The Playwrights Realm Unveils 2024-25 Cohort

The Playwrights Realm revealed its 2024-25 cohort. Cohort artists include: Writing Fellows Alexa Derman, Malaika Fernandes, Mik Johnson, and Yilong Liu, four early-career playwrights awarded with nine months of resources, culminating with a reading in The Realm’s INK’D Festival; Native American Artist Lab (NAAL) participants Kira Eckenweiler and Chris Hoshnic, partaking in a paid developmental process for aspiring and emerging theater artists of up to one week, ending with a reading in New York City; and Scratchpad Playwrights Kaylin Jones, Xiaoyan Kang, and Nick Malakhow, engaging in the program inviting select early-career playwrights from anywhere in the country to come to New York for a week-long development workshop. See below for additional details about the programs and artists, and descriptions of their works.
 
Each of these opportunities for writers builds toward a reading or presentation, at once providing artists with the critical experience of hearing their work jump off the page, and offering New York audiences a glimpse into the stories that will push theater in surprising new directions. This year marks the return of NAAL for its second iteration, supporting the development of specific works as well as the careers of Native Artists.
 
The Playwrights Realm Associate Artistic Director Alexis Williams says, “With over 1300 applications, this was—by far—our biggest year of open submissions yet. We get to experience so many exciting new voices across the country through this process, and it's truly humbling and awe-inspiring to see the quantity and quality of work being created. Our 24-25 cohort has such varied styles and captivating visions — we are thrilled to welcome these wonderful playwrights into the Realm Family and we can't wait to dive in to work with them!”
 
Submissions to The Realm’s cohort programs are open and free—another way the organization seeks to break down industry barriers to entry for early-career playwrights, the development of their electrifying work, and its road from submission to production. Across the Writing Fellowship, NAAL, and the Scratchpad Series, The Realm received 1320 submissions. 
 
The Realm’s 2024-25 season reflects the daring writing and artistry that can be nurtured when resources are allocated to artists’ needs. The organization is currently presenting its second iteration of the Beyond The Realm festival, running through October 26th, focused on new works that don’t fit the traditional play development model, which was programmed in lieu of a production. To celebrate the incredible work being presented, The Realm is throwing a party after the October 12th, 7pm performance of Aurora Real De Asua’s The Pride Before, which will be open to everyone who attended the show.

The Playwrights Realm Writing Fellowship Program

The Playwrights Realm Writing Fellowship Program awards four early-career playwrights with nine months of resources (including a $5,000 stipend), workshops, and feedback designed to help them reach their professional and artistic goals. Fellows develop a single new play, with monthly group meetings that provide a collaborative space for writers to share and refine their work, and one-on-one meetings with Realm artistic staff to support each writer's process. Fellows collaborate with a director, stage manager, design dramaturg, and actors for two readings. Personalized professional development resources are tailored to the group: mentor opportunities, meet-and-greets, and professional seminars are designed to shed light on the business of theater, and empower the Fellows to be active, informed participants in their own careers. The program culminates with the INK'D Festival, featuring a public presentation for each Fellow.
 
Alexa Derman – The Creature
 
Soon, a biomedically-engineered creature is grown in the body of a graduate student. Soon becomes later. Later becomes lifetimes. A speculative play about care, reproduction, the just-around-the-corner end times, and every wild thing.
 
