Ensemble Studio Theatre Sets 2016-17 Sloan Project and Youngblood Artists, Programming

Ensemble Studio Theatre (EST), along with EST's Youngblood and EST's Sloan Project, have announced new EST/Sloan commissions and EST/Youngblood members & programming for the 2016-2017 season.

EST is proud to continue their partnership with the Sloan Foundation through the The Ensemble Studio Theatre/Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Science & Technology Project which is an initiative designed to stimulate artists to create credible and compelling work exploring the worlds of science and technology and to challenge the existing stereotypes of scientists and engineers in the popular imagination.

The Sloan Commission 2016/17 recipients and plays are Marc Acito (The Man in the Moon), Chad Beckim (Ghosts), Eleanor Burgess (Start Down), Laura Maria Censabella (Untitled), Cory Finley (The Ice), Kristin Idaszak (The Surest Poison), Christina Quintana (Citizen Scientist), Gabrielle Reisman (Pattern Seeking Animals), Abby Rosebrock (La Vida Es Corta), Charley Evon Simpson (Under the Sheet), C. Denby Swanson (Nutshell), Andrea Throne (Untitled al-Zarqali Project), Benjamin Weiner (Untitled Alfred Nobel Project), and Leah Nanako Winkler (Ruby).

The partnership between EST and The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation is the creative engine behind hundreds of new American plays that challenge and broaden the public's understanding of science and technology and their impact in our lives. Plays from the EST/Sloan Project are produced again and again across the country. This begins at EST's home base in Hell's Kitchen, New York, a crucial platform for new and unheard voices in the American theatre for over forty years. Over the past fifteen years, this reputation has been enhanced by the critically acclaimed productions presented on the theatre's Mainstage every season under the banner of the EST/Sloan Project.

Beyond New York, the program now has a nationwide reach. It supports development and production of new plays in theatres across the country through a combination of seed grants and production incentives. These initiatives provide an extended life for EST/Sloan plays in subsequent regional productions, and the seed grants provide a broader base of artistic opportunity for communities outside of New York, allowing the program to cast a wider net for new work.

EST/Sloan's upcoming Mainstage Production for Spring 2017 will be announced at a later date.

In addition to their work with the Sloan Foundation, EST celebrates the 2016/17 season's new members of Youngblood, the OBIE-winning collective of emerging professional playwrights under the age of 30. Founded in 1993, Youngblood serves as a creative home for the next generation of theater artists. Youngblood provides artistic guidance, peer support, regular feedback and a fertile production environment, which allows our member playwrights to hone their skills and explore their craft. We also provide exposure to the public and the press, professional outreach to the industry, and opportunities for production and publication.

As artists graduate, the Youngblood program welcomes new playwrights into their midst. This year's new members are Will Arbery, Bleu Beckford-Burrell, Stephen Brown, Gina Femia, Dan Giles, Mara Nelson-Greenberg, Stacy Osei-Kuffour, and Edessa Tailo.

Plays by current and former Youngblood playwrights have been performed on Broadway and in London's West End (Robert Askins' TONY-nominated Hand to God, which premiered at EST/Youngblood), at The Royal Court Theatre, Lincoln Center, Playwrights Horizons, Second Stage, Actors Theatre of Louisville, the Mark Taper Forum, the Vineyard Theater, the Atlantic Theater Company, Rattlestick Playwrights Theater and many others, including award winners such as Annie Baker's John, The Flick and The Aliens and Amy Herzog's 4000 Miles, and have been adapted by film and television companies, including alumni Lucy Alibar's Juicy and Delicious which was adapted into the Cannes Caméra d'Or-winning film Beasts of The Southern Wild.

In 2017, Youngblood will present MOPE, written by Paul Cameron Hardy and directed by RJ Tolan, which begins perfomances on Wednesday, January 11 for a run through Sunday, February 5. The cast will feature J. Stephen Brantley, RJ Brown Jr., Hollye Hudson, Eric Miller, Jennifer Tsay, and Megan Tusing.

"MOPE": /m?p/ (noun): The lowest-level male performer in the adult film industry. An anonymous stunt-penis. The guy in that porno you watched who was wearing sunglasses and socks. A dreamer. Example: "Trevor is a mope."

