Scripps Ranch Theatre Announces New Works Studio

Scripps Ranch Theatre announced the inaugural year of their New Works Studio as well as 2016 participating playwrights. The first collaborative meeting will take place Sunday, February 7th.

Scripps Ranch Theatre's New Works Studio (NWS) is a nine month long program in which playwrights work on a script with the intent to create a production-ready draft. Over the nine months, the playwrights will receive bi-monthly workshops, with opportunities for feedback from other studio members and special guests. The group will consist of SRT Playwright in Residence Jennifer Lane, Stacy Osei-Kaffour, Aleta Barthell, Kim Yaged, and Tom Misuraca, and will be co-moderated by SRT Dramaturg in Residence Jessica Ordon. The program is co-founded by Robert May, SRT's director of New Play Development.

NWS will function as an artistic home for emerging and established playwrights and a constructive, supportive environment for the development of new work. NWS Playwrights will write and share new plays, refine their skill set, and receive peer and institutional support, providing a springboard for fantastic new work for the American theatre created by local artists.

Scripps Ranch Theatre's New Works Studio Playwright Bios

ALETA BARTHELL (San Diego), playwright and screenwriter, was a 2016 HUMANITAS/CTG Playwriting Prize finalist for her play, Window of Shame. Aleta has also created a pilot for a TV series about the 12th century queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine, for which she received a grant to study source material in Paris through the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Aleta spoke about "Writing from History" at the 2015 Dramatists Guild National Conference. She is a teaching artist with Playwrights Project and founder of the youth theater education program, Kids Act.

JENNIFER LANE (San Diego) is a California-based playwright, novelist and teaching artist originally from Troy, Michigan. Her work includes September & Her Sisters (Scripps Ranch Theatre's Out On A Limb Festival, 2015 and 2016); The Seer & The Witch (developed in the Groundbreakers Playwriting Group at terraNOVA, part of the nuVoices for a nuGeneration Festival, a Semi-Finalist of the O'Neill Playwriting Conference, nominated for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize); and Harlowe (developed under the mentorship of Sarah Ruhl, winner of the Alec Baldwin Fellowship at Singers Forum, workshopped at the Gulfshore Playhouse, presented at the Florida Atlantic University New Play Festival, Finalist for the 2015 Humanitas/CTG Playwriting Prize). Jenny is a teaching artist with the Playwrights Project, San Diego Writers, Ink, and UCSD Extension. She is the Playwright in Residence at Scripps Ranch Theatre, and a founding member of their New Works Studio. Her dramatic writing is represented by Amy Wagner of Abrams Artists Agency in New York City. MFA: Columbia University. BA: Sarah Lawrence College. For more information, please visit jennifer-lane.net.

TOM MISURACA (Los Angeles) has written short plays that have been in over 100 productions and staged readings. Four of his full-lengths were produced in Southern California: Geeks! The Musical, The ParaAbnormals, Edgar and Tenants. Geeks! went on to be produced Off-Off Broadway and in San Diego. In 2014, Tom won two writing awards: The Pickering Award for his old-age superhero play, Golden Age; and the Las Vegas Little Theatre New Works award for Little Black Book. In 2015, Golden Age was produced in Texas, and The eBook of Love was produced at the Las Vegas Little Theatre. He is a member of The Alliance of Los Angeles Playwrights, First Stage LA and The Dramatist Guild of America.

STACY-OSEI KUFFOUR (Los Angeles) 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 Dream Up Festival and Downtown Urban Theater Festival (both showcased at Theater for the New City). Her southern crime play, Dirty Blood, received a private reading at the Rattlestick Theater this summer. Her play Animals won the Irv Zarkower Award at Hunter College and received a closed reading at the Lark Development Center and NYTW. The Pearl in the Black Sea, her newest play, received an Honorable Mention in Kilroy's The List of Best New Plays by Women. In 2016, Stacy was accepted into Ensemble Studio Theatre's new playwriting program located in Los Angeles, California. Stacy's goal is to bring untold stories to the stage, stories that challenge our political, societal, and stereotypical views of the black experience.

KIM YAGED (San Diego) is an award-winning writer with a background in theater, television, and film. Kim's hilarious one-woman tour de force Hypocrites & Strippers was nominated for a Best Actress Artsie, and an excerpt of the play was published in Applause Books' One on One: The Best Women's Monologues for the 21st Century. The animated trailer for Hypocrites & Strippers screened at festivals in New York, Chicago, Austin, Tampa, and Rio de Janeiro. Coming Full Circle, the newest short based on the play, was accepted by Spike & Mike's Festival of Animation, Melbourne Queer Film Festival, and Provincetown Film Festival. Kim's work has been presented internationally, including London, Berlin, New York, and Edinburgh, and her stories and poems have been published by Random House, Cleis Press, Ballantine Books, Applause, and Arsenal Pulp Press. For more information, please visit www.kimyaged.com

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