workshop intensive WINTEr 2022

Jacob Marx Rice

Jacob Marx Rice’s plays have been produced and developed at The Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center, The Finborough Theatre in London, Actors Theatre of Louisville, The Flea Theater, The New Ohio, Atlantic Theatre Stage 2, and others. His play Chemistry has premiered in seven cities across three continents, and Jacob’s screenplay adaptation is currently in development with Anonymous Content. Recent prizes include the Jean Kennedy Smith Playwriting Award from the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, an Ensemble Studio Theater Sloan Commission, the Faculty Award from the NYU/Tisch Department of Dramatic Writing and the Excellence in Playwriting Award at the New York International Fringe Festival.

LUIS ROBERTO HERRERA

is currently a New York/Fort Lauderdale based playwright with a B.F.A. in Acting from the University of Florida. He was a resident playwright in the GREENHOUSE Residency at SPACE on Ryder Farm. He has had work produced at the Fort Lauderdale Fringe Festival, and the New York Summer Theatre Festival. His full-length plays include; Pale Blue Dot, Poolside Glow, Born Still, Getting It Together, Grandma’s Armchair, I don’t know what this is…, Treasure Island, SAA (not that one), BLOOD ON THESE HANDS, and WELCOME WE ARE NOW CLOSED. Poolside Glow was chosen for the New Year New Works reading series at Fantasy Theatre Factory on January 26th 2019, was a part of the Greenhouse Development Residency 2019 program at FIU and was most recently a part of The Inkwell Theatre LAB 2021. Luis is an ensemble member of New City Players Theatre Company, a member of the Dramatist Guild and is currently in his third and final year of the M.F.A. playwriting program at The New School.

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 Semi-Finalist for The Civilians' R&D Group, 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 won several B. Iden Payne Awards and has been published in anthologies by Smith & Kraus. He has recently seen his plays developed and produced by American Records, Mixily Presents, Jarrott Productions, Kitchen Dog Theater, Pegasus PlayLab, JOOK, The Workshop Theater (Fall 2021 Intensive), and ScriptWorks Austin. 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

Megan Tabaque

is a Filipina-Canadian playwright, actor, and arts educator. Her work has been developed, commissioned, and produced by the Alliance Theater, Salvage Vanguard Theater, Tofte Lake Center, the Workshop Theater, Paper Chairs, and Vanderbilt University among others. She is a James A. Michener Fellow, Kundiman Fiction Fellow, Sewanee Writers’ Conference Scholar, Seattle Public Theater Emerald Prize finalist, Playwrights’ Realm Scratchpad Series semi-finalist, and a 2021 Four Seasons Residency nominee. She is currently developing a brand new play about conspiracy theorists and human trafficking in Asian American communities titled Marry Me, Bruno Mars for Emory University’s Brave New Works festival. Megan earned her MFA in Playwriting and Fiction from the Michener Center for Writers in Austin, TX. She currently resides in Atlanta, where she is the 2021-2023 Emory Fellow of Playwriting and also the writers assistant to celebrated playwright and tv writer, Sheila Callaghan.

Mildred Inez Lewis

writes and directs for theater, screen and the digital space. A Dramatists Guild member, she writes with the Antaeus Theatre Company, Company of Angels, Ensemble Studio Theatre-Los Angeles, PlayGround-LA, and Towne Street Theatres. Recent productions include JAB, CROSS, HOOK which appeared in the 2022 Fade to Black festival. In 2021, GHOSTS OF BLACKNESS, a hybrid production was commissioned by the Lucille Lortel Foundation, National Black Theatre and Harlem9. Audio work includes MEETS PRINCE, LOVES FROG for the 2022 Feminist Fairytales series. $10 AND A TAMBOURINE was featured in Antaeus' Zip Code 2021 podcast series. Recent publications include THE GIFT with Broadway Play Publishing and ECLOSION with NextStage Press. Mildred is from NYC and a graduate of Stuyvesant High School.

