Playwrights Set for THE FIRE THIS TIME Festival 7th Cycle Of New Works Lab

The Fire This Time Festival, an annual festival of new work by playwrights of African and African-American descent, has revealed that playwrights Melda Beaty (2022 International Black Theatre Festival's Sylvia Sprinkle-Hamlin Rolling World Premiere Award for "Coconut Cake"), Rachel Herron (2022-2023 resident playwright with Colt Coeur), and Marcus Scott (Princess Grace Award finalist) have been selected to develop full-length plays in the seventh cycle of their New Works Lab. The seventh cycle began in October 2024 and will meet monthly through May 2025.

In 2015 The Fire This Time established The Fire This Time Writers' Group with the mission to provide TFTT alumni and writers from the TFTT community the opportunity to develop new work in a nurturing and supportive environment. In 2017, the initiative was renamed the New Works Lab. From its inception to the present, the lab has been co-directed by educator and playwright Cynthia Grace Robinson ("Letters From Loretta," "Freedom Summer" "What If?" "Dancing on Eggshells") and A.J. Muhammad, a producer with TFTT. Funding for the 7th cycle of the New Works Lab was made possible by generous support from The Black Seed Fund.

Since its launch, over twenty playwrights have developed work in the New Works Lab including Kendra Augustin, Ngozi Anyanwu, France-Luce Benson, Kim Brockington, Tyrell Bennett, Christine Jean Chambers, Edgar Chisholm, Adrienne Dawes, Danielle Davenport, Khalil Kain, Jay Mazyck, Maia Matsushita, Liz Morgan, Shawn Nabors, Deneen Reynolds-Knott, T.R. Riggins, James Anthony Tyler, William Watkins, Shamar S. White, Mars Wolfe, and Antu Yacob.

Melda Beaty is an enthusiastic playwright of eight stage plays: "Front Porch Society," "Coconut Cake," "Thirty," "The Lawsons: A Civil Rights Love Story," "Feebleminded," "COVID Be Damned," "Gaslight Garden" and "Guess What's for Dinner?" Her plays have enjoyed national productions and/or recognition. Most recently, she received the 2022 International Black Theatre Festival's Sylvia Sprinkle-Hamlin Rolling World Premiere Award for her stage play, "Coconut Cake." The play will receive five professional productions between 2024-2025. She was also a 2021 Confluence Fellow with the St. Louis Shakespeare Festival. In addition, Melda is the author of two books. When not writing, she serves on the Board of Directors for the August Wilson Society and as a contributing editor for Black Masks magazine. Melda resides in Chicago, Illinois with her three talented daughters and is an assistant professor of English at Olive-Harvey Community College. She earned her undergraduate degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and her graduate degree from Illinois State University.

Rachel Herron is a Black, queer, multidisciplinary artist residing in Brooklyn. She is currently a company member of Colt Coeur Theater, where she was a 2022-2023 resident playwright. Her plays include "It's Only a High School Reunion" (Live and In Color 24 Hour Festival), "Red Red Wine" (Fire This Time Festival 13th annual Ten-Minute Play Program), and "Token" (O'Neill Center Semifinalist). Additionally, her playwriting portfolio has landed her as a finalist for the WP Theater Lab and a semi-finalist for the June Bingham Commission with Live and In Color. She's written several original pilots, of which she was named a CBS Writers Mentoring Program finalist (2019), a Mentorship Matters semifinalist (2021), and a two-time Disney Writing Program finalist (2022 and 2023). She is a mentee in the #startwith8 program for women of color trying to break into television writing. She wrote, directed, and starred in a short film called IDOL CHASER, which premiered in Fall 2024 at Katra Film Series and took home the Audience Choice Award. Her satirical writing is featured on McSweeney's Internet Tendency. She received a BFA in Drama from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts.

Marcus Scott is a dramatist and journalist. Full-length works: TUMBLEWEED (finalist: 2017 BAPF & 2017 Austin Playhouse Festival of New American Plays; semifinalist: 2022 O'Neill NPC, 2022 Blue Ink Playwriting Award & 2017 Princess Grace Award), SIBLING RIVALRIES (finalist: 2023 Normal Ave's NAPseries, 2021 Seven Devils Playwrights Conference & 2021 Judith Royer Excellence In Playwriting Award; semi-finalist: 2022 Lanford Wilson New American Play Festival, 2021 Blue Ink Playwriting Award & 2021 Princess Grace Award), THERE GOES THE NEIGHBORHOOD (finalist: 2023 Princess Grace Award, 2023 Blue Ink Playwriting Award; semifinalist: 2024 BAPF, 2024 Fault Line Theater's Irons in the Fire & 2024 O'Neill NPC), CHERRY BOMB (recipient: 2017 Drama League First Stage Artist-In-Residence). Heartbeat Opera commissioned Scott to adapt Beethoven's FIDELIO (Co-writer; Met Live Arts at the MET Museum, NY Times Critics' Pick). Scott is the recipient of the Chelsey/Bumbalo Playwriting Award (2024). He is a finalist for the 2024-2025 Dramatists Guild Foundation National Fellows Program, 2022 Many Voices Fellowship, 2021 NYSAF Founders' Award and is a 2021 Doric Wilson Independent Playwright Award semi-finalist. His articles appeared in Architectural Digest, Time Out New York, American Theatre Magazine, Playbill, Elle, Out, Essence, The Brooklyn Rail, among others. MFA: NYU Tisch.

The Fire This Time Festival was founded in 2009 by playwright and producer Kelley Girod to provide a platform for playwrights of African and African-American descent to write and produce evocative material for diverse audiences. Since the debut of the first 10-minute play program in 2010, presented in collaboration with FRIGID New York, The Fire This Time Festival has has produced and developed the work of more than 90 playwrights including Katori Hall, Dominique Morisseau, Radha Blank, Antoinette Nwandu, Jocelyn Bioh, korde arrington tuttle, Stacey Rose, Aziza Barnes, C.A. Johnson, Kevin R. Free, Charly Evon Simpson, Angelica Cheri, James Anthony Tyler, Jordan Cooper, Nathan Yungerberg, Nia A. Robinson, and Cris Eli Blak.

The Fire This Time's first anthology, "25 Plays from The Fire This Time Festival: A Decade of Recognition, Resistance, Rebirth, and Black Theater" edited by Kelley Girod was released by Bloomsbury Publishing in February 2022. www.firethistimefestival.com

FRIGID New York's mission is to provide both emerging and established artists the opportunity to create and produce original work of varied content, form, and style, and to amplify their diverse voices. We do this by presenting an array of monthly programming, mainstage productions, an artist residency, and eight annual theater festivals that create an environment of collaboration, resourcefulness, and innovation. Founded in 1998, the aim was and is to form a structure, allowing multiple artists to focus on creating and staging new work and providing affordable rental space to scores of independent artists. Now in our third decade we have produced a massive quantity of stimulating downtown theater. www.frigid.nyc

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