Jen Silverman’s work has been produced in New York by Clubbed Thumb (PHOEBE IN WINTER) and the Playwrights Realm (CRANE STORY), and at Actor’s Theatre of Louisville (THE ROOMMATE, Humana 2015; WONDROUS STRANGE, Humana 2016), Yale Rep (THE MOORS), and at InterAct Theatre in Philadelphia (THE DANGEROUS HOUSE OF PRETTY MBANE, Barrymore Award, Steinberg Award citation). She has productions upcoming at Woolly Mammoth (COLLECTIVE RAGE: A PLAY IN 5 BOOPS) and Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park (ALL THE ROADS HOME), and development upcoming at South Coast Rep’s Pacific Playwrights Festival (WINK), and Ground Floor at Berkeley Rep (MY FATHER THE SPEEDING BULLET: NINCEST).
She is a member of New Dramatists, a Core Writer at the Playwrights Center in Minneapolis, and has developed work with the Cherry Lane Mentor Project, the O’Neill, Playpenn, SPACE on Ryder Farm, Williamstown, New York Theatre Workshop, Portland Center Stage, Boston Court Theatre in LA, Youngblood/ EST, and the Royal Court in London among other places. She’s a two-time MacDowell fellow, recipient of the Kennedy Center’s Paula Vogel Playwriting Award, a New York Foundation for the Arts grant, a Leah Ryan Fellowship/ Lilly Award, the Inge Center’s Otis Guernsey New Voices Award, the Helen Merrill Fund Award for emerging playwrights, and the Yale Drama Series Award for STILL. She is a 2016-2017 PoNY Fellow at the Lark. Education: Brown, Iowa Playwrights Workshop, Juilliard.
Martyna Majok was born in Bytom, Poland, and aged in Jersey and Chicago. Her plays include MOUSE IN A JAR, THE FRIENDSHIP OF HER THIGHS, PETTY HARBOUR, REWILDING, WOMEN AT THE WELL, and IRONBOUND (top ten play for the 2014 Kilroys' list). Martyna’s work has been presented and developed with Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Marin Theatre Company, Round House Theatre, Actors Theatre of Louisville, The John F. Kennedy Center, Satori Group, New York Stage & Film, the claque, Yale Cabaret, The Playwright and Director Center of Moscow, HERE Arts Center, Red Tape Theatre, and The LIDA Project, among others. Martyna has been awarded The David Calicchio Emerging American Playwright Prize, The 2050 Fellowship from New York Theatre Workshop, Aurora Theatre’s Global Age Project Prize, The National New Play Network's Smith Prize for Political Playwriting, The Jane Chambers Student Feminist Playwriting Prize, The Merage Fellowship for the American Dream, The Olga and Paul Menn Award in Playwriting, The Howard Stein Scholarship for Playwriting, a Puffin Foundation grant, residencies at Ragdale and Fuller Road, commissions from EST/Sloan Foundation, Walkabout Theatre, and The Foundry Theatre, and publications by Samuel French and Smith & Kraus. BA: University of Chicago; MFA: Yale School of Drama. She has taught playwriting at Wesleyan, The New Haven Co-Op High School, New Jersey Repertory Company, and SUNY Purchase, and assisted Paula Vogel at Yale. She is developing a musical about modern-day Chernobyl for The Foundry Theatre. Proud member of Ensemble Studio Theatre's Youngblood, The 2014-2016 Women's Project Lab, and Ars Nova's Uncharted. Martyna was the 2012-2013 NNPN playwright-in-residence at New Jersey Repertory Company. Her last name is pronounced "my-oak."
Olivia's plays include YEAR OF THE ROOSTER (New York Times Critics' Pick), THE TOMB OF KING TOT, AMERICAN GIRLS, and THE LAST GREAT TELEMARKETER. YEAR OF THE ROOSTER has been produced by the Marin Theatre Company, Impact Theatre in Berkeley, Stray Cat Theatre in Tempe, AZ, and Fusion Theatre Company in Albuquerque, NM. Olivia’s plays have been performed at the Ensemble Studio Theatre/Youngblood as part of their "34th Annual Marathon of One Act Plays" and Mainstage series. Additionally, her work has been performed at the Flea Theatre, the 52nd Street Project, the Magnet Theatre, Theater for the New City, Lark Play Development Center, and the Great Plains Theatre Conference. She is the recipient of a 2013 Sloan Commission, the 2013 David Colicchio Emerging Playwright Award, the 2010 Lipkin Playwriting Award, and the 2008, 2009, and 2010 Harle Adair Damann Playwriting Award. Her work is included in the "Best Ten-Minute Plays of 2014" and "Best New Plays of 2014" anthologies. She is a member of the Obie award-winning Youngblood Playwriting Group.