Alexa Derman is a Brooklyn-based playwright and screenwriter. Plays include The Creature (Playwrights Realm Writing Fellowship; O’Neill NPC Finalist; Princess Grace/New Dramatists Runner-Up; Kernodle Prize), PSYCHOPSYCHOTIC (Relentless Honorable Mention), Girlish (Fresh Ink), Zionista Rising (Winner, Jewish Plays Project National Competition; O’Neill NPC Finalist) and I’ll Be in My Hanukkah Palace (Ars Nova ANT Fest). She is an alum of Clubbed Thumb's Early Career Writers Group, the Playwrights Center Core Apprenticeship, and Orchard Project Audio Lab, and a member of the Lehman-Engels Librettists Workshop. Alexa has been twice nominated for the L. Arnold Weissberger Award and the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize; she's under commission from MTC/Sloan and EST/Sloan. As a screenwriter, she's developing projects in film and TV and was a staff writer for Netflix. BA from Yale in Women's, Gender & Sexuality Studies; MFA from Brown, where she studied under Julia Jarcho. Now that you've met her, you can call her Lex.
Malaika Fernandes – MULAQAT
As her husband’s return from his international work trip becomes indefinitely delayed, Tanya finds herself pregnant and alone in the U.S. Her mother, Damini, rushes from India to take care of her; her mother-in-law, Noor, follows from Pakistan soon after. But Damini only speaks Marathi and Noor only speaks Urdu; the two can only interact when Tanya mediates between them in English, the language they both understand. The three women must learn to communicate with each other as they await the birth of the child.
 
Malaika Fernandes (she/her/hers) is a Brooklyn-based playwright from Mumbai and a few other places, whose work explores her own ever-broadening, ever-fluctuating definition of home. Her plays include MULAQAT (Wesleyan University reading, Workshop Theater Intensive), BANJAARA (The Workshop Theater Intensive), and Eyebrows On (Horizon Theater New South Young Playwrights Festival winner). Malaika graduated from Wesleyan University with a BA in Theater and Economics, where she received the 2023 Theater Outreach & Community Service Award and the Rachel Henderson Award for Excellence in Theater. Malaika was the 2023-24 Producing & Community Engagement Apprentice at Studio Theatre in Washington, D.C., and now works as the Casting Assistant at Manhattan Theatre Club.
Mik Johnson – obit, or no more dead dogs
Peanut, a self-destructive college student who has yet to develop a filter, ignores the recent death of her father by focusing on art school and her dying dog. Having lived with her dad through years of illness, Peanut attempts to detangle the warped anticipation and strained familiarity left in his wake with failed hookups and art assignments. obit is a dark comedy about what children owe their parents and how chronic illness brings chronic mourning for the loved ones of those affected.
 
Mik Johnson (she/him) is a gender/queer Black playwright, actor and graphic artist from San Antonio, TX. He writes for the communities he’s from—for the Black and brown communities back home, the queer community he’s found, and the many others that have raised and welcomed him through the years. She holds a BA from Yale University and is also a 2019 National YoungArts Winner in Theater. His other works include SAPPHIRE, after jezebel (selected for the 2024 Yale Playwright's Festival), and East of Mercy (2024 Marina Keegan Prize Winner). When she’s not writing, Mik can be found cooking vegan meals with meat, soapboxing about children’s education, or dancing (with or without music involved).
Yilong Liu – We Borrowed Brokenness
Five strangers gather at the tail end of Brooklyn, chasing the dream of running the New York City Marathon. Except that they aren't really strangers, and this isn't really their dream—they are a group of organ transplant recipients determined to honor their donor's dying wish, but each of them is also running a race of their own.
 
Yilong Liu is a recent graduate of The Juilliard School's Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwrights Program. His play The Book of Mountains and Seas received the Lambda Literary Award for Drama, and was produced by Alchemation at the 2024 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, where it earned Second Place in the BBC Popcorn Writing Award. His play Good Enemy had its premiere Off-Broadway at Minetta Lane Theatre as part of Audible Theater’s 22/23 season. Yilong is an artist-in-residence at Sala Beckett in Barcelona with PlayCo, where his play We Borrowed Brokenness was translated and performed in Catalan. Yilong grew up in China and received his MFA from University of Hawai‘i. He is a Core Writer at Playwrights’ Center and has developed work with Ojai Playwrights Conference, EST/Youngblood, Kennedy Center, Space on Ryder Farm, among others. Currently, he's under commission from Manhattan Theatre Club's Sloan Initiative. 
 