In addition, Youngblood's UNFILTERED workshop series will feature two plays: RETREAT by Amanda Keating and directed by Molly Clifford will run from Wednesday, December 14 through Saturday, December 19, featuring Molly Carden, Sasha Diamond, Eric Folks, Lizzie Fox, and Kieran Mulcare.

A DEAL, by Zhu Yi and directed by John Giampietro, will run from Wednesday, March 1 through Saturday, March 4 and feature Michi Barall, Helen Coxe, Sasha Diamond, Alex Grubbs, and Wei-Yi Lin.

All shows will take place at Ensemble Studio Theatre (545 W. 52nd St.) in the company's 6th floor studio space, with tickets ranging from $20-25.

Youngblood will continue to offer their monthly brunch series, where artists have the opportunity to perform new work over food, mimosas, and bloody marys. These brunches take place on the first Sunday of every month, and tickets range from $18-20.

Ensemble Studio Theatre - commonly known as EST- was founded in 1968 by Curt Dempster on the belief that extraordinary support yields extraordinary work. We are a dynamic and expanding family of member artists committed to the discovery and nurturing of new voices and the continued support and growth of artists throughout their creative lives. Through our unique collaborative process we develop and produce original, provocative, and authentic new plays that engage and challenge our audience and audiences across the country.

Now with nearly 600 ensemble artists, EST has been under the artistic direction of William Carden since 2007. The company received two 2013 Drama Desk Award nominations for Finks by Joe Gilford and one 2014 Drama Desk nomination for Bobby Moreno in Year Of The Rooster by Eric Dufault, who won the 2014 NY Outer Critics Circle John Gassner Award for a new playwright debut. Hand To God, originated at EST, was nominated for five Tony Awards for its Broadway run. EST received a special Drama Desk Award for its "unwavering commitment to producing new works" in May of 2015.

Youngblood is Ensemble Studio Theatre's OBIE-winning collective of emerging professional playwrights under the age of 30. Founded in 1993, Youngblood serves as a creative home for the next generation of theater artists. Youngblood provides artistic guidance, peer support, regular feedback and a fertile production environment, which allows our member playwrights to hone their skills and explore their craft. We also provide exposure to the public and the press, professional outreach to the industry, and opportunities for production and publication.

Plays by current and former Youngblood playwrights have been performed on Broadway and in London's West End (Robert Askins' TONY-nominated Hand to God, which premiered at EST/Youngblood), at The Royal Court Theatre, Lincoln Center, Playwrights Horizons, Second Stage, Actors Theatre of Louisville, the Mark Taper Forum, the Vineyard Theater, the Atlantic Theater Company, Rattlestick Playwrights Theater and many others, including award winners such as Annie Baker's John, The Flick and The Aliens and Amy Herzog's 4000 Miles, and have been adapted by film and television companies, including alumna Lucy Alibar's Juicy and Delicious which was adapted into the Cannes Caméra d'Or-winning film Beasts of The Southern Wild.

The New York based Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, founded in 1934, makes grants in science, technology, and economic performance. Sloan's program in Public Understanding of Science and Technology, directed by Doron Weber, supports books, radio, film, television, theater and new media to reach a wide, non-specialized audience.

Over nearly two decades, The Foundation's pioneering theater program, begun with a 1997 grant to Ensemble Studio Theatre for Arthur Giron's play about the Wright Brothers, Flight, has helped usher in the science play as a regular part of the theater canon. Commissioning close to 20 new plays each year through its two flagship partners, EST and Manhattan Theatre Club-and working with the National Theater in London, The Magic Theater in San Francisco, the Marc Taper Forum in Los Angeles and Playwrights Horizons in New York, among others-the Foundation has made "a Sloan" a highly recognizable and coveted commission for any playwright embarking on a new play with a science and technology theme or character. Beginning with such renowned science plays as Proof, Copenhagen and Alan Alda's QED, more recent grants have supported Deborah Laufer's Informed Consent, a co-production with Primary Stages, Nick Payne's Constellations, a Broadway hit staring Jake Gyllenhaal and Ruth Wilson, Nell Benjamin's The Explorer's Club, Sharr White's The Other Place, Lucas Hnath's Isaac's Eye, and Anna Ziegler's Photograph 51, recently in London's West End starring Nicole Kidman.