Eliana Theologides Rodriguez

is an NYC-based writer, dancer, and director. She graduated from NYU Tisch with a BFA in dramatic writing 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 theaters such as The Kennedy Center, Clubbed Thumb, and Rattlestick, and she's received honors from organizations such as New Dramatists and Playwrights Realm. She’s also danced at spaces such as Rattlestick and The Kitchen, and has directed and assistant directed for The Tank and Tectonic Theater Project. She is currently working on her first full-length commission with Adventure Theater MTC and is interested in breaking into TV if anyone would like to help her do that. She is endlessly grateful to be back at Workshop Theater, where she workshopped her play Poor Queenie back in 2021.

Peter Pasco

(he/el) is from the Bronx and now lives in Los Angeles.  -Just like J-LO!  Okay, maybe she dances better than him, but Peter is way better at karaoke. Hands down. Facts. Peter moved to Los Angeles to be an actor after graduating from NYU where he studied English and Psychology and grew weary of people who asked if he wanted “to be a teacher.”  In Los Angeles, he has worked in commercials, tv, film, theater, offices, restaurants, and street corners.  As a crossing guard, obviously.  His most recent jobs: the world premiere of “Twenty50” by Tony Meneses at the DCPA that ended in March of 2020, and in the summer of 2021, he performed in the regional premiere of Octavio Solis’ “Quixote Nuevo” at Round House Theatre. This March, he is set to be in the premiere of “The Play You Want” by Bernardo Cubria at the Road Theatre. He is excited to work with and glean from the other talented writers and mentors involved with the Workshop Theater.

Isaiah Stavchansky

is a Mexican American playwright and actor. Plays include After Sitting [Zoom] Shiva for Zev (Productions: Atlantic Acting School dir. Jake Fallon & The Tank dir. Michael Herwitz), Smooth Time (Reading: The Mark O’Donnell Theater dir. Michael Herwitz), and Diaspora Chic (Finalist: Pipeline Theatre Company’s Playlab 2022). His work has been developed with Atlantic Acting School, 7x7, The Williamstown Theatre Festival, The Tank NYC, and Kenyon College. BA: Kenyon College. Atlantic Acting School’s Conservatory.

Jerrica D. White

is a Brooklyn based artist committed to telling stories that uplift the Black narrative and explore freedom. In 2019, she was on the producing team of the Broadway revival of Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune. Before the pandemic, her play rape game. was scheduled to be featured at Dixon Place and part of New York Theatre Festival’s Summerfest. Her work has been developed with the Classical Theatre of Harlem, Primary Stages, Workshop Theater, and Cincinnati Black Theatre Artist Collective. www.ovrzlous.com.

Jane Denitz Smith

(she/her) is an artist living in the Berkshires, in western Massachusetts. Most recently, her one-act Our Lady of Broad Street was part of the Road Theatre’s Summer 2021 Playwrights Festival. She looks forward to a Winter 2022 reading of her new full-length play Our Own Flesh and Blood in Hudson, New York. Full-length play I Am, You Are, We Were saw a staged reading at Berkshire Voices/ Berkshire Playwrights Lab, and her one-act musical, The Marrow in the Bone, workshopped at Barn Arts Collective (Tremont, ME). Our Lady of Broad Street premiered at New Perspectives Theater (NYC) and was also selected for performance at Festival de Teatro Alternativo in Bogotá, Colombia. A partial list of additional credits includes: Capital Region 24-Hour Theatre Project at the University at Albany, Boston Theatre Marathon, Philadelphia Primary Stages, Curio Theatre (Philadelphia), and Made in the Berkshires Festival. Jane has also published three YA novels with HarperCollins and a board book for Workman Publishers. Since 2013, she has been a Playwright-in-Residence for Barrington Stage Company's Playwright Mentoring Project, a collaboration of theater artists and under-served teens.