Native American Artists Lab (NAAL)

The Native American Artists Lab (NAAL), co-facilitated by Navajo playwright and director Rhiana Yazzie, Tuscarora playwright Vickie Ramirez, and The Playwrights Realm artistic director Katherine Kovner, seeks to uplift artists from Domestic Nations and projects rooted in Native practices. In an effort to meet Native American Artists where they are, dismantle biases, and create a welcoming space, NAAL is open to teams with multiple authors and generative artists who don’t identify with the label “playwright.” This program is open to both aspiring and emerging artists in order to support both people who are considering theater as a career and those who have begun their careers already. The program offers individualized attention to recipients and provides further support depending on the desires of participants, including but not limited to design consultations, individualized mentorship, and industry networking. A paid developmental process of up to one week culminates in a public reading in New York City. 
 
For the readings, NAAL artists are connected with a professional team of collaborators, including actors, directors, a stage manager and Realm artistic staff. The Realm works with a casting director to help the team find a cast and can facilitate introductions to directors or other types of collaborators. The program offers dramaturgical development (including consultation with a culturally specific dramaturg, if desired) and discussion with the Realm’s artistic staff prior to and following the reading. 
Kira Eckenweiler – The Bird Blind
The Bird Blind explores the intertwined lives of Spruce, Ellen, and Jason, Inupiaq villagers from Northwest Alaska, each grappling with their own struggles. Spruce, a bootlegger and alcoholic, is a man weighed down by his past and on the edge of despair. His life takes an unexpected turn when he meets 12-year-old Tim at his bird blind—a place of solitude that becomes the backdrop for a surprising connection. Tim, burdened by the abuse he faces at home from his parents, Ellen and Larry, finds an unlikely ally in Spruce. As their friendship deepens, both Spruce and Tim begin to find a glimmer of hope and the possibility of healing.
 
Meanwhile, Ellen is caught in a toxic and abusive relationship with Larry. As she watches her son struggle, she begins to find the strength she never knew she had. Ellen's journey to break free from Larry’s control is fraught with challenges, but she is determined to fight for a better future for herself and Jason.
 
The Bird Blind is a powerful story of resilience and redemption, showing how the bonds between unlikely friends and the courage to face one's demons can lead to profound change and the possibility of a new beginning.
 
Kira Apaachuaq Eckenweiler, an Inupiaq from Unalakleet, Alaska, grew up immersed in the natural beauty and traditions of her community. Kira earned a Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Alaska Anchorage, followed by a Master of Fine Arts in Musical Theater from the Boston Conservatory at Berklee in 2020. Kira has performed with the Anchorage Opera, the Intermountain Opera Company, and the Boston Conservatory, and has also shared her talents at the Bureau of Indian Affairs during Native American Heritage Month. She portrayed Nayak in Aklaq and Nayak, an Inupiaq adaptation of Hansel and Gretel, in performances in Unalakleet and Nome. As a playwright, Kira explores themes important to Inupiaq life. Her short play One-Foot High Kick reflects the traditional games of the Inuit people, while The Bird Blind examines the lives of those in a village in northwest Alaska.
 
In October 2020, Kira was elected Mayor of Unalakleet, a volunteer role in which she focused on addressing the village's aging water system. In February 2021, Kira joined the Norton Sound Health Corporation’s INUA program, which promotes culturally competent suicide prevention and wellness. By May 2022, she became the Administrative Director of Behavioral Health Services, overseeing outpatient services, a prevention team, and the day shelter. Having lost friends to suicide, Kira is committed to advocating for the well-being and equity of the people in the Bering Strait Region, including her home community of Unalakleet.

Chris Hoshnic – In the Badlands

A recent Navajo graduate assists his elderly Navajo-only speaking grandmother in translating a deal to host a summer Bible Revival on her home site lease. In this exploration of language, In The Badlands showcases a third-world we call Translation where tradition, culture and the western world collide.
 
Chris Hoshnic is a Navajo Poet and Filmmaker. A recipient of the 2023 Indigenous Prize Poet for Hayden’s Ferry Review and a James Welch Finalist, Hoshnic is also an advocate for Diné Bizaad, or the Navajo Language, and has translated work for the Thousand Languages Project, a Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing initiative. His fellowships include the Native American Media Alliance’s Writers Seminar, UC-Berkeley Arts Research Center Poetry & the Senses and Diné Artisan and Authors Capacity Building Institute. Hoshnic’s work has received support from Indigenous Nations Poets, Native Narratives, Tin House and more.