Sloan also has a nationwide film program that includes support of six film schools, screenplay development programs with The Sundance Institute, Tribeca Film Institute, the San Francisco Film Society, Film Independent and the Black List, and has helped develop and distribute 15 feature films in the past four years including Morten Tyldum's The Imitation Game, Michael Almereyda's Experimenter, Andrew Bujalski's Computer Chess, Jake Schreier's Robot &Frank, and Rob Meyer's A Birder's Guide to Everything.

The Ensemble Studio Theatre/Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Science & Technology Project is an initiative designed to stimulate artists to create credible and compelling work exploring the worlds of science and technology and to challenge the existing stereotypes of scientists and engineers in the popular imagination.

The partnership between the Ensemble Studio Theatre and The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation is the creative engine behind over 200 commissioned new American plays that challenge and broaden the public's understanding of science and technology and their impact in our lives. Plays from the EST/Sloan Project are produced again and again across the country. This begins at EST's home base in Hell's Kitchen, New York, for over 40 years a crucial platform for new and unheard voices in the American theatre.

Beyond New York, the program now has a nationwide reach. It supports development and production of new plays in over 60 theatres across the country through a combination of seed grants and production incentives. These initiatives provide an extended life for EST/Sloan plays in subsequent regional productions, and the seed grants provide a broader base of artistic opportunity for communities outside of New York, allowing the program to cast a wider net for new work. Over the last 18 years, the EST/Sloan Project's reputation has been enhanced by the critically acclaimed productions presented on the theatre's Mainstage every season under the banner of the EST/Sloan Project, including Anna Ziegler's Photograph 51, which later went on to complete a successful run on London's West End starring Nicole Kidman, as well as productions like Isaac's Eye by Lucas Hnath, End Days and Informed Consent by Deb Laufer, Lenin's Embalmers by Vern Thiessen, and Relativity by Cassandra Medley.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS:

Marc Acito (The Man on the Moon) wrote the book of the Broadway musical Allegiance, which New York Newsday recognized for its "well-structured book" and "fully developed characters." Acito's comedy Birds of a Feather won Washington DC's Helen Hayes Award for Best New Play. He also won the Ken Kesey award for his novel How I Paid for College, which he then adapted as a one-man musical. Other projects include Chasing Rainbows, a musical based on the adolescence of Judy Garland, at Goodspeed Musicals; a musical in Mandarin for Broadway Asia in Beijing; and The Secrets of the Universe (and Other Songs), his new play about the relationship between Albert Einstein and Marian Anderson, part one of a trilogy on science and ethics. A former commentator on NPR's All Things Considered, Acito now writes regularly for Playbill and teaches Musical Theater History and Story Structure at NYU. He is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild, MENSA and Weight Watchers.

Chad Beckim (Ghosts) is a New York City based playwright whose credits include Lights Rise on Grace (National New Play Network: Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, Azuka Theatre and Stageworks Theatre); a matter of choice, `nami; ...a matter of choice, `nami, The Main(e) Play, That Men Do, Mercy, After, The Arrival and And Miles to Go. Produced shorts include Ad Infinitum, The Coach, The Fluffer, Marvel Super Hero Squad, Tha Bess Shit, Alexander Pays a Visit, Blac(c)ident, and Last First Kiss. His work has been published by Samuel French, Applause Books, Playscripts, Smith & Krauss, and in the Plays and Playwrights 2007 collection by NYTE. Chad is a founding co-Artistic Director of Partial Comfort Productions, and is currently finishing a commission for The Old Vic Theatre in London. He was recently named a finalist for both the 2015-16 Jerome Fellowship and for the prestigious Kevin Spacey Foundation, and received a New Victory Labworks Grant to develop a play for young adults on trans youths. Chad holds an MFA in Playwrighting from Mac Wellman's Brooklyn College Program.

ELEANOR BURGESS (Start Down) writes funny plays about serious subjects. Her work has been produced or developed at the ALLIANCE THEATRE, Huntington Theatre Company, Merrimack Repertory Theatre, Centenary Stage Company, the Samuel French Festival, the National New Play Network, the Kennedy Center, Ryder Farm and Luna Stage. She's been the recipient of an EST/Sloan commission, the Alliance/Kendeda National Graduate Playwriting Award, the Susan Glaspell Award for Women Playwrights, and a Playwriting Fellowship at the Huntington Theatre in Boston, and a member of the writers' group at the Arcola Theatre in London, the Everyday Inferno Theatre Development Lab, and the Patriot Program at Merrimack Rep. Originally from Brookline, Massachusetts, she has studied history at Yale College and Dramatic Writing at NYU/Tisch.