AARON COLEMAN

is a New York City-based playwright and lyricist originally from Los Angeles. In February 2022, his play WHERE HAVE ALL THE FAIRIES GONE? will be presented by Brave New World Repertory Theatre. Recently, his original short family musical LEO’S BIG DAY OUT (music by Chuck Pelletier) was virtually staged by Circle in the Square Theatre School. His play TELL ME I’M GORGEOUS AT THE END OF THE WORLD received a lab reading with The Workshop Theater. His play UNCLE REMUS, HIS LIFE AND TIMES, AS TOLD TO AARON COLEMAN was chosen by Primary Stages for their 2019 ESPA Drills reading series at the famed Lucille Lortel Theatre. Over the past couple years, Aaron has been a Semi-Finalist for the O’Neill and the Princess Grace Award, and a Finalist for the Jerome Fellowship at the Playwrights’ Center,  Finalist for New York Theater Workshop's 2050 Fellowship, Finalist for The Civilians’ R&D Group (both in 2020 and 2021), and a 2020 Finalist for Dramatists Guild Foundation Fellowship. He is the lyricist for the Off-Broadway musical IMELDA written with East West Players and New Musicals Inc. (Pan Asian Rep, David Henry Hwang Theatre). MFA: Writing for Screen and Television from the USC School of Cinematic Arts.

Libby Carr

is a Houston-raised, Brooklyn-based playwright and dance artist whose work explores the intersections between hyperrealism, movement rituals, and queer joy. Right now, they're writing about precocious children and climate nihilism. Libby recently completed degrees in Theatre and Dance and Plan II Honors at UT Austin, where they were awarded the Trice Prize for Creative Scholarship in a Thesis for their dance play A Normal Misfortune: More or Less the Story of Iphis. Their play Sad Girl Hours was a part of the 2020 Kennedy Center MFA Playwrights’ Workshop and was a semifinalist for the 2021 Bay Area Playwrights’ Workshop. In Austin, Libby’s work was seen at Ground Floor Theatre, UT’s Cohen New Works Festival, and Revolve: A Movement Display. They're currently an artist-in-residence at MOtiVE Brooklyn with their company Risk Fiction Dance Theatre, which they co-founded with their best friend, choreographer Mack Lawrence.

Zoe Kamil

(she/her) is a playwright, theatre artist, and educator. She writes about intersections of sex, race, gender and privilege with a flair for pop culture. As an 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 finishing a Masters in Theatre Education at Emerson College in Boston.

Maria I. Arreola

(she/they) is a Chicana playwright from Illinois who recently graduated from Macalester College with a major in Sociology and Political Science and a minor in Theater. Maria is a recipient of the Kennedy Center Region 5 John Cauble Short Play Award, a former Ascending Playwright at Yonder Window Theatre, and a current Curious New Voices writer. Her writing is primarily inspired by her family.

DANA SCHWARTZ 

is a Los Angeles writer, director, producer and actress. Her play "@Playaz" was a 2019 O'Neill Finalist and had its World Premiere in November 2021 at the Atwater Playhouse produced by Moving Arts. Her award winning play "Early Birds" had its World Premiere in 2019, and is published by Next Stage Press . "Perspective" enjoyed its World Premiere at Theater at the Museum at LACMA. "The PTA" and "That Time She Proposed" were in several productions of the internationally renowned Car Plays, notably at REDcat LA, Disney Hall, Segerstrom Arts and Costa Mesa. "Undead" was produced at Theater Roulette in Cleveland in 2021, “Magical Roots $20” will be part of the Women in the Arts and Media Collection in 2021, and "O My Days" is published by Montag Press. She is co-creator, writer and stars in the 9 episode Zoom series "Isolation Inn", currently airing online. As an actress she has performed all around the world. She is the co-creator and Producer of Theater at the Museum at LACMA, and is currently the Producer of the MADlab New Play Development Program at Moving Arts, where she is a company member.

Kym Fraher

s a playwright who also spends her time helping children develop their language in Early Intervention. She has participated in the Writing lab for Women’s Theater Alliance, New Colony’s Writer’s Room program, SPARK Creative Works virtual showcase, and The Magnetic Theatre’s One Act Play Festival 2021. She is eager to continue to explore the human condition through narrative and hopes that her plays help bring new perspectives to others. She thanks her family and especially Clarence, who has encouraged her since the beginning.