workshop intensive SPRING 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.
Emily Bubeck
Emily Bubeck is an NYC based theatre artist, director, dramaturg, occasional stage manager, administrator, audience member, and playwright. She has interned with Soho Rep (New York City) Cherry Lane Theater (New York City), New Dramatists (New York City), Short North Stage (Columbus, Ohio), and Mosaic Theater Company (Washington DC). She has also interned with En Garde Arts (New York City) and she continues to do part time work for them. In addition to her practical theatre work Bubeck also indulges in theoretical research about the ways in which theatrical practices and performance techniques shape other areas of our culture. Her paper, An Examination of the Intersections Between Theatre and the Radical Feminist Movement, was accepted to DePauw University's 43rd Annual Undergraduate Honors Conference for Theater and Communication. She also recently completed A Historical Analysis of the Relationship Between Organized Religion and Dramatic Theory, a thesis paper completed for the distinction program at Otterbein University. Her other research projects include Performance Art as Inherently Feminine, Women in Film and A Case Study of Female Colonialist Playwrights. Her work has been described as women-centric, layered, authentic and engaging. In Spring of 2018 she graduated from Otterbein University (Westerville, Ohio) with a Bachelor of Arts in Theater and a Minor in Women's Gender and Sexuality Studies.
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.
Sonya Hayden
Sonya Hayden is a New York-based playwright, composer and lyricist. Her plays and musicals have appeared at local and international venues, including the Edinburgh International Festival, Traverse Theatre, Village Pub Theatre Leith, Merlin Theatre Frome, Art House Productions, and Princeton University. Sonya is a member of the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop and was previously a member of the Princeton University Triangle Club Writers Workshop (Milton Lyon Award for Outstanding Writing), as well as Traverse Theatre Young Writers and the Village Pub Theatre Writers Collective in Scotland. She holds an MSc in Playwriting with Distinction from the University of Edinburgh and an A.B. in Music (summa cum laude) from Princeton University.
KAtHY MÜLLER
Katarzyna (Kathy) Müller was born in Wrocław, Poland and grew up on the South Side of Chicago. One of her earliest memories is making up a poem in Polish on a stage. She started her life in the U.S. as the only non-English-speaking kid in school. Within a year, she was writing plays for her new friends to perform during recess.
Kathy went to college at 16, and fell in love with Pinter, Beckett, and Mamet. After successful careers in education and advertising, she found herself on a limited budget while raising her son. She created a DIY MFA for herself, taking workshops with top playwrights and directors, while immersing herself in the theater communities of Chicago and New York.
When not writing, she works as a credited and uncredited script consultant on other people’s plays and films, including award winners at film festivals in L.A., New York, and Berlin.
Kathy has been developing her plays in Chicago and New York. She is a Network Playwright at Chicago Dramatists.
BA humanities, PhD psychology, University of Chicago.
Clea DeCrane
Clea DeCrane is an NYC-based actor and writer originally from Los Angeles. She's performed and produced work at theaters like Shakespeare Santa Cruz, The Flea, The Irondale Center, New Georges, 59E59, EST, Rattlestick, and The Pearl. She also makes indie and experimental films and series with Station26 Productions, a filmmaker's collective she founded in 2017. Her play, Bitter Greens, had its world premiere last December at 59E59 Theaters. www.cleadecrane.com
Lupe Gehrenbeck
Lupe Gehrenbeck (playwright and director), former cellist at the Simon Bolivar Orchestra, she graduated Magna Cum Laude from The School of Art, at the Central University of Venezuela. She holds a Master in Media Studies of the New School University (NYC). Lupe has written 3 TV series and 3 varieties shows; 1 book of short stories; 3 scripts for independent films, 7 for “Villa del Cine” the Venezuelan Institute of Cinema.
Highlights of her work as a Playwright include these plays produced in different theatres of Caracas: Descubierta, The Girls of Santa Fe, Piñata, Are we going or are we staying?, With an A of Illusion, From Miracielos to Hospital, Gregor Mac Gregor, Matarile, Eva, Adan, Bolívar Coronado, Ni que nos Vayamos nos Podemos ir, (Leaving, but can’t let go), Cruz de Mayo, El Hijo del Presidente- Circo Familiar (The Son of the President, Family Circus).