Laura MaRIA CENSABELLA (Untitled)'s EST/Alfred P. Sloan commissioned play Paradise will be produced by Underground Railway/Central Square Theater in 2017. She recently won the $10,000 ADAA William Saroyan Human Rights/Social Justice Drama Award for her play Carla Cooks The War. Her plays and musicals have also been developed or produced at the O'Neill Playwrights Conference, Philadelphia Festival Theatre for New Plays, the Women's Project and Productions, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Portland Stage, The New Harmony Project, The Working Theatre, Urban Stages, the Athena Project, m2productions, Interact Theatre (LA), the Belmont Italian American Playhouse, Pacific Resident Theatre, Wide-Eyed Productions, and the Festival of Faith and Writing, among others. She has won three grants from the New York Foundation for the Arts for her plays and screenplays. She has also won two daytime television Emmy Awards. Her short film Last Call is available on Netflix and her plays have been published in The Best Short Plays of 2012-2013 (Applause Books), ConnotationPress.com, IndependentPlaywrights.com, Poems and Plays and The St. Petersburg Review. She is a member of the Dramatists Guild, the Writers Guild of America, East, and the League of Professional Theatre Women, and she directs the Ensemble Studio Theatre Playwrights Unit. She graduated from Yale University and is part-time Assistant Professor in Playwriting at the New School for Drama where she won the Distinguished University-Wide Teaching Award.

CORY FINLEY (The Ice) is a Brooklyn-based playwright and director. His play The Feastwas produced at the Flea Theater in March 2015 and was the inaugural recipient of the Gurney Playwrights Fund. He is a Sloan grantee, a member of Youngblood at Ensemble Studio Theatre and an alumnus of Uncharted at Ars Nova and the Clubbed Thumb Early Career Writer's Group. In spring 2016 he directed the forthcoming Thoroughbred, a feature film adapted from his play of the same name.

KRISTIN IDASZAK (The Surest Poison) is a two-time Playwrights' Center Jerome Fellow. Her play Second Skin received the Kennedy Center's Paula Vogel Playwriting Award and the Jean Kennedy Smith Playwriting Award. Her work has also been developed through residencies at the city of Chicago's Department of Cultural Affairs, Stage Left Theatre, and the Qualcomm Institute at Calit2 in San Diego. Kristin has co-created collaborative original work that has been seen at the WoW Festival at La Jolla Playhouse and the Blurred Borders Festival, an international showcase of contemporary dance theatre. She has been nominated for a Joseph Jefferson Award for Best New Work and received an honorable mention on the Kilroys' List. She was the 2015 Kennedy Center Fellow at the Sundance Theatre Lab. She has received two Playwrights' Center Jerome Fellowships. Previously, Kristin served as Associate Artistic Director/Literary Manager of Caffeine Theatre and Associate Artistic Director of Collaboraction. MFA: University of California, San Diego.

CHRISTINA QUINTANA (Citizen Scientist) is a NYC-based writer with Cuban and Louisiana roots. Her plays include: EVENSONG (LTC Presente Roll Call of New Latina/o Plays), SCISSORING (Finalist Kitchen Dog New Works Festival, Finalist Alliance/Kendeda National Graduate Playwriting Competition), ENTER YOUR SLEEP (Elm Theatre New Orleans, FringeNYC), and BLANK CANVAS ("Best Short" Downtown Urban Theatre Festival). The recipient of commissions from Actors' Express in Atlanta, Georgia, and Peppercorn Theatre in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, she is a proud member of Ensemble Studio Theatre's cohort of emerging playwrights, Youngblood, and a graduate of the MFA Playwriting program at Columbia University. For more, visit cquintana.com.