Olivia Dufault is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College.
Kimber Lee is currently the 2014-2015 Aetna New Voices Fellow at Hartford and a member of the Ma-Yi Writers Lab. Her work has been produced and developed by Lark, Page 73 Productions, the Hedgebrook Women Playwrights Festival, the Dramatists Guild Fellows Program, Great Plains Theatre Conference, Mo`olelo Performing Arts Company, Southern Rep and The Playwrights’ Center in Minneapolis, where she was a Core Apprentice.
Her play FIGHT received the 2010 Holland New Voices Award and was a Finalist for the 2011 Ruby Prize and the O’Neill National Playwrights Conference. In 2012, Kimber’s play DIFFERENT WORDS FOR THE SAME THING was a Finalist for the Bay Area Playwrights’ Festival, Seven Devils Playwrights Conference, and the Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab. DIFFERENT WORDS FOR THE SAME THING made its World Premiere in May 2014 at the Center Theatre Group in Los Angeles. Her play BROWNSVILLE SONG (B-SIDE FOR TRAY) was a winner at the Bay Area Playwrights Festival, and a Finalist for the 2013 Premiere Stages New Play Festival. BROWNSVILLE SONG debuted at the 2014 Human Festival for New American Plays and made its NYC premiere at LCT3, Lincoln Center’s black box theater, in Fall 2014. Her play TOKYO FISH STORY will make its world premiere at South Coast Rep in Spring 2015.
Kimber received her MFA from the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas at Austin.
Dominique’s play, PARADISE BLUE, won the 2013 L. Arnold Weissberger Award for Playwriting from the Williamstown Theatre Festival. Her play SUNSET BABY had its world premiere at the Gate Theater in London, UK in 2012, and played at the Labyrinth Theatre Company in NYC in Fall 2013. DETROIT '67, which premiered in the 2012-2013 season of the Public Theater and the Classical Theatre of Harlem, won the 2014 Edward M. Kennedy Prize for Drama Inspired by American History. Her play SKELETON CREW received a BareBones production at the Lark Play Development Center in 2014, and won Marin Theatre Company’s Sky Cooper New American Play Prize.
Dominique was granted the 2013 Emerging Leader Award from the University of Michigan Detroit Center for her notable achievements in her field, and for her potential to make significant national and/or global contributions of merit. Dominique has been a member of the 2011 Public Theater Emerging Writer's Group, the Women's Project Playwrights Lab, and was a 2011-2012 Lark Playwrights Workshop fellow. Dominique is a Jane Chambers Playwriting Award Honoree, a two-time NAACP Image Award recipient, a runner-up for the 2011 Princess Grace Award, and a recipient of the Elizabeth George commission from South Coast Rep.
As an actress, Dominique has performed with BET/Viacom, The Lark, Women's Project, McCarter Theater, NYSAF, and MCC Theater. In Fall of 2013, she starred in Katori Hall’s THE MOUNTAINTOP, presented by The Actors Theatre of Louisville. As a poet, she has rocked stages with The Last Poets, Sonia Sanchez, and Jessica Care Moore.
Dominique received her BFA in Theatre Performance from the University of Michigan.
Rey’s play EDITH CAN SHOOT THINGS AND HIT THEM – which began its rolling world premiere at the Actors Theatre of Louisville's 2011 Humana Festival before going on to productions at New Theater, Actors' Express, Mu Performing Arts, and B Street—will be produced as part of the New Black Fest series, inspired by the case of Trayvon Martin. His play THUNDER ABOVE, DEEPS BELOW, initially produced by Second Generation in 2009, was presented as part of the inaugural season in the new space for San Francisco's Bindlestiff Studio in April 2012. Rey’s play AND RIGHT NOW was recently featured in NewSCRipts at South Coast Repertory in March 2013. This year, Rey received a nomination for a GLADD Media Award for EDITH CAN SHOOT THINGS AND HIT THEM, as well as a double nomination for the 2013 Lambda Literary Award (LGBT Drama) for EDITH CAN SHOOT THINGS AND HIT THEM and THUNDER ABOVE, DEEPS BELOW. His other full-length plays include: BEAUTIFUL SAY, NEW, PICTURE 24, and PURE.
