW BIOS

Miranda Cornell

Miranda Cornell (she/her) is a mixed-race, Japanese American theater director and generative artist with a passion for telling stories that are unabashedly sincere, achingly human, and irrevocably alive. She has directed and staged work with the Roundabout Underground Reading Series, Ma-Yi Theatre Company, The 24 Hour Plays, New Ohio/Ice Factory, Yale Summer Cabaret, Mercury Store, Shakespeare Academy at Stratford, Moxie Arts NY, the Asian American Arts Alliance, NYMF, and the Hunter MFA Playwrights Festival. As an associate and assistant, she has worked with directors such as Robert Icke, Danya Taymor, Chay Yew, Rachel Chavkin, and Michael Greif at theaters such as NYTW, Park Avenue Armory, The TEAM and Dear Evan Hansen (Broadway and North American Tour). Miranda was the 2020 Van Lier Fellow in Theater at A4 and is a proud member of the 2nd cohort of the Roundabout Directors Group. BA: Vassar College. mirandacornell.com

Thaddeus McCants

Thaddeus McCants (he/him) is a Brooklyn-based Writer and Performer originally from Madison, Wisconsin. As a playwright, he is a Theater Masters Visionary Playwright, KCACTF National Finalist, Goldberg New Play Prize Finalist, and a Semi-Finalist for both the Eugene O'Neill National Playwrights Conference & American Blues Theatre Blue Ink Award. As a Television Writer, he is currently a staff writer on the second season of HBOMax's "JULIA," is developing his own series with BET+, and is cowriting Audible Originals with both VICE Media and Author James Patterson. As a performer, Thaddeus has worked Off-Broadway, on the high-seas, on the UCBNY Mainstage, and in the Original Cast of Disney's Freaky Friday the Musical. Thaddeus proudly holds his MFA from NYU and BFA from Ithaca College and as always...'Word to Mom Dukes, to my 'fam I owe everything!'

Aileen Wen McGroddy

Aileen Wen McGroddy is a Chinese- and Irish-American theatre director, educator and producer of live events. Her work is imaginative, inclusive, and playfully experimental, coming from a robust background in physical theatre and a deep commitment to hospitality. She became a person in Briarcliff Manor, NY; a theatre maker in Chicago, IL; and a Master of Fine Arts in Directing at Brown-Trinity in Providence, RI. Upcoming work: Jar of Fat and Sense and Sensibility (Northern Stage); A Christmas Carol (Trinity Rep); Murder for Two (Winnipesaukee Playhouse); Indecent (Brown University). Past work: The Chinese Lady (Kithen Theatre and Geva Theatre Center); The Late Wedding, The Dumb Waiter, On The Y-Axis, Summer and Smoke, Akira Kurosawa Explains his Movies and Yogurt, and The Tempest (Brown-Trinity); Throwback Island (Writing is Live Festival and Bushwick Starr Reading Series); Regretfully, So the Birds Are (Clubbed Thumb Reading Series); Or, (The Winnipesaukee Playhouse and Portland Stage); Dani Girl (Winnipesaukee Playhouse); Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Musical and The Snowy Day (Emerald City Theatre); Montauciel Takes Flight (Lifeline Theatre); Ulysses (The Plagiarists); A Hero's Journey, The Hunting of the Snark, Robin Hood and The Pied Piper (The Forks & Hope Ensemble); The Whiskey Radio Hour, Wake: A Folk Opera, Kodachrome Telephone and Sign of Rain (The Whiskey Rebellion); Gentle, The Edge of Our Bodies, Music Hall, The Anyway Cabaret (TUTA); The Nose and Reika and the Wolves (Mudlark Theatre); and In This Final Century (Theatre-Hikes). She has assisted at The Eugene O'Neill Theatre Center, Trinity Rep, Court Theatre, The Actors' Gymnasium, The Hypocrites, and The House.

Attilio Rigotti

Attilio Rigotti is a Chilean theater-maker, video-game designer, and teacher. He has performed, trained, taught, and developed productions around the world, including countries such as Poland, China, Egypt, Lebanon, India, Indonesia, Japan, Italy, Cuba, the U.A.E. Along with Orsolya Szánthó, he founded the company GLITCH, creating work that seamlessly combines digital, interactive, and physical mediums with new forms of storytelling. The company's video and technology design has been featured in collaborations with Kaki King, Mason Gross School of the Arts, MIT Music & Theatre Arts, The Juilliard School, as well as in the most recent production of Macbeth on Broadway. Their graphics and video work have been part of promotional campaigns of several Broadway shows like Company and Girl from the North Country. Attilio's work as a director has been featured at City Lyric Opera, Phoenix Theatre Ensemble, NYU Tisch, Toronto Fringe, and Gamiotics Studios, and has been recognized by the New York Times, Vulture and American Theatre Magazine.

Andrew Rodriguez

Andrew Rodriguez (he/him) is an actor and director originally from Mirando City, Texas. Currently based in NYC, Rodriguez remains dedicated to opening the theatrical canon by directing and developing new works not initially meant for the stage, including adapting novels, films, poems, and anthologies. Ranging from intimate, bare productions to maximum, multi-disciplinary work that bridges a unity between text and design, Rodriguez utilizes theater's boundless, expressive possibilities to explore elements of human behavior and illuminate the stories and perspectives that have been made invisible. Rodriguez is a graduate of The University of Texas at Austin (BFA, 2019), a former Acting Apprentice at Actors Theatre of Louisville (2019 - 2020), and an alumnus of The Juilliard School's Professional Apprenticeship Program (Drama, 2020 - 2021). He currently works with Atlantic Theater Company's Conservatory Actor Training Programs. For more information, please visit andrewgrodriguez.com.

Minghao Tu

Minghao Tu is an immigrant playwright from Wuhan, China. Currently, he is a 2050 Artistic Fellow at New York Theatre Workshop, a Van Lier Fellow at Rattlestick Theater, and a 2022/23 Jerome Fellow at the Playwrights' Center. He has been a resident of Pipeline Theatre Company's 2020/2021 PlayLab, and a 2021 Travis Bogard Artist-in-Residence at the Eugene O'Neill Foundation. His works have been presented/produced at Tofte Lake Center, Voyage Theater Company, New York Public Library, Yangtze Repertory Theatre of America, Ground Floor Theatre, and UT New Theatre; featured on The Steppenwolf Theatre's The Mix. Finalist: the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center's National Playwrights Conference, and the 2021 Woodward/Newman Award at the Bloomington Playwrights Project; Semifinalist: PlayPenn, Ground Floor at Berkeley Rep, and Shakespeare's New Contemporaries at American Shakespeare Center. He has been a Jame A. Michener fellow at UT Austin (MFA: 2020).

Miranda Haymon

Miranda Haymon is a Princess Grace Award winning writer, director, and curator currently developing several projects in theatre, podcasts, and TV/film and with their production company The Hodgepodge Group. Currently, Miranda is a Resident Director at Roundabout Theatre Company. Miranda is a graduate of Wesleyan University where they double majored in German Studies and Theater and were awarded the Rachel Henderson Theater Prize in Directing.

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