GABRIELLE REISMAN (Pattern Seeking Animals) is a playwright and director based in New York and New Orleans. She is a founding member of Underbelly, a theatre collaborative that stages immersive journey-plays in forgotten spaces, and is the director of new play incubator Brooklyn Yard. Gabrielle is a Sundance Theatre Lab and MacDowell Colony Alum. She is a Core Writer with the Playwrights Center, and was an NNPN Playwright in Residence at Southern Rep in New Orleans. Gabrielle's plays have been produced in train stations, storefronts and warehouses across the country and have been translated into German. She's developed work with Page 73, Clubbed Thumb/Playwrights Horizons, Great Plains Theatre Conference, The Orchard Project, The Lark, and New Victory LabWorks among others. Gabrielle is an affiliated artist with New Georges, a playwright in residence with The NOLA Project, and an alum of Page 73's Interstate 73 writers group. Her work is published through the Killroy's List/TCG, Hot Lead Press, and the GPTC Reader. MFA: UT Austin.

Abby Rosebrock (La Vida Es Corta) is a writer and actress from South Carolina. Her plays include Different Animals, Singles in Agriculture, Dido of Idaho and Rain Men of Motown. Her one-act No One Is Home and excerpts from Dido of Idaho and Singles in Agriculture will be published later this year in best-of anthologies by Smith & Kraus. Abby is a current member of EST Youngblood. www.abbyrosebrock.com.

CHARLY EVON SIMPSON (Under the Sheet) is a playwright and performer in New York City. Her plays include Hottentotted, or what she will, Fish Out of Water, who we let in, While We Wait and more. Her work has been developed, seen, and/or heard at Ensemble Studio Theatre, Ars Nova, The Flea, The Tank, the Samuel French Off-Off-Broadway Festival, SPACE on Ryder Farm, and more. Charly is an alum of Youngblood at Ensemble Studio Theatre and a former Playwright-in-Residence with Philadelphia Dramatists Center. Charly received her B.A. from Brown, a master's in Women's Studies from Oxford, and is currently pursuing her MFA in Playwriting at Hunter College.

C. DENBY SWANSON (Nutshell) graduated from Houston's High School for the Performing & Visual Arts, Smith College, the National Theatre Institute, and the University of Texas Michener Center for Writers, where she was a fellow in playwriting and screenwriting. She has been a Jerome Fellow, a William Inge Playwright in Residence, and a McKnight Advancement Grant recipient. Her work has been commissioned by the Guthrie Theater, 15 Head a Theatre Lab, Macalester College, and The Drilling Company, and developed at the Southern Playwrights Festival, the Women Playwrights Project, the Lark Theater's Playwrights Week, PlayLabs, the WPA Festival at Salvage Vanguard, JAW: A Playwrights Festival at Portland Center Stage, New York Stage & Film, the Culture Project's Impact Festival, the Icicle Creek Theatre Festival, and the Earth Matters on Stage Festival at the University of Oregon. Her blues play Blue Monday was developed at ZACH Theatre Center as part of the NEA/TCG National Theater Residency Program for Playwrights. Her plays for young people include Everything So Far, adapted from a 9th grade biology textbook, and Relative, based on a story about her father, a mathematics professor. Her "killer comedy" The Norwegians had a successful year-long run in New York City at The Drilling Company and a rave review in the NY Times. The play was published by Dramatists Play Service and the Smith & Kraus Best Plays and Best Monologues of 2014 collections. Her other work is published by Heinemann and Playscripts, Inc. She is on the faculty at Southwestern University.

ANDREA THOME (Untitled al-Zarqali Project) is a Chilean/Costa Rican-American playwright whose plays include Pinkolandia (INTAR, Salvage Vanguard Theater, Two River Theater, Chicago's 16th Street Theater; supported by The Lark's Launching New Plays Program); Undone (Kilroys list; Queens College Theater, Victory Gardens' Ignition Festival, The Lark); Worm Girl (Cherry Red Productions, DC) and the music-theater piece The Necklace of the Dove (New Georges Audrey Residency 2016-17, Mabou Mines Resident Artist, 2013 & 2015). For The Public Theater, she recently created the community-based play Troy in collaboration with director Laurie Woolery and the ACTivate Ensemble, and is currently 'translating' Shakespeare's Cymbeline into modern English for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Andrea's Spanish-English translations include Guillermo Calderón's Neva (Public Theater, Center Theatre Group), Rodrigo García's You Should Have Stayed Home, Morons (Center Theatre Group), and David Gaitán's Paradise by Design CalArts). She directs The Lark's Mexico-US Playwright Exchange Program, co-directs the satire collective FULANA (www.fulana.org), and has worked in schools all over NYC. She has been a Blue Mountain Center and MacDowell fellow, and was a resident playwright at New Dramatists from 2009-2016.

