workshop intensive FALL 2022
Twelve talented playwrights selected to participate in collaborative weekly dramaturgical sessions, uniquely designed to support each writer wherever they are in the development of their script.
Amir-Gabriel Gad
(they/he), is a playwright, visual artist, and final boy of a late 90s slasher from Central Jersey. They have recently graduated from The University of the Arts in Philadelphia, with a BFA in Directing, Playwriting, and Production. His work collages the unnatural with real life, questioning language, genre, comfort, and discomfort. They're currently fascinated with magic eight balls and ornithology.
Twinkle Burke
is a Writer/Actor who lives in the Hudson Valley. Her work has been seen and produced by Actors & Writers (Hudson Valley), The TMI Project; Saint Flashlight/Theatre for a New Audience; Get Lit and Lit Lit Beacon; Lift Every Voice: Black Women Speak Festival, and The Drawing Board to name a few. She is a member of The Dramatists Guild and The Actors Studio Playwright and Directors Workshop. She is the 2021 recipient of the Cerimon Personal Development grant.
HyoJeong Choi
is from Seoul, Boston, and a few other places across the globe. She was an aspiring nuclear physicist until she realized she was spending more time in the theater than in her lab. Her play based on this experience, On Epistemological Problems in Atomic Physics; a play about unrequited love, was a semi-finalist at the Playwrights Foundation 2019 Bay Area Playwrights Festival. Her pilot "Becoming Modern" was invited to the second round of Austin Film Festival 2021 and The Orchard Project Episodic Lab 2020. She has been selected as the 2021 Mary Willard playwriting scholar at Sewanee Writers’ Conference, a finalist for the New Georges JAM, Company One & Pao Fellowship, and a semi-finalist for Fresh Ground Pepper Playground Playgroup. Her plays have been seen/developed at The Workshop Theater, Central Square Theater, and Harvard. She currently resides in Seoul, South Korea, and teaches screenwriting/playwriting at Korea National University of the Arts, ChungAng University and Sogang University. She holds an MFA from Carnegie Mellon School of Drama, where she studied under Rob Handel; BS in Physics and Theater from MIT; and Master in Design from Harvard GSD.
Claire Greising
Originally from Evanston, IL and residing in New York City, Claire Greising is a writer and comedian intrigued by weird people who tell long stories. Her plays include Carbondale, IL (Semi-Finalist: Ensemble Studio Theatre’s Marathon of One Act Plays), The Artwork Is Behind You (Finalist: NYU’s Goldberg Prize, Second-Rounder: Austin Film Festival), lonely people on the internet (Reading: Forklift Series at Loading Dock Theatre, Second-Rounder: Austin Film Festival), Addiction As A Verb (Finalist: New Jersey Play Lab Residency), The Rise and Fall of Adam Neumann (Reading: The Tank). Claire is a founding member of the Submerged Writers Group and produces plays with her artist collective NO ETA. As a comedian, Claire has performed stand up, improv, and sketch comedy at clubs, theaters, festivals, basements, and backyards around the country. clairegreising.com
Eliana Theologides Rodriguez
graduated from the NYU Tisch Dramatic Writing Department in 2020, where the faculty granted her the John Golden Award for Excellence in Playwriting and where she was the only undergraduate finalist for the Goldberg Play Prize. Since graduating, her work has been showcased and developed at The Kennedy Center, Clubbed Thumb, and Rattlestick, and she's received honors from organizations such as New Dramatists and Playwrights Realm. She is currently working on a commission for Adventure Theatre MTC and has an upcoming production of her play Marble Rooftop, Emma Has Church at Broken Nose Theatre in Chicago. Her self-published collection of short stories, scenes, and poems by female-identifying and non-binary artists, K*lling W**dy All*n (and other daydreams), will be released in the Spring of 2023.