Rey won the 2010 Princess Grace Award for Playwriting. Rey was recently selected as one of the 2012-13 Hodder Fellows by the Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University. Rey has been a NYFA Playwriting Fellow, an artist-delegate to the first U.S. Social Forum, and a Truman Capote Literary Fellow. Rey is Co-Director of the Ma-Yi Writer’s Lab.
In Summer 2014, his play A POWER PLAY; OR, WHAT’S-ITS-NAME was presented at the O’Neill Playwrights Conference, his second residency there after Thunder Above, Deeps Below was presented in 2008. His play AFTER ALL THE TERRIBLE THINGS I DO made its world premiere this Fall at Milwaukee Rep and will go on to a production at Boston’s Huntington Theatre in Spring 2015 directed by Peter DuBois. His work has been developed at The Public, Victory Gardens, Playwrights’ Horizons, The Magic, Ars Nova, Ma- Yi, Rattlestick, E.S.T., The Lark, New Dramatists, NNPN, and the National Asian American Theater Conference. Rey has been commissioned by Berkeley Rep, South Coast Repertory, Actors Theatre, E.S.T./Sloan, Mabou Mines, and Vampire Cowboys.
Rey received his BFA in Drama from NYU, and his MFA in Playwriting from the Yale School of Drama.
Tommy wrote 10 new plays during his PoNY year. As a director/writer, Tommy recently created the environmental sound performances, NECTARINE EP (for Flea Theater) LOTUS EATERS EP (for IRT Theater) and FORTH (for MFB). His play WHITE HOT, which premiered at HERE Arts Center in NYC in 2007, was produced in Seattle at West of Lenin in 2012, as well as at Theatre Asylum LAB at the Hollywood Fringe Festival in LA in 2013. His doorman comedy ZERO was workshopped at The Lark Play Development Center in 2012 and featured in the 2013 Marathon of One-Act Plays at Ensemble Studio Theatre and in the Labyrinth Theater Barn Series Reading. Recently, his feature film FIGMENT was optioned by Ridley Scott's production company, ScottFree.
His other plays include THE WIFE produced at Access Theater, SEXTET at Washington Ensemble Theater, PTSD at E.S.T., THE BREAK-UP at Flea Theater, BEAUTIFUL NIGHT commissioned by E.S.T., AIR CONDITIONING selected for the Eugene O’Neill Playwrights Conference, GOODNIGHT MECCA at Williamstown, and db developed at the JAW Festival at Portland Center Stage. His play DISINFORMATION, co-created with Reggie Watts, played at the Under the Radar Festival at The Public Theater, The Portland Institute for Contemporary Art’s Time-Based Art Festival, The Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago), The Warhol Museum (Pittsburgh) and ICA (Boston). In Winter 2014, Tommy’s play FIREMEN was extended twice at the Echo Theatre Company, and the production was nominated for an Ovation Award. His play SEXTET will make its world premiere at the Echo in February 2015.
Tommy is a two-time winner of the Lecomte du Nouy Prize, a winner of the Page73 Productions Playwriting Fellowship, a recipient of an E.S.T./Sloan Grant, and a member of the Dorothy Strelsin New American Writer’s Group at Primary Stages. He is also the recipient of the the Creative Capital Award and a two-time winner of the MAP Fund Award.
Tommy is a graduate of the playwriting program at Juilliard.
Katori Hall is a playwright/performer hailing from Memphis, TN. During her Fellowship year, Katori won a 2010 Olivier Award (UK) for Best New Play for THE MOUNTAINTOP before it moved to Broadway in 2011, starring Samuel L. Jackson and Angela Bassett. THE MOUNTAINTOP was named one of the Top 10 most-produced plays nationwide in the 2013-2014 season and the 2014-15 season. Internationally, THE MOUNTAINTOP was presented by the Melbourne Theatre Company in Austalia, The Market Theatre in Johannesburg, South Africa, and will have its Canadian premiere at Theatre Calgary in 2014.
