workshop intensive FALL 2019
The Workshop Intensive is a weekly writer’s group that runs for 8 weeks, with a group of writers, and two facilitators/dramaturges. Writers submit an unproduced play, along with a statement of rewrite goals, and are then selected by the artistic staff. The script can be a first draft, or only partially finished, or something that has been worked on many times. We are agnostic as to form and content.
LIZ AMADIO
Produced/directed 50+ development works showcasing 200+ artists. Moderator/Producer, DAPLab (2008-2018), including Evolution: Among Statues, Skeletons, Millennium Mom. Playwright productions at Medicine Show, TNC, Circle in the Square+. Artistic Director, Cosmic Orchid: The Voire Dire Project, Puffin Foundation Grant recipient; The Hoodie Play, (BASP, 2015-2016) three university productions, two upcoming. Helms iPower Theatre Collective – teens integrating arts/social justice – Citizens Committee Grant recipient. LCE Leadership Lab, 2019. MFA: Actors Studio Drama School. Member: DG, LPTW & NLAPW. www.cosmicorchid.com
Logan Faust
Logan Faust is a Louisiana-born playwright, television writer, and actor who holds his Master of Fine Arts in Dramatic Writing from NYU Tisch. Before moving to New York, he lived in New Orleans, where he received his BA in Theatre Arts from Loyola University New Orleans. His play Unkindness is a finalist for the Alliance Theatre's Kendeda Prize, and he currently works as a Writers PA for Filthy Rich, airing on FOX in January 2020.
Amy Oestreicher
Amy Oestreicher is an Audie award-nominated playwright, performer, author, songwriter, and multidisciplinary creator. She has given three TEDx Talks on transforming trauma through creativity, and has contributed to 70+ publications. Amy has toured her musical Gutless & Grateful, to over 200 venues from 54 Below to Barrington Stage Company, her multimedia musical, Passageways (original lyrics, music, book and mixed media artwork) has been performed at HERE Arts Center, Dixon Place, and the Triad Theater, and she's currently developing her full-length play More Than Ever Now. She has recently published her memoir, My Beautiful Detour: An Unthinkable Journey from Gutless to Grateful. www.amyoes.com.
Leegrid StevenS
Leegrid grew up in the hill country of Spicewood, TX. He moved to New York after attending SMU in Dallas and now lives in Brooklyn. His plays have been seen in downtown theatres in New York including HERE Arts Center, Incubator Arts Project, Lark Theatre, Altered Stages, Theatre for the New City among others both nationally and internationally. You can find some of his plays in print including Post-Oedipus (Playscripts), Leda’s Swan (Stage Tribes, Theater-Verlag Desh Publishers), Sun Stand Thou Still (Plays and Playwrights 2004), and The Dudleys! (Indie Theatre). Leegrid was recently nomitated for a couple NY Innovative Theatre Awards (Script & Sound Design) for his work on Spaceman. MFA – Columbia
Isabella “Izzi” D’Esposito
Isabella “Izzi” D’Esposito is a New York based playwright, and songwriter. Her work has been produced or developed at the Seven Devils Playwrights Conference, Ars Nova, Homegrown Theater, Horizon Theater, Boise Contemporary Theater and more. She was recently a writing fellow at Playwrights Realm with her play Albert County Public Library System; Lakeside Branch and an Artist in Residence at Camp Stomping Ground. Isabella received her MFA in Dramatic Writing at Carnegie Mellon University, studying under Rob Handel, and a degree in Playwriting and Screenwriting from Purchase College. You can find her music on Spotify.
ODED GROSS
Oded's plays have been produced throughout the United States and abroad, most notably at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Idaho Shakespeare Festival, The Great Lakes Theater, The Theatre at Boston Court and The Moscow Art Theatre in Moscow, Russia. His adaptations include Moliere’s The Imaginary Invalid, Goldoni’s The Servant of Two Masters and Gogol’s The Government Inspector (aka The Inspector General), for which he also wrote the music.
His original play Dantino’s, an original Commedia Dell’Arte that is about gay marriage was developed at Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s Black Swan Lab and was a finalist for the 2017 Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights Conference. His play Heart Attack With A Knife, a murder mystery farce, was produced at Northern Kentucky University’s prestigious Y.E.S. Festival, and developed at The Workshop Theater. Tragedy, a comedy dealing with the inevitability of tragedy was selected for the New Plays New Jersey Reading Series at the Bickford Theatre. Butterflies and Margarine was a semi-finalist for the George R. Kernodle Playwriting Competition and selected to be part of the 2017 Renegade Theatre N.O.W. Festival. His most recent play, A Solution of Sorts was included in the Athena Theatre Company’s new play development series Athena Reads.