Internationally, Gregor Mac Gregor at El Portal de Sánchez Theater (Buenos Aires) and La Maison de l’Amérique Latine (Paris); À Ruban Boutons (Montreal), Bolívar Hall (London), Theatre Llantiol (Barcelona); The Guardian Angel, The Living Theatre, Repertorio Español, 4th Street Theater, One Festival (NYC); Matarile at Theater Luna (Curacao).
Awarded with Juana Sujo Prize, National Theatre Award, and ANAC (Film Authors Association (Venezuela); CASA, and Actors of the World Award, (London, 2008). Nominated for Isaac Chocron Playwright Award, and AVENCRIT (Theater Critics Association of Venezuela), (2015, 2016). Winner of the Theater Express Conquest, SGAE (General Society of Authors and Editors, Spain 2016), edition award of the play Cruz de Mayo. Eclepsidra Editors, published the book “Gregor Mac Gregor and other plays by Lupe Gehrenbeck”, which groups eight of her plays, (Venezuela, 2018).
JASON HOWARD
Jason has been creating theater in NYC for 25 years, including acting, writing, directing, and fight choreography. He has worked with the Public, LaMama, NYTW, Gideon, Manhattan Theatre Source (founding member), The Workshop Theater (member), The Nerve Tank (member), New Circle Theater Company (member), and Drama of Works, the Ontological, EST, Circle Rep, TNC, the Ohio, HERE, and the Arclight. He was nominated for NYIT awards for best Actor in 2009/2012 (Universal Robots/Advance Man, both by Mac Rogers). He also loves cars. www.jasonhoward.org.
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.
J. Thalia Cunningham
J. Thalia Cunningham is a playwright, travel writer, and photographer. Her work has been produced, performed, and developed at the Actors Studio Playwright/Directors Unit, Artemisia Theatre, Congo Square Theatre, Dayton Playhouse FutureFest, Golden Thread’s Re-Orient Festival, Hit & Run VII Short Comedy Festival, Living Room Theatre New Play Incubator, New Jersey Repertory Company, Panndora’s Box New Play Festival, Pittsburgh Short Works Festival, Potpourri World Women Works, Red Fern Theatre, Rhinebeck Short Play Festival, Rhino Theatre, Rover Dramawerks, Short & Sweet Festival in Dubai, Australia, the Philippines, and Malaysia (award for best script), Siena College (commissioned work), and the WorkShop Theater Company.
Publications include Unveiled, based on Cunningham’s 7 trips to Afghanistan (Smith & Kraus’ “Best Ten-Minute Plays of 2014”); Ful Nabit (Smith & Kraus in Best Ten-Minute Plays of 2018); two monologues from Crossing the Line (Smith & Kraus’ The Best Men’s Stage Monologues of 2014); Applause Theatre Books (Best Contemporary Men’s Monologues 2014); two monologues from Child Soldier (Smith & Kraus’ The Best Women’s Stage Monologues of 2015). Member of the League of Professional Theatre Women, The WorkShop Theater Company; the Actor’s Studio Playwrights/Directors Unit. Education: BA, The Johns Hopkins University.
Cunningham has traveled to around 140 of the “official” destinations of the Traveler's Century Club, an organization of people who have visited at least 100 countries, which she has no intention of joining. She has written for national publications such as The New York Times Travel Supplement, Arthur Frommer, Diversion, and Specialty Travel Index. Her experiences include trekking with mujahedeen in Tora Bora, Afghanistan after sneaking over the Khyber Pass disguised as an Afghan woman; participating in West African voodoo rituals; crocodile hunting with spear-toting Papua New Guinea natives; and talking her way out of an arrest (erroneous) for prostitution in the tribal area of Pakistan, while Pakistani soldiers aimed the nostrils of their AK-47s at her own.
Cunningham’s predilection for insurgents proffers continuous opportunities to enter intimate worlds of a broad spectrum of humanity. Her first-hand knowledge of people in crisis influences her work, allowing her to explore society’s most challenging issues and serve as catalyst for further reflection.
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.
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.