workshop intensive SPRING 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.
CHANDRA THOMAS
is a writer-actor-producer originally from New York. As a writer, her work has been presented at Primary Stages, Barrow Group, Naked Angels, Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre, Downtown Urban Theatre Festival, HERE Arts Center, Dreamcatcher Rep, Passage Theatre, among others. chandra’s full-length play, THE BUZZER, was just named a Featured Finalist in the Blue Ink Playwriting Award and she’s currently an Echo Theatre Young Playwrights Fellow. On the television side, chandra’s a writer on the farewell season of the CBS comedy, MOM. As an actor, her credits include roles in theatre, television, film and digital. She earned BA degrees in Theatre and Sociology from Vanderbilt University, and holds an MFA from Columbia University. chandra’s the proud child of immigrants, has gleefully lived all over the country and around the world, and absolutely loves baseball.
Claire Greising
Originally from Evanston, Illinois, Claire is a playwright currently living in New York City. As a student at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, Claire founded and served as co-president of the Broke People Play Festival, which facilitated the reading of over 50 new works during Claire's undergraduate career and continues to harness the power of hundreds of student artists. In her own playwriting, Claire aims to capture the Midwestern American experience, seeking to bring light to life in the flyover states. Claire’s written work has appeared in Paste Magazine, PopMatters, Hobart Pulp, the Brooklyn Academy of Music blog, and elsewhere. In her free time, Claire enjoys eating and sleeping. clairegreising.com
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
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, Sam French OOB finalist, two-time O’Neill NPC semi-finalist. BA: Middlebury College. MFA: Carnegie Mellon University. Gillian also sings a cappella with Treble NYC.
KANISHK PANDEY
is a writer originally from Davis, CA. At 16, he won first place in the Princeton Ten Minute Play Contest. At 19, he was a finalist for the 2018 O’Neill National Playwright’s Conference for COLONY, his first full-length play. His thesis play GLENN received a staged reading at the Broke People Play Festival of 2019, as well as in the 2019 festival kanishk created, Adopt-A-Play.com. In the fall of 2019, he graduated from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, with a BFA in Dramatic Writing, and minors in Creative Writing and English Literature. Since then, his play Lanka in the Clouds was a featured part of The Tank's 2020 Trashfest. He is a featured playwright at The Lark and is part of The Workshop Theater’s 2021 Spring Intensive. He is a founding member of the Submerged Writers Group. You can subscribe to his newsletter at themorningstar.substack.com and check out his podcast "Sadder Days".
Alexis Elisa Macedo
(She/Her) is a poet, playwright, director, and activist from California’s sunny Central Valley. As a phenomenally unapologetic Chicana, Macedo’s work uplifts and empowers the silenced and marginalized voices of BIPOC and women of all kinds. She’s a National Theatre Institute Alum (Advanced Playwright ‘20), has a BA in Theatre Arts - Acting Emphasis from Fresno State (‘21), and is pursuing her certification in Chicanx/Latinx in Secondary Schooling. Macedo is a Miranda Family Fellow, the recipient of KCACTF/LORT ASPIRE Leadership Fellows Meritorious Achievement, and grants from The Bushwick Starr and The League of Women Voters of Fresno. Macedo’s originals, I Don’t Speak Spanish, have been performed for SolFest, Matchbox Theatre Co., and Julia de Burgos Cultural Arts Center, and her play Red Hood(ie) is featured in Lime Art’s Productions’ 20By20 Fringe. You can find Macedo’s work on New Play Exchange and her website: alexiselisamacedo.com IG @alexis_macedo
SMJ
(they/them) is an NYC-based, mixed-race, and non-binary playwright, educator, and theatermaker originally from Mount Vernon, OH. Their work has been seen in various forms in New York, Ohio, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Texas, Oklahoma, North Carolina, Colorado, New Jersey, and the UK. They’ve been a resident artist at the Access Theater, the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center, the National Winter Playwright’s Retreat, The Midnight Factory, the Workshop Theater, and Dragon’s Egg Studio. Currently, SMJ is a part of The Sappho Project’s inaugural 2020-2021 W*rk Lab as well as the 2020-2021 Art House INKubator Playwrights Group. They’re a graduate of the BFA Acting program with a Dance minor at Otterbein University and the National Theater Institute at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center. SMJ is a member of the Dramatists Guild and the Ring of Keys.