BENJAMIN WEINER (Untitled Alfred Nobel Project) is a Brooklyn-based playwright, composer, and educator. He is writer-in-residence at Upstream Artist Collective, with whom he presented his new play, The Noise, at Dixon Place. He is developing a new eco-play with Upstream and an adaptation of Yiddish folktales with director Ben Kamine. He has received the Core Apprentice fellowship from the Playwright's Center in Minneapolis, and developed original theater with the Onassis Foundation. He also writes musicals with students from Saint Ann's School in Brooklyn Heights.

LEAH NANAKO WINKLER (Ruby) is from Kamakura Japan and Lexington Kentucky. Her play Kentucky was among the top 10 on the 2015 Kilroys List and recently received an Off-Broadway Premiere at Ensemble Studio Theatre in coproduction with Page 73 and the Radio Drama Network. It will receive a West Coast Premiere at East West Players this November. Leah is also the author of Two Mile Hollow (2016 Kilroys Honorable Mention), Death For Sydney Black (terraNova Collective, 2015 Kilroys Honorable Mention), and Double Suicide At Ueno Park (EST/Marathon). Her collections of short plays, Nagoriyuki & Other Short Plays and The Lowest Form Of Writing are available on Amazon and have been performed all over the US, France and Asia. Her works have also been published in Nanjing University's Stage and Screen Reviews , Smith and Krauss, and Sam French. She is a winner of the 2015 Samuel French OOB Short Play Festival, a 2015 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize nominee, a two time recipient of the A/P/A commission for the Japanese American National Museum, a recipient of the Truman Capote Fellowship for Creative Writing, a member of the Dorothy Strelsin New American Playwrights Group, a commissioned writer with 2G, a Time Warner Foundation Fellow of 2016-2018 Lab at the Women's Project Theater, NYC and a recent alumnus of Youngblood at the Ensemble Studio Theatre. MFA candidate- Brooklyn College. www.leahwinkler.org

WILL ARBERY is a playwright + filmmaker from Texas + Wyoming. He's currently the recipient of the Edes Foundation Prize for Emerging Artist, a finalist for the Heideman award, and a semi-finalist for the Page 73 Fellowship. He's an alum of Clubbed Thumb's Early Career Writers Group, Theater Masters MFA Festival, ALLIANCE THEATRE's Kendeda group, Tofte Lake Center's Emerging Artist Residency, Wildacres, and Variety's "110 Students to Watch." His play The Mongoose was an L.A. Times Critic's Pick. His dance work with BOOMERANG is upcoming at Steppenwolf and MCA Chicago. Short plays at: Williamstown Theatre Festival, #serials at The Flea, Samuel French OOB Festival (winner), American Theater Company, Hearth Gods, and more. He's currently Writing & Research Assistant for Young Jean Lee. Upcoming: Wheelchair at Dixon Place, and a micro-residency at the Bushwick Starr for Claustrophile. MFA in Writing for the Screen + Stage from Northwestern. willarbery.com

BLEU BECKFORD-BURRELL. Born and raised in New York City via Far Rockaway, being a first generation American can account for one of the inspirations for Bleu Beckford Burrell's journey into playwriting. Her love for acting, creating, and writing lead her to the YoungBlood family. She received her B.A in Psychology at Stony Brook University, M.F.A in Acting at Rutgers University, and hopes to continue to expanded her knowledge and creativity to give a unique perspective and voice on humanity.

Stephen Brown's work has been developed or presented by MCC, Page 73, Primary Stages, ESPA, the Road Theatre's Summer Play Festival, EST/Youngblood, and the Aurora Theatre. He's been a past winner of the Global Age Project at the Aurora Theatre, a finalist for the Juilliard Playwriting Fellowship, and has received nominations for the Terrence McNally Award and the Boise Contemporary Theatre River Prize. He's been a member of Page 73's writers group Interstate 73 and has held residencies at SPACE on Ryder Farm and with the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.