Esmé Maria Ng
(they/she/he) is an early-career, Scottish and Chinese-American NYC-based playwright and dramaturg whose work focuses on the complexities of Asian American history, femininity, and queerness. Esmé's work is the embodiment of laughing at the pain and finding joy in inappropriate moments. Their work has been presented by the Snug Harbor Inaugural Porch Plays Festival, the Women’s Playwrights Collective of Staten Island, Staten Island Shakespeare Theater Company, and Wesleyan University Writers Circle. Awards include the Wesleyan Student Script Writer Award (2022) and the Wesleyan Theater Outreach and Community Service Award (2022). A selection of Esmé’s work is available to read on New Play Exchange. Instagram/Twitter: @esmemariang
Alexis Elisa Macedo
(she/her) is a versatile and unapologetic Chicana artist and activist based in Fresno, CA. Macedo's work strives to inspire and empower BIPOC and women of all kinds to take control of their narratives and destroy the predominantly white American theater blueprint. She's a National Theatre Institute Alum (Advanced Playwright ‘20 and Theatermakers Playwriting ‘22) and has a BA in Theatre Arts - Acting Emphasis from Fresno State ('21). Macedo is a Miranda Family Fellow, the recipient of KCACTF/LORT ASPIRE Leadership Fellows Meritorious Achievement, and the Individual Artist Fellowship Grant from the California Arts Council. Her poetry and original works have been recognized and performed across the United States: I Don’t Speak Spanish (Julia de Burgos Cultural Center, Matchbox Theater, SOL Fest 2020) Hombres Verdaderos: Part 1 (top 12 semi-finalists, Concord Theatrical’s 46th Annual Samuel French OOB Short Play Festival, Fresno State's ETC Short Play Festival.) Red Hood(ie) (Lime Arts Productions 20x20 Fringe) and her newest work, CHICANA LEGEND (The Fools Collaborative), recently celebrated a sold-out run. Macedo is also Lime Arts Production's line producer, KCACTF Student Advisory Board Member, and Latinx Theater Commons Steering Committee Member. You can find Macedo’s originals on New Play Exchange, Youtube, and her website www.alexiselisamacedo.com.
CAYENNE DOUGLASS
has had work developed and/or produced at Ensemble Studio Theatre, Boston Playwrights’ Theatre, Theatre Masters, Fresh Ink Theatre, New Perspectives Theatre Company, Dixon Place, The Tank, Clutch Productions, City Theatre Miami, FEAST: A Performance Series, and Manhattan Repertory Theatre. Cayenne has participated in The First Stage Residency through The Drama League, The Barn Arts Residency, and The Emerging Artists Residency at Tofte Lake. She is an alumnus of The Living Room Theatre Lab, New Perspectives Women’s Work Lab, The BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Book Writing Basics, Company One Theatre’s Volt Lab, and The Exquisite Corpse Company Writers Lab. She has been published by Smith & Kraus and Concord Theatricals/Sam French and is currently participating in The Workshop Theatre’s Fall Writing Intensive 2022, BMI Composer/Lyricists Workshop, and Letter of Marquee Theatre’s Ensemble Playwrights Lab. She holds an MFA in Playwriting from Boston University. For more information visit: www.cayennedouglass.com or follow Cayenne on IG: @bruteful_theatre.
Jessica Carmona
is an Award Winning Actress, Playwright and Producer of Afro- Puerto Rican descent. She is a graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts where she received her B.F.A in Acting. Most recently, she appeared on “NBC New Amsterdam”, and also starred as Rosie in the new play “Pecking Order” by Robin Rice, and as Zoe in “Black Mexican” by Rachel Lynette. She appeared as Odessa/Haikumom in “Water by the Spoonful” at the Red Monkey Theatre Group, Antonio in “Twelfth Night” at the Red Monkey Theater Group, Samana in “Platanos and Collard Greens”, and Maddie in “Nickeled and Dimed” at Blackfriars Theater. She has also worked with Pregones/PRTT and R.Evolucion Latina on a production of “The Tempest” directed by Luis Salgado. Her indie film, “Millie and the Lords” won her the Best Film and Best Actress Award at The People’s Film Festival and the Viva Latino Film Festival as well as an Award for Film Excellence from the International Puerto Rican Heritage Film Festival. It was also featured at the Georgia Latino Film Festival, Philadelphia Latino Film Festival, Rochester Latino Film Festival and was most recently on HBO Latino and COMCAST. Her original play “Elvira-The Immigration Play” was nominated for Best Play at the 2019 Strawberry One Act Theatre Festival and featured at the 2015 NYC Fringe Festival. She is currently commissioned and developing a new play called “The Boogie Down Gospel” which tells the story of the Gospel of Matthew from a LatinX Lense. Voice Over Credits include: “Flor” by Nelson Diaz- Marcano, “Bodega de la Sol” by Janelle Lawrence, produced by BRAATA Productions and “Timestorm” by Cocotazo Media. She is represented by Bonafide and Emerging Artists, LLC.
