workshop intensive FALL 2021

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.

Alyssa See-Tho

is a multiracial, queer, Catholic writer who has worked on a variety of forms and cares deeply about creating social change through storytelling. She graduated from Tisch School of the Arts at New York University with a B.F.A. in Dramatic Writing and Performance Studies. Alyssa’s work has been performed in theaters in both New York City (Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, The Tank) and the San Francisco Bay Area (Gunn High School), produced online (What Next web series, COCAWrites: Plays on Zoom Festival), and on the radio (WNYU). She is a member of the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop and a Junior Hollywood Radio and Television Society writers group. Beyond writing, Alyssa has also produced and directed plays, short films, multimedia works, musicals, and web series.

Catherine Weingarten

is a friendly jewish chick from an obscure area of Pennsylvania! Honors Include: the Scott McPherson Award and the Tennessee Williams Scholarship through the Sewanee Writer’s Conference. She has previously developed her “girly, trashy” work with Dixon Place, The Tank, Less Than Rent, Sam French OOB Short Play Festival, Last Frontier Theater Conference and has been awarded residencies through Bethany Arts Community, Stdio at Key West, Fresh Ground Pepper’s BRB and Monson Arts. Catherine has participated in Art House Production’s INKubator Writer’s Group, New Perspective’s Writer’s Group and The Shelter’s Virtual King Lear project. BA: Bennington College MFA: Ohio University

ALI KELLER

is a Writer, Producer & Dramaturg based in NYC. She’s committed to telling stories with complex female characters. Select Writing credits: Bandit (Semi-finalist in the Shoot Your Short Emerging Screenwriter Competition), Seven Fishes (Second Rounder Austin Film Festival Short Screenplay Competition 2019), Standards (Semis-finalist for The Mitten Lab Residency 2018, The Dramatists Guild), For Goodness Sake (4th Street Theatre @ New York Theatre Workshop), and (un)conditional (Semi-finalist for SPACE on Ryder Farm Residency 2018, Second Rounder at the 2020 Austin Film Festival Play Competition)). Her song cycle …The F*ck Am I Doing? which she wrote with Emily Rose Simons was a part of the New York Musical Festival’s final Cabaret Season. Select Film Credits: Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened (Production Assistant), Zero Issue (Producer), Going (Producer). Select Associate/Assistant Director credits: Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill (Broadway), the 2012 Oscar Hammerstein Award, and Live From Lincoln Center: Sweeney Todd, and Rob Fischer Celebrates Kander & Ebb. She was the Script Assistant for the Broadway Does Mothers’ Day Fundraiser in 2020. She was a teaching assistant and Rockwell Scholar at ESPA at Primary Stages.  She received her B.A. in theater from Bucknell University. She’s an Affiliate Dramaturg with Beehive Dramaturgy, a Member of Stillwater Writers Group and the Dramatists Guild of America. www.alikellerplaywright.com 

Rose T.M.

(they/them) is a writer for stage, screen and graphic novels raised in New York City. They’ve committed theirself, perhaps hopelessly, to tell stories about young love, trans folk, religious upbringing, ghosts and reminiscence for a living. Their work has been produced through NYU’s Department of Dramatic Writing (Searching for the Good), The Tank NYC (L&A – A One-Act Play), The Bush Theatre (The Hyperparasite), Theaterlab (Scavengers), Theatre Row (Taste the Rainbow), Abingdon Theatre Company (Bombs and Boomerangs), Hunter College High School (Volume 10 Font) and Writopia Lab (Café de la Vida). Follow them @nonbinarybomb on social media for updates on their work and personal life, but please, don’t show their parents.


 

Cris Eli Blak

is an award winning and internationally produced writer for the page, stage and screen. His work has garnered him a Bronze Remi from the Worldfest Houston International Film and Video Festival, the Christopher Hewitt Award in Fiction, a Pushcart Prize nomination and honors from Vectis Radio, Negro Ensemble Company, Kentucky Playwrights Workshop, Clocktower Players and A is For. His work has been produced, performed and/or published around the world, from Off-Broadway (Urban Stages and Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre), West Coast (Theatre of NOTE, Morgan-Wixson Theatre, Theatre West, Common Ground Theatre, Left Edge Theatre and Breath of Fire Latina Theater Ensemble), Collegiate (Columbia University, York College of Pennsylvania, Salem State University, Academy of Arts University and Wellesley College), London (The Quean's Company and Flawstate), Australia (Melting Pot Theatre), Canada (Ryerson Community Theatre) and Ireland (Eva's Echo). He is developing new work with American Stage, The Road Theatre, Imaginarium Theatre Company, and Et Alia Theater. He was the resident playwright at Fosters Theatrical Artists Residency and was shortlisted for the Alpine Fellowship Theatre Prize. He continues to strive to create work that reflects the world that we live in, with all of its different and diverse colors, creeds and cultures.