Her play HURT VILLAGE, which premiered at the Signature Theater, was awarded the 2011 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, and was a finalist for the 2013 Edward M. Kennedy Prize for Drama. The script was developed at the 2011 Sundance Screenwriters Lab and is being adapted into a film. Katori's other plays include CHILDREN OF KILLERS (National Theatre, UK and Castillo Theatre, NYC), HOODOO LOVE (Cherry Lane Theatre), REMEMBRANCE (Women’s Project), SATURDAY NIGHT/SUNDAY MORNING, WHADDABLOODCLOT!!! (Williamstown Theatre Festival), and PUSSY VALLEY. Her play OUR LADY OF KIBEHO made its world premiere in November 2014 at Signature Theatre in NYC.
She is the recipient of numerous awards, including two Lecompte du Nouy Prizes from Lincoln Center, a NYSCA Grant, New Professional Theatre Writers’ Festival award, the ARENA Stage American Voices New Play Residency, the Kate Neal Kinley Fellowship, Fellowship of Southern Writers Bryan Family Award in Drama, a NYFA Fellowship, Royal Court Theatre Residency, the Otis Guernsey New Voices Playwriting Award, and the Lorraine Hansberry Playwriting Award. She received a nomination for the Wendy Wasserstein Prize.
Katori has been a Kennedy Center Playwriting Fellow at the O’Neill. She was a member of the 2007-2008 Lark Playwrights’ Workshop and the 2006-2008 Women’s Project Playwrights’ Lab, and was the playwright-in-residence at the Women’s Project. She is a member of the Dorothy Strelsin New American Writer's Group at Primary Stages, the Ron Brown Scholar Program, the Coca-Cola Scholar Program, the Dramatists Guild, and the Fellowship of Southern Writers. She is currently a member of the Residency Five at Signature Theatre Company in New York City. Hall has worked as an actor and has numerous credits in television and theater, and has been published as a book reviewer, journalist, and essayist in publications such as The New York Times, The Boston Globe, UK’s The Guardian, Essence, The Commercial Appeal, and Newsweek.
Katori received her BA from Columbia University, and is also a graduate of the A.R.T. Institute at Harvard University and the playwriting program at the Juilliard School.
Sam is a 2014 recipient of a MacArthur “Genius” Award. In 2011, Sam won an Obie ("Off-Broadway Tony") for his play A BRIGHT NEW BOISE. It received excellent reviews from the New York Times, a 2011 Drama Desk Nomination for Best Play, and had a successful run at The Woolly Mammoth in Washington D.C.
In 2013, Sam’s play THE WHALE won the Drama Desk Award, along with the 2013 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Play, NYC GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding NY Theatre, and the Outer Critics Circle Award nomination for Outstanding New Off-Broadway Play. His play THE FEW was presented in numerous venues across the country, including the Old Globe in San Diego, New Play Series at the Dorset Theatre Festival, the Ojai Playwrights Conference, and Rattlestick Playwrights Theater in NYC. Sam’s play A GREAT WILDERNESS was selected for the O'Neill National Playwrights Conference in 2013 and made its world premiere at Seattle Repertory Theater in January 2014. His play REST made its world premiere at South Coast Rep in 2014. Sam’s newest play, POCATELLO, makes its world premiere at Playwrights Horizons in NYC in December 2014.
His plays also include JACK'S PRECIOUS MOMENT at 59e59 Theaters, ABRAHAM (A SHOT IN THE HEAD) at Richard Foreman's Ontological-Hysteric Theater, I AM MONTANA, NORMAN ROCKWELL KILLED MY FATHER, ABRAHAM (I AM AN ISLAND), and PIGHEART.
Sam received a prestigious 2012 Whiting Writers Award, the 2013 Otis Guernsey New Voices Award, the 2011 Sky Cooper Prize, and was chosen for the inaugural fellowship of The Writer’s Room in 2013, a collaboration with Manhattan Theatre Club and Ars Nova.
His work has been developed at the O'Neill Playwrights Conference, the Ojai Playwrights Conference, Seven Devils, the Bay Area Playwrights Festival, JAW West, and elsewhere. He has active commissions from LCT3, Steppenwolf, Playwrights Horizons, and MTC/Ars Nova. He is a member of New Dramatists, an Ensemble Playwright at Victory Gardens, a Core Member of The Playwrights’ Center, a member of Partial Comfort Productions, and is currently a Resident Playwright at Arena Stage. Sam has been a playwright-in-residence at the Juilliard School, and has taught at the University of Iowa, Fordham University, and in the Occupied Palestinian Territories at Ashtar Theater (Ramallah) and Ayyam al-Masrah (Hebron).
