Page 73 Announces Playwriting Fellowship Semifinalists

Page 73 has announced 13 semifinalists for the 2023 Page 73 Playwriting Fellowship. Semifinalists in the running for Page 73's most prestigious award include Lucas Baisch, Benjamin Benne, Majkin Holmquist, Mary Lyon Kamitaki, Shayan Lotfi, Gloria Majule, Genne Murphy, jeremy o'brian, Charlie Oh, Audley Puglisi, Scott R. Sheppard, Genevieve Simon, and Noelle Viñas. The selected playwright will be Page 73's 20th Fellow, honored during the organization's 25th anniversary year.

In December 2022, Page 73 will announce finalists, all of whom will receive a $1,000 honorarium. In January 2023, the organization will announce its 2023 Fellow, alongside members of the 2023 Interstate 73 writers group. The announcement arrives in the lead-up to Page 73 and Working Theater's world premiere production of 2021 Page 73 Playwriting Fellow Bleu Beckford-Burrell's La Race (November 21-December 23)-exemplifying the organization's long-term commitment to writers and multifaceted approach to supporting their work. (La Race follows Page 73's Spring 2022 production of 2017 Playwriting Fellow John J. Caswell, Jr.'s Man Cave, which was Page 73's first production since the 2020 shutdown).

The selected 2023 Page 73 Playwriting Fellow will receive artistic and financial resources to develop one or more new plays of their choosing. They will be honored with an unrestricted award of $10,000 and a development budget, managed by Page 73 and the Fellow over the course of the Fellowship year, up to $10,000. This additional budget can be personalized to support the Fellow's proposed project and can include such expenses as research, workshop and reading presentations, and fees for collaborating artists. The Fellow will work with Page 73 on at least one public presentation of their new play, bringing in artistic collaborators such as directors, designers, and actors.

The fellowship annually supporting a playwright who has yet to have a professional premiere in New York City in 2022 went to Marvin González De León. Previous Fellows include Bleu Beckford-Burrell (2021), Emma Goidel (2020), Sanaz Toossi (2019), C.A. Johnson (2018), John J. Caswell, Jr. (2017), Hansol Jung (2016), Nick Gandiello (2015), Clare Barron (2014), Caroline V. McGraw (2013), Max Posner (2012), Janine Nabers (2011), Eliza Clark (2010), Heidi Schreck (2009), Tommy Smith (2008), Krista Knight (2007), Jason Grote (2006), Quiara Alegría Hudes (2005), and Kirsten Greenidge (2004).

About the Semifinalists

Lucas Baisch

is from San Francisco. Select plays include REFRIGERATOR (First Floor Theatre), On the Y-Axis (The Bushwick Starr Reading Series), Dry Swallow (Brown University), import speech_memory (Cutting Ball's Variety Pack Festival), and 404 Not Found (2022 O'Neill NPC Finalist). Lucas is a recipient of a Steinberg Playwright Award, the Princess Grace Award, The Kennedy Center's KCACTF Latinx Playwriting Award, and a Jerome Fellowship. His plays have been published through Methuen/ Bloomsbury and Yale's Theater Magazine. His artwork has been presented at Elsewhere Museum, the Electronic Literature Organization, gallery no one, and the RISD Museum.

Benjamin Benne

Berne's plays include Alma (National Latinx Playwriting Award & Blue Ink Playwriting Award; WP: Center Theatre Group's Kirk Douglas Theatre in cooperation with American Blues Theater; ArtsWest; forthcoming: Curious Theatre & Central Square) and In His Hands (KCACTF Latinx Playwriting Award & Clauder Competition Gold Prize; WP: Mosaic Theatre Company). He's a Primary Stages' DSNAWG member & Playwrights' Center Affiliated Writer. Commissions: South Coast Rep & Seattle Rep. MFA: David Geffen/Yale School of Drama.