Scratchpad Playwrights

The Scratchpad Series opens The Realm’s doors to early-career playwrights and deepens the company’s ability to do what it does best: listening to what playwrights need, and giving it to them. Scratchpad is a chance for The Realm to engage with an entirely new group of playwrights each year, erasing limitations of geography or access by identifying and inviting playwrights from across the country to participate.
 
The series supports playwrights with a paid developmental process of up to one week culminating in a reading (internal or public, at the writer’s discretion) of the play. It connects them with professional collaborators, such as a director, casting director, cast, stage manager and The Realm’s artistic staff—who offer dramaturgical development and discussion prior to and following each reading, as well as professional development guidance and seminars and industry introductions.
Kaylin Jones – My Emotional Support White Men: OR (The Trials and Tribulations of Self-Preservation)
Kale is close to losing her mind, and the only thing keeping the weight of her depression from crushing her completely is the company she keeps with famous white men in her imagination. In the midst of her trying to secure her survival, the dangers of creating fictionalized versions of real people for her own comfort confronts her once her fixation turns to her downstairs neighbor.
 
Kaylin Jones is a Texas-raised award-winning playwright and dramaturg whose interest lies in otherness within Blackness depicted through nonlinear storytelling. Selected works: A Beautiful Death on 34th and Fifth (Distinguished honor, Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival Lorraine Hansberry Award 2019; Production, The Ensemble Theatre New Voices Festival 2022), The Gender Reveal (Winner, Kerr Award for Playwriting 2019; Finalist, John Cauble Short Play Award 2019), and My Emotional Support White Men: OR The Trials and Tribulations of Self-Preservation (Reading, Mizzou New Play Series 2023). She holds her BA in English with a minor in Theatre from the University of Missouri (2019).
Xiaoyan Kang – The Words of Ants
The visit of an uninvited woman changes Y's life forever. As the last natural inheritor, Y embarks upon a journey to preserve an almost extinct language, but at what cost?
 
Xiaoyan Kang, born and raised in China, started to write plays in English while studying under Philip Gotanda at Berkeley. As a playwright, she is intrigued by the performativity in everyday life and how we are constantly subject to and adjusting to others' gaze and interpretation. Her plays include Bound (O’Neil Semifinalist, BBC International Radio Playwriting Competition Regional Winner, KCACTF V Paul Stephen Lim Playwriting Award), The Obituary (Sewanee Writers' Conference Horton Foote Scholarship), and The Words of Ants (Jane Chambers Award runner-up). Some of her short plays were developed at 24 Hour Plays: Nationals and KCACTF V. Xiaoyan is currently an MFA candidate at the Iowa Playwrights Workshop.
 

Nick Malakhow – Straw Poll

The diverse board of Springfield’s yearly Pride celebration is just putting the final touches on planning three days before Pride when a video drops on social media of their Grand Marshal—the city’s first gay politician—putting down Black Lives Matter protesters. The video ignites a heated conversation in the boardroom about who Pride is for, intersectional queer activism, and whether there can or should be any consensus or unity in the fight for queer liberation.
 
Nick Malakhow (he/him) is a Colorado-based writer and theater educator. Full-length work includes Affinity Lunch Minutes (2021 O'Neill National Playwrights Conference, 2022 Princess Grace Finalist), A Picture of Two Boys (World Premiere at New Conservatory Theater Center, 2022 BAPF finalist), Seeing Eye (Victory Gardens Ignition Festival, Ink Spot Festival, 2019 O'Neill NPC finalist), Grit (2021 Princess Grace Award Finalist, 2024 Blue Ink Award Finalist), and Straw Poll (2024 O’Neill NPC finalist). He’s had work developed or produced by Local Theatre Company, Boulder Ensemble Theater Company, Fresh Ink, and more. Nick was a Company One Playlab Unit member in 2019 and has held commissions with Seattle Rep, Local Theater Company, and Island City Stage.

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