Sam received his BFA in Dramatic Writing from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, and his MFA from the Iowa Playwrights Workshop in 2007.
Carson Kreitzer was the first PoNY Fellow. During her PONY year, Carson finished a commission for the Guthrie Theater, BE HERE NOW, and TINY ROOMS, her commission for Next Theatre in Chicago. She also finished a draft for ENCHANTMENT, her play on Bruno Bettelheim and Temple Grandin.
Prior to 2007, her play THE LOVE SONG OF J. ROBERT OPPENHEIMER won the Lois and Richard Rosenthal New Play Prize, the American Theatre Critics; Steinberg Citation, the Barrie Stavis Award, and is published in Smith and Kraus’ "New Playwrights: Best Plays of 2004" and by Dramatic Publishing. Carson’s SELF DEFENSE OR DEATH OF SOME SALESMEN has been produced across the country, and is published by Playscripts and in Smith and Kraus’ “Women Playwrights: Best Plays of 2002.” In 2013, the play made its Ohio debut at the Liminis Theater in Cleveland.
Since leaving the PONY apartment, Carson was invited by the Playwrights' Center in Minneapolis to be a Core Writer for four years, and in 2010, was awarded a prestigious National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) grant to develop her play, BEHIND THE EYE. It premiered at Cincinnati Playhouse, and critics called it "the best piece of theater this season." Carson's play OH, GASTRONOMY! was featured in the 2012 Humana Festival, and she is currently at work on a number of new plays including LEMPICKA, a commission of a new musical for Yale Rep. Her play LASSO OF TRUTH made its World Premiere through the National New Play Network at the Marin Theatre Company in February 2014, continuing on to productions at the Synchronicity Theatre in Atlanta and the Unicorn Theatre in Kansas City, MO.
Carson Kreitzer has received numerous awards, including grants from New York Foundation for the Arts, NYSCA, TCG, Jerome and McKnight Foundations, and the Loewe Award in Music-Theatre. She has been a resident playwright at New Dramatists. Carson was named an Australian Exchange Playwright by the National New Play Network and PlayWriting Australia. She was the recipient of the 2014 Joe Dowling Annaghmakerrig Fellowship from the Guthrie Theater, which includes a residency in Ireland.
Carson received her BA from Yale and her MFA from the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas at Austin.
For an exceptional applicant to be awarded for extraordinary circumstance at the discretion of review committee.
Tarell McCraney is a 2013 recipient of the MacArthur “Genius” Award. He was born and raised in Liberty City, the inner city area of Miami, Florida. He is best known for his BROTHERS/SISTERS PLAYS, a trilogy consisting of: THE BROTHERS SIZE, IN THE RED AND BROWN WATER (winner of the 2007 Kendeda award), and MARCUS; OR THE SECRET OF THE SWEET. In 2009, McCraney was awarded the first annual New York Times Outstanding Playwright Award for THE BROTHERS SIZE. For the Young Vic production of THE BROTHERS SIZE in London, UK, Tarell was nominated for an Olivier Award, and received London’s Evening Standard Award for Most Promising Playwright.
In 2008, Tarell became the international writer in residence at the Royal Shakespeare Company, where his commissioned play AMERICAN TRADE premiered in 2011. Tarell is also a member of the Steppenwolf Theatre Emsemble. His play HEAD OF PASSES premiered in the 2012-2013 Steppenwolf Theatre Company season, for which he was awarded a major grant through National Endowment for the Arts. In 2013, Tarell’s CHOIR BOY had its NYC run extended twice at the Manhattan Theatre Club and went on to a 2014 production at the Geffen Theater in Los Angeles. Tarell is directed his own adaptation of ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA, which made a 3-city tour with the Royal Shakespeare Company to Stratford-upon-Avon, GableStage in Miami, FL, and the Public Theater in NYC.
Tarrell is a recipient of the 2013 Windham-Campbell Literature Prize. In recent years, he has been named the inaugural winner of the Paula Vogel Playwriting Award, and the Whiting Writing Award. He was the Hodder Fellow at the Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University in 2009.
Tarell received his BFA from DePaul University in Chicago, and his MFA in Playwriting from the Yale School of Drama.