Majkin Holmquist

is a playwright originally from the Smoky Valley region in central Kansas where she was co-founder of The Next Stage Theatre Company. Her plays include Every Anne Frank, Quickmatch, The Dog Pack Play, Stargazers, and Skinflint. Her play Tent Revival will be produced by the Bard at the Gate series through McCarter Theatre Center. In addition, her work has been developed at New York Stage and Film, Woodshed Collective, Bay Street Theatre, Page 73, Ucross, and Roundabout Theatre Company. She has been a finalist for the Page 73 Playwriting Fellowship, Colt Coeur, the Pacific Playwright's Festival, and PlayPenn. She is currently a member of Midnight Oil Collective and a Lecturer in Playwriting at the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale. She holds an MFA in Playwriting from the Yale School of Drama.

Mary Lyon Kamitaki

is a New York-based playwright from the Big Island of Hawaii. Her plays have been produced by Playwrights' Arena in Los Angeles and developed at the Alliance Theatre, A Noise Within, Open Fist Theatre Company, Pasadena Playhouse, Skylight Theatre, Ensemble Studio Theatre/LA, UCLA, and USC. Mary's work explores questions of identity and self-determination facing young people today, particularly mixed, queer girls who reinvent themselves to survive in transforming worlds.

Shayan Lotfi

has written some plays and thankfully still wants to write. He's been fortunate enough that some wonderful institutions have supported and developed his work, including MacDowell, The Working Farm at SPACE on Ryder Farm, Atlantic Theater, Roundabout Theatre, South Coast Repertory, The Lark, Marble House, Millay, and Boston Court. Maybe one day his biography will end with the fact that he, his partner, their six children, and pug split their time between Fort Greene, the Sicilian coast, and Kyoto, but currently that isn't true.

Gloria Majule

is a playwright from Dodoma, Tanzania presently residing in Seattle, WA. She seeks to tell stories that bring multiple black voices together from across the world and are accessible to black audiences no matter where they are. She writes primarily for and about the black diaspora. Gloria is currently commissioned by Atlantic Theater Company and is an instructor at Cornish College of the Arts. BA Cornell University, MFA Yale School of Drama.

Genne Murphy

is a playwright from Philadelphia. Her work has been developed with Page 73, Azuka Theatre, Yale Cabaret/Yale School of Drama, The American Playwriting Foundation, Ucross Foundation, Great Plains Theater Conference, PlayPenn, Philly Fringe, SF PlayGround and Theater Masters. Her selected plays include The Girl Is Chained (2019 Kilroys List; 2018 Relentless Award Finalist), Giantess (2016 Leah Ryan Award), The Skinny Killer Inside (Page 73), Fuck Her (Yale Cabaret), Hope Street and Other Lonely Places (Azuka Theatre; O'Neill NPC Finalist). MFA: Yale School of Drama. BFA: NYU Tisch School.

jeremy o'brian

is an award-winning playwright, recording artist, songwriter, and currently a company member at Tectonic Theater Project. His work insists on the comedic tenderness, vulnerability, and cultural relevance of Black and Black LGBTQ visibility on stage, in music, on television, and in film.

Charlie Oh

Oh's plays have been developed at Manhattan Theatre Club, South Coast Rep, The Lark, Second Stage, The Goodman, and others. His play LONG won the Kennedy Center's Paula Vogel Award and was an honorable mention for the Relentless Award. His play Coleman 72 won the Paul Stephen Lim Playwriting Award and will premiere at South Coast Rep Spring 2023. Commissioned by MTC / Sloan and developing projects with Amazon and Universal. Northwestern University and The Juilliard School.

Audley Puglisi

is a playwright and poet. Audley has received fellowships from VONA/Voices, Lambda Literary, The Playwrights Realm, Blue Mountain Center and has worked with St. Paul's Penumbra Theatre. Writings have been published in ColorBloq and Garage Magazine. Plays include the salt women, Two Sisters (Sip Fest @ The Wild Project); blues for miss lucille (Lorraine Hansberry Award, finalist), Home on High; and The Misplaced Saints. Audley is a recent M.F.A. Graduate from the Yale School of Drama.