Iraisa Ann Reilly
(She/Ella) is half Cuban, half Irish, and a whole lot of New Jersey. She has a passion for writing bilingual stories that address social concerns. Select full-length plays include Good Cuban Girls (Teatro del Sol, at The Arden Theatre), The Jersey Devil is a Papi Chulo (Sol Fest 2022, Yale Drama Series Shortlist 2022, KCACTF) Saturday Mourning Cartoons (Winner, Bay Area Playwright’s Festival 2022, Finalist Goldberg Playwriting Prize, 2022), One Day Old (Philadelphia Fringe, New York Classical Theatre Finalist, Rorschach Theatre Finalist), and A Beginner’s Guide to Interpreting Aphasia (writer/performer, Philadelphia’s Solow Fest). Her work has been developed with Theatre Exile, The New Harmony Project, The Chain Theatre, and the Latinx Playwright’s Circle. She was commissioned by Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi to write a play about Mexican American Civil Rights activist Dr. Hector P. Garcia, which will be produced by the University this fall. Iraisa Ann was semifinalist for the Page 73 Fellowship, 2019 and a Development Screenwriting Studio Fellow in 2021 with NYU’S Production Lab, where she wrote her original screenplay, La Reina Del Bronx (Winner, Fusion Film Festival). MFA in Dramatic Writing, NYU, BA Theatre and English University of Notre Dame. iraisaannreilly.com
Libby Carr
is a Houston-raised, Brooklyn-based playwright and dance artist whose work hangs out at the intersection of hyperrealistic dialogue, movement spectacle, and ungroomed youth. They are so excited to be back at Workshop for another intensive! Libby’s plays have been developed or produced at the Kennedy Center, the Workshop Theater, the University of Texas at Austin, MOtiVE Brooklyn, and Austin's Ground Floor Theater. Libby's thesis play, A Normal Misfortune: More or Less the Story of Iphis, was awarded the 2021 Trice Prize for Creative Scholarship in a Thesis. They have a BA in Playwriting and Directing and a BA in Plan II Honors from the University of Texas at Austin.
Erica Molfetto
is a Manhattan-based creator whose work aims to highlight the unique, sometimes uncomfortable, stories of women and their mental health. Most recently, her pandemic comedy cabaret “LAUGH AGAIN,” sold out its run at Don’t Tell Mama in NYC – you can listen to the show here. In 2021, her half-hour comedy pilot “BEARDS,” was a finalist at the Fusion Film Festival. At the helm of the pandemic, she wrote, produced, and emceed “CREATIVITY IS NOT CANCELED,” a digital song cycle that raised money for artists affected by COVID-19. She had bangs at the time. This spring, she made her off-Broadway writing, performing, and directing debut with the DIY cabaret “GAY ICON,” at Rattlestick Theatre company – which was later featured in Lincoln Center’s: Broadway’s Future Songbook. In a lifetime before the pandemic, she produced, directed, and performed a monthly comedy show, “GETTING FAMOUS,” in theatres across NYC. Erica is a recent graduate of the Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program at NYU, and holds a BSJ in Journalism from the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism. She’s SAG eligible.