Dan Caffrey

is a Brooklyn-based playwright, teacher, and pop-culture critic. He graduated from UT Austin's M.F.A. Playwriting program in 2020 and spent the following year as a Teaching Artist at the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta. He was shortlisted for the Alpine Fellowship's 2021 Theatre Prize, has been both a Finalist and Semi-Finalist for the O'Neill (for his plays Matawan, The Tusk Hunters, The Amphibians, and Kaiju), a Semi-Finalist for the Princess Grace Award, a Resident Artist at Tofte Lake Center, an M.F.A. Scholar at the Sewanee Writers' Conference, and an artist in The Orchard Project's Liveness Lab. His work has been published in several anthologies by Smith & Kraus and has recently been developed by American Records, Mixily Presents, Jarrott Productions, Kitchen Dog Theater, Pegasus PlayLab, and JOOKMS. His short play "A Seed" was part of the 46th Annual Samuel French Off Off Broadway Short Play Festival, produced by Concord Theatricals. His first book, Radiohead FAQ, is currently available from Rowman & Littlefield. He co-hosts The Losers' Club: A Stephen King Podcast (recipient of the Silver Bolo Award For Excellence In Horror Media) and Halloweenies: A Horror Franchise Podcast, both on the Bloody Disgusting Podcast Network. dancaffreywrites.com

Melíza Gutierrez

(she/they) is a Mexican-Ecuadorian-American SoCal theater artist with a BA in Drama and Honors in Acting from the University of California, Irvine. As a student, she served as Artistic Director of the Latinx theater group, Brown Bag Theater Company, as well as Co-Captain of the neofuturist theater collective, Schrödinger’s Cast, where she produced, wrote and performed in eighteen editions of their show, 30 Plays in 60 Minutes. Since graduating, Melíza’s artistic focus has expanded from acting and producing to include poetry and writing. Their poetry can be seen in Breath of Fire Latina Theater Ensemble’s Staged Stories series and their one-act, Lie in State, can be seen in UCI’s upcoming Audio Theater series as a part of their 2021/2022 season. Melíza’s work carries the themes of identity, healing, and self-actualization with the goal of providing catharsis and calling the viewer into action in service of others and of themselves. When not crafting intricate metaphors and parsing dialogue, Melíza enjoys time spent with their cat and near bodies of water but not at the same time. website: melizagutierrez.com IG @melizakg

Mak Shealy-Sachot

(she/they) is a writer, performer, and published poet based in New York City, Paris & South Carolina. Mak is a Samuel French OOB Top-30 finalist, an Orchard Project Finalist, RAVE Theatre festival finalist, and 2021 OnWomen’s Festival MainStage Selection at Irondale. Mak has been commissioned by Kervigo Ensemble Theater, 7x7 at The Tank and The Balcony Arts; they’ve created original immersive plays for The Cell Theater and Wonder Media Network and just finished developing a full-length queer love epic with Original Idiots as part of  The Generator. Select performance credits Off-Broadway: The Cooping Theory 1969 (Poseidon Theatre Company), Professor Brenner (HERE Arts Center), The Jersey Devil Doesn’t Exist (The Shrill Collective); TV: LOVE LIFE (HBO). Mak’s poetry has been featured in print with Allegory Ridge, performed spoken word with Women Who Roar, Bowery Poetry and Make:Shift, and been featured online with Muse Pie Press as well as Someday Production’s poetry journal: Pillow Talking. 