GINA FEMIA's plays include The Violet Sisters (Great Plains Theatre Conference), Annie and the Fat Man (Finalist, Leah Ryan Prize for Emerging Playwrights, The Kilroys Honorable Mention), Super, or, How Clark Graves Learned to Fly (semi-finalist The O'Neill and The Princess Grace Award), For The Love Of (Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre reading fest), Mahogany Brown and the Case of the Disappearing Kid (The Brick's Comic Book Theatre Festival), and Five-Sided Triangle (Dixon Place's HOT!Fest, The Downtown Urban Theatre Festival). She is an alum of Pipeline Theatre's PlayLab (The Mermaids' Parade) and New Georges' Audrey Residency (Accidental Burlesque). A 2-time nominee for the Doric Wilson Independent Playwright Award, she is a member of Youngblood, Lather, Rinse, Repeat Collective, a New Georges Affiliated Artist and a New York Madness Company Member and has received residencies with NTI at the O'Neill, Fresh Ground Pepper's BRB Retreat, SPACE on Ryder Farm and Grin City Collective. MFA, Sarah Lawrence College (Lipkin Prize in Playwriting).

DAN GILES is so excited to join Youngblood. His plays have been performed or developed at the Kennedy Center, the New York Fringe, Dixon Place, the International Student Drama Festival (UK), and the Great Plains Theatre Conference (2014 & 2016), with short work at JACK, The Flea, Pittsburgh Opera, and Williamstown Theatre Festival. Awards and fellowships include the Kennedy Center ACTF's Mark Twain Prize for Comic Playwriting and John Cauble Award (finalist), an Alfred P. Sloan Screenwriting Award, the American Repertory Theater's Phyllis Anderson Prize, O'Neill Playwright Observer Residencies (2015 & 2016), and a commission from Young Artists at the Chelsea to write a site-specific play for the Chelsea Hotel. He's a graduate of Harvard and the MFA program at Carnegie Mellon School of Drama, where he studied with Rob Handel. dangilesplaywright.weebly.com

MARA NELSON-GREENBERG grew up in Brooklyn, NY. Her work has been developed at Clubbed Thumb, Playwrights Horizons, Theater Intime, Dixon Place and AmoraLAB, and her short plays have been produced by Hansel and Gretel Pocket Utopia, Parade Ground Gallery, TinyRhino, Yes Noise and Communal Spaces, among others. She is a member of EST/Youngblood, an alum of Clubbed Thumb's Early Career Writer's Group and a mentor at Girls Write Now. She co-wrote and co-starred in the web series End Times Girls Club, which was produced by Above Average and released in March 2016.

STACY OSEI-KUFFOUR, born and raised in Chicago, Illinois, is a BFA graduate from NYU (major: Drama) and an MFA graduate from Hunter College (major: Playwriting). Her play, The Painter, was a finalist at the Off-Off Broadway Samuel French Festival. Her next piece Breathless was chosen for the Dream Up Festival and the Downtown Urban Theater Festival (both showcased at Theater for the New City). Her southern crime play, Dirty Blood, received a reading at the Rattlestick Theater in 2015. Her playAnimals won the Irv Zarkower Award at Hunter College in 2015 and received developmental readings at the Lark Development Center, New York Theatre Workshop, Blank Theatre, and IAMA Theatre. Her next play, The Pearl and the Black Sea, received an Honorable Mention in The Kilroy's The List of Best New Plays By Women. In 2016, Stacy was accepted into Nashville Repertory Theatre's Ingram Play Lab alongside Christopher Durang, Ensemble Studio Theatre's prestigious group Youngblood located in New York, Ensemble Studio Theatre's playwriting program New West Playwrights located in Los Angeles, New Georges The Jam, and Chicks with Scripts. In addition, Stacy became a Van Lier finalist at the Lark. In the fall of this year, Stacy will have a reading of her newest play Hang Man at EST's Launchpad Series in Los Angeles. Stacy's goal as a playwright is to bring untold stories to the stage, stories that challenge our political, societal, and stereotypical views of the Black experience.

EDESSA TAILO is a New York-based playwright and screenwriter. She was born in Sydney, Australia to Assyrian-Iraqi parents and later raised in the California Bay Area. She is a proud member of the Obie-winning playwright group Youngblood at EST. Edessa has worked in both film and television for the likes of Sony and Disney. Although she was led into dramatic writing through her passion for filmmaking, which she studied in London, England, she discovered her love of writing for the stage while pursuing her MFA. Her full-length plays include Althea, Fog, Regnum Reptilia, and Child's Play. Edessa completed her MFA in Dramatic Writing at NYU Tisch ('16) under Lisa Kron.

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