Scott R. Sheppard

is an Obie award-winning theater artist and Co-Artistic Director of theater company Lightning Rod Special. Lead Writer/Performer in The Appointment (Best of 2019 Time Out NY, NY Mag, NYTimes Critics' Pick). Co-creator/performer of Underground Railroad Game (Edinburgh Fringe First Award, NYTimes top 25 Best Play in 25 Years). Pig Iron School graduate. Writer of Blood Meal for Theater in Quarantine (NYTimes Critics' Pick). 2021-22 Interstate 73 writers group member.

Genevieve Simon

(they/them) centers nonbinary people in magical worlds at the intersection of family, queer identity, and water. Genevieve's work has been supported by Actors Theatre of Louisville, New Georges, The Puffin Foundation, The Parsnip Ship, The Tank, Arts on Site, NYSCA, Holton-Arms School, and Cincinnati Fringe Festival. Finalist, EMOS Ecodrama Playwrights Festival (2022). Producer's Pick of the Fringe (Cincinnati Fringe 2017). Finalist: EST/Youngblood, Pipeline Playlab. New Georges Affiliated Artist.

Noelle Viñas

is a playwright, TV writer, and educator from Springfield, Virginia and Montevideo, Uruguay who writes frequently about Latinidad, class, Christianity, politics, and sexuality by creating slightly fantastical or science fiction worlds. She was a recipient of the 2020 John Gassner Award and the 2021 Jeffry Melnick New Playwright Award at Primary Stages. During the pandemic, her plays were produced by Shotgun Players, Colt Coeur, Imagination Stage, and Westtown School. Her work has been developed or in residence as a member of the 2022 Working Farm at SPACE on Ryder Farm, New York Stage and Film, Tofte Lake Center, Civilians R&D Group and the Bay Area Playwrights Festival. Viñas resides between Brooklyn and LA, where she was mostly recently a staff writer on "Mrs. Davis". BA: Emerson College, MFA: Brooklyn College.

About Page 73

Since its founding in 1997, Page 73 has unwaveringly focused on nurturing early-career playwrights and expanding the theatrical canon. The organization has consistently sought to open new pathways to recognition for fresh, urgent, and daring voices, in part by mounting works solely by writers who have not yet had a New York City premiere Off-Broadway. In 2020, the organization was honored with an institutional Obie Award "for providing extraordinary support for early career playwrights."

Page 73 has become renowned for introducing playwrights with a distinct approach to theatricality and language into the larger theatrical ecosystem. Page 73 offers writers career guidance, financial assistance, and development opportunities through programs including the Page 73 Playwriting Fellowship, the Interstate 73 Writers Group, and the Page 73 Summer Residency. The organization helps playwrights move their work toward premiere, in Page 73's own presentations or co-presentations with partner institutions, or by connecting writers to available opportunities at colleague theaters. Playwrights leave Page 73's programs having meticulously honed their crafts, formed kinetic new collaborative relationships, and been equipped to flourish as empowered, self-assured artists.

Page 73 developed and, with Playwrights Horizons, produced the world premiere of Michael R. Jackson's A Strange Loop, which won dozens of prestigious awards including the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and, upon being produced on Broadway, received Tony Awards for Best Musical and Best Book of a Musical for Michael R. Jackson. Among Page 73's many other celebrated world and New York premieres are Zora Howard's STEW (named a Finalist for the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for Drama), Mia Chung's Catch as Catch Can, Leah Nanako Winkler's Kentucky, Max Posner's Judy, Clare Barron's You Got Older, George Brant's Grounded, and Susan Soon He Stanton's Today Is My Birthday. Diversifying the American theater and making space for voices theater audiences have not yet heard is at the core of Page 73's ethos. Page 73 has co-produced with eminent new play theaters including Soho Rep., Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, and Ensemble Studio Theatre. The organization produced the professional New York City debuts of Samuel D. Hunter (2015 MacArthur Fellow), Quiara Alegría Hudes (2012 Pulitzer Prize winner), Dan LeFranc (2010 New York Times Outstanding Playwright Award recipient), Heidi Schreck (2019 Pulitzer Prize finalist, Tony Award nominee), and Clare Barron (2019 Pulitzer Prize finalist). Close to two-thirds of the over 140 playwrights supported by the organization have subsequently received New York or regional theater productions, and the number grows each season.

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