JK JK

is married couple Jenny (writer/director) and khattieQ (composer/performer). khattieQ, originally from Puerto Rico, served as guitarist and vocalist for punk band BLXPLTN (2013-2015). Jenny, from South Dakota, served as Artistic Director of Salvage Vanguard Theater (2008-2019). In 2020, their first Jk Jk collaboration Catalina La O Presenta won the Vancouver Fringe New Play Prize from PTC. In 2022, that piece will premiere LIVE as an associate production of Neworld Theatre and frank theatre company. Currently, the couple is developing the play Desperately Seeking Comfortable Shoes, with support from Vancouver's The Arts Club. khattieQ is one of their 2021 Bill Millerd recipients, and Jenny is one of their 2021 Emerging New Playwrights. khattieQ is also an Arts Leadership Fellow with the Belfry Theatre in the 2021-2022 season. September 20-25th 2021, their play always boy received development as part of the Canadian national Digital Dramaturgy Initiative. In the fall of 2022, Jk Jk will co-direct Adrienne Dawes’ Casta at the Blanton Museum of Art in Austin,TX. @jenny_khattie_official

j. sebastián alberdi

is a mexican-basque-american playwright & aspiring tv writer. originally from san diego, ca, he now lives and works in new york city and writes about queerness, catholicism, power, and other things he finds interesting and/or important. he has developed his plays with the huntington theatre company, speakeasy stage, fresh ink theatre, sparkhaven theatre, teatro chelsea, and campfire theatre festival. he has a ba from northeastern university and is a current mfa candidate in dramatic writing at nyu tisch. you can find his work on new play exchange & his website www.jsebastianalberdi.com. @milk_jello for twitter & instagram.

Desi Moreno-Penson

is a playwright, actor, dramaturg, and producer based in NYC. MFA in Dramaturgy and Theater Criticism from Brooklyn College. Her plays have been developed/produced at Ensemble Studio Theater (EST), INTAR, Perishable Theater (Providence, RI), Henry Street Settlement, SPF-Summer Play Festival, terraNOVA Collective, Downtown Urban Theater Festival (DUTF) @the Cherry Lane, Urban Theater Company (Chicago), Teatro Coribantes (San Juan, PR), among others. Her new play, SIN AGUA (Without Water) is part of the 2021-2022 Fighting Words New Script Development Program with Babes With Blades Theater Company (Chicago). Another play, BEIGE, is the winner of the 2016 National Latinx Playwriting Award sponsored by the Arizona Theater Company; a Finalist for 2018 Bay Area Playwrights Festival, Finalist for 2017 New Works Festival @Kitchen Dog Theater (Dallas, TX); selected for the inaugural list of 50 Playwrights Project’s Top 8 Best Unproduced Latinx Plays, and was nominated for the 2017 Mentor Project @the Cherry Lane. She is a 2 time winner of the MultiStages New Works Contest sponsored by MultiStages Theater Company, 2 times a Semifinalist for the Princess Grace Award, a Semifinalist and 2 times a Finalist for the O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, and has 2 times received Honorable Mention on The Kilroys List. Her plays are published by Broadway Play Publishing; a ten-minute play, SPIRIT SEX: A PARANORMAL ROMANCE, was selected for the short plays anthology, “Best Ten-Minute Plays of 2010,” and a scene from her play, COMIDA DE PUTA (F%&king Lousy Food) is included in an anthology featuring plays written by Latinx playwrights, “Scenes for Latinx Actors: Voices of the New American Theater,” both published by Smith and Kraus. Her short play, RECONCILE, BITCH is included in an upcoming short plays anthology “Best Ten-Minute Plays of 2020,” published by Applause Theater and Cinema Books. She is a member of the Dramatists Guild, SAG-AFTRA, and the Going To The River Writers Unit (GTTR) @the Lark Play Development Center. In October, she will take part as a featured playwright and panelist for a two-day event in honor of Hispanic Heritage Month at the Lee Strasberg Institute. Desi lives in The Bronx with her wonderful husband Anthony, and their cat, Choo-Choo.

Malaika Fernandes

(she/her) is a writer and student at Wesleyan University. She has a growing list of answers to the question “where are you from?”, which now includes: from Mumbai, born in Toronto, raised in Phoenix, and currently based in New Jersey and Connecticut. Her work explores her own ever-broadening, ever-fluctuating definition of home. She is a writer and dramaturg at Ensemble Theater Collective, founder of Writing Circle, and coordinator of the Dramathon, projects dedicated to making theater an inclusive space for community-building. She is a winner of New South Young Playwrights Festival (Eyebrows On) and has been produced through Horizon Theater (All the Time in the World.)