His adaptations, as well as his original productions have garnered numerous Critics Picks and nominations including Best Adaptation by LA Weekly, Backstage West and LA Stage Times for The Government Inspector and LA Weekly’s Critics “Pick Of The Week” for his one act The Comedy of Romeo and Juliet.
He received his degree in drama from Brandeis University. He is a proud member of the Dramatist Guild and an even prouder husband and father of two beautiful children.
Katie Walker
Katie Walker is a New York-based Playwright and Dramaturg from Denver, Colorado. Dramaturgy Credits: Normal Ave NAPSeries 2019 (All Eight and Monica: This Play is Not About Monica Lewinsky), Niagara (New Musical for Hartford Fringe 2019) and upcoming project Places. She worked as a Literary Intern at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts and as the Literary Manager for Pipedream Productions for several years (Piping Hot New Works, White Rabbit Red Rabbit - Denver True West Award). Katie studied Drama at Goldsmiths, University of London and graduated from the University of Denver in 2017 with a Bachelor of Arts in English and Theatre (Distinction in Dramaturgy).
Gillian Beth Durkee
Gillian Beth Durkee (she/her) is a Seattle-born playwright/screenwriter and an alumna of EST/Youngblood. Credits include EST, Project Y, The Bellwether Project, The Tank, Current Harbor, Sam French OOB Festival, PTP/NYC, In the Water Theatre Company, Tiny Rhino, and Sewanee Writers’ Conference. Awards: Alfred P. Sloan screenwriting grant recipient, Sanguine Project Playwright finalist, two-time O’Neill NPC semi-finalist. BA: Middlebury College. MFA: Carnegie Mellon University. Gillian also sings a cappella with Treble NYC.
Zachariah Ezer
Zachariah Ezer is a Brooklyn-based dramatist. His work is chiefly concerned with identity and the myriad challenges that its assertion presents in the modern world. Onstage, his goal is to represent the struggles of all marginalized people with nuance and dignity. He is a member of The LIT Council—The Tank’s writer’s Group—, a Dramatists Guild Member, and a graduate of Wesleyan University, where he was awarded Honors in General Scholarship and the Olin Fellowship.
Shellen Lubin
Shellen Lubin is a Playwright, Director, Songwriter, and Actor/Singer. Plays produced and workshopped at Manhattan Class Company, Public Theatre, Pacific Resident Theatre, Hubbard Hall, West Coast Ensemble, and more. Artistic Director of Untold Stories of Jewish Women, Co-President of the League of Professional Theatre Women, 1stVP & Past President of the Women in the Arts & Media Coalition, chair of the Women Playwrights Initiative for the National Theatre Conference. Proud member of DG, SDC, AEA, PDW at The Actors Studio, and more. www.shellenlubin.com
Annie Pulsipher
Annie Pulsipher started her career as a youth playwright performing and writing short plays for her high school drama club and the Utah Arts Festival. She then received her BA at Brigham Young University with a minor in Playwriting and a major in Indecisiveness (i.e. Humanities). Her thesis play, Voodoo You Do, won the Mayhew Playwriting Award and was selected for production in the 2013 season of Salt Lake City’s Kensington Theatre Company. She’s had readings of her work with New York’s Midtown International Theatre Festival, Carnegie Mellon’s Playground Festival, the Kennedy Center through KCACTF, and the Tribeca Film Festival. Her musical, The Trouble With Dead Boyfriends, won MCL Chicago's Premiere Premiere's New Musical Festival and received its New York premiere at the SheNYC Festival of feminist work. It’s being given a workshop production through Berklee School of Music slated for May 2019. Her screenplay, The Glowing Gene, won the Sloan Student Grand Jury Prize and received a $15,000 dollar grant from the Alfred P. Sloan foundation and a $50,000 grant for additional development from the Tribeca Film Institute. She is a proud member of the BMI Librettist’s Workshop. Annie received her MFA in Dramatic Writing from Carnegie Mellon School of Drama under Rob Handel.
Lauren Wimmer
Lauren Wimmer’s plays have been produced or developed at Cave Theatre Co., Dixon Place, Sewanee Writers' Conference, Kennedy Center’s American College Theatre Festival, Theater For The New City, Swarm Artist Residency, Campfire Theatre Festival, Ars Nova’s ANT Fest, Theatre Evolve, The Annoyance, Theater Masters, Playwrights’ Center, Sitka Fellows Program, and Mildred’s Umbrella Theater Company. She is currently a member of the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop as a librettist. B.A. Sarah Lawrence College, M.F.A. Carnegie Mellon University.