ZOE KAMIL
is a theatre artist and educator. As a playwright, she explores the sticky intersections of sex, gender, and privilege. As a teaching artist and educator she works to support and create culturally relevant and equitable arts education for city kids. Her plays have been workshopped and presented at The Tank, Dixon Place, SheNYC Arts and the NY Int’l Fringe Festival, among others. She holds her B.A. in Writing for the Stage from Marymount Manhattan College and is currently pursuing a Masters in Theatre Education at Emerson College in Boston.
Alicia Margarita Olivo
is a Mexican American playwright based in Houston, TX. Alicia's plays include Flood, Count Yourself Among the Lucky, aislamientos, and congratulations. Alicia’s plays have been developed and received readings with Teatro Chelsea, Telatúlsa Theater Company, AlterTheater Ensemble, and The Inkwell Theater. Alicia is currently part of the Company One Theater's C1 PlayLab Circuit Volt Lab as well as The Workshop Theater's Spring 2021 Workshop Intensive. Alicia was part of the 2020 AlterLab First Acts cohort with AlterTheater Ensemble in San Rafael, California. Alicia holds a B.A. in Theatre Studies and Comparative Race and Ethnicity Studies from Wellesley College.
Samantha Marchant
is playwright and director based in Buffalo, NY. She graduated from Spalding University’s MFA Program in Creative Writing with a concentration in Playwriting. Her work has been produced on both US coasts and has had readings all across the country and in Canada. Her plays have been produced or developed with The Skeleton Rep(resents), Theater Three, TMDT, Post Industrial Productions, Skull and Dagger, Alleyway Theatre, and Route 66, among others. Her writing has been published in The Louisville Review, Sick Lit Magazine and Women Writing Letters Season 3 and 4. She is a Todd McNerney Playwriting Contest Finalist, a B Street Theatre New Comedies Festival Semi-Finalist and a proud member of the Dramatist Guild, Queen City Playwrights and BAWG Playwrights. She longs for what's weird and a good laugh. Find her plays on NPX Samantha Marchant | New Play Exchange.
TINA ESPER
is a 2021 Woodward/Newman Drama Award Finalist, a 2020 O’Neill Semifinalist and a 2021 Cimientos Semifinalist for her play, Fireflies. She is a 2020 Garry Marshall New Works Festival Semifinalist and a 2019 O’Neill Semifinalist for her play, Jersey Intersections. She was nominated for Cherry Lane Theater’s 2020 Mentorship program and was a visiting artist at the Kennedy Center Playwriting Intensive in 2018. She is a proud member of Pick Up Sticks Playwrighting Collective led by Gary Garrison and currently studies with Marsha Norman. Tina was an evaluator for the 2021 Bay Area Playwrights Festival. Her work has been performed at 59 E. 59 Theater, Urban Stages, Emerging Artists Theater and other stages across New York City. Her creative journey started as performance artist where she wrote and performed alongside other artists throughout New York City including Dance Theater Workshop, The St. Mark’s Poetry Project and No Se No.
Eliana Theologides Rodriguez
(she/her) is a writer and dancer from Irvine, California. She recently completed a BFA in Dramatic Writing from NYU Tisch, 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. After completing her first playwriting workshop at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC in 2020, she went on to become the literary fellow at Playwrights Foundation. Now, she is a proud part of the Latinx Writers Collective at Adventure Theatre in Washington, DC, and is currently working on her first commission with Rattlestick Playwrights Theater and Greenwich House.