Downtown Urban Arts Festival Announces 2018 Playwrights

Downtown Urban Arts Festival (DUAF) announces the playwrights accepted into its 2018 season.

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The accepted plays are:

American Tranquility - Daniel Damiano

Damiano is an award-winning playwright, award-nominated actor and published poet. He recently appeared in the revival of "The Elephant Man" (Gallery Players Theatre) followed by his solo play, "American Tranquility" (PIT Loft, Solocom). His play, "Harmony Park" will receive its premiere with Detroit Repertory Theatre in 2018.

Atacama - Augusto Federico Amador

Amador was born and raised in the Silicon Valley. He has recently been awarded the prestigious Lincoln City Fellowship from Speranza Foundation for his upcoming play, The Sunset Room. Amador is a member of the Dramatist Guild.

A Civilized World - Anghus Houvouras

Houvouras has been writing for screen, stage and the printed page since 2003. His recent stage work has included "Dine and Dash" featured as part of the DUAF and "Penmanship" which won best comedy at the Equity Library Theater Festival in NYC.

Blood Orange - Marcus Scott

Scott is a playwright, musical theater writer and journalist. Plays include: "Tumbleweed" (finalist for the 2017/2018 Humanitas Play LA Workshop, Playwrights Foundation's Bay Area Playwrights Festival) and "Cherry Bomb" (Drama League's First Stage Artist In Residence) and "Malaise" (2017 DUAF).

Corporatesthenics - Baindu Dafina Kalokoh

Kalokoh, a native of Brooklyn, NY, uses various mediums of the performing arts to conduct storytelling. She has performed solo shows to sold out audiences and received numerous awards.

Deranged Fan - Adam Seidel

Seidel is a New York-based playwright. His plays have been produced by and featured at Cherry Lane, The Road in La, the Milwaukee Rep, Rattlestick playwrights and many more. His play, "Catch The Butcher" was 2015 NYT critics pick.

Gay.Porn.Mafia - Joe Gulla

Gulla won two Audience Awards at DUAF with "Garbo" in 2017 and "The Bronx Queen" in 2016. His acting roles include: "Joey" in San Francisco's "Tony & Tina's Wedding" and "Frankie" in off-Broadway's "My Big Gay Italian Wedding". He also starred on NBC's "Lost".

Help Me Get Over You - Rollin Jewett

Jewett is an award-winning playwright, screenwriter, singer/songwriter, author and poet. His feature film credits include "Laws of Deception" and "American Vampire". His short stories and poetry have been published in numerous magazines and his plays have been produced all over the world.

Mirrors - Azure D. Osborne-Lee

Osborne-Lee is an award-winning Black queer theatre maker from South of the Mason-Dixon Line. In 2017, his play "Crooked Parts" was presented at Cherry Lane Theatre as part of the DUAF, and his full-length play "Glass" received a workshop production at JACK in Brooklyn.

My Funeral Is Saturday, Please Try - J.E. Robinson

Robinson's play "Spades" received Second-Place, Short Play category, in the 2015 DUAF. He lives in Southern Illinois, near St. Louis.

Sailing Stones - Juan M. Ramirez, Jr.

Ramirez is a writer, actor and director. His works were developed at Dixon Place, The Cherry Lane Theatre with DUAF, Theatre Row, IATI, the Studio at the 14th Street Y, The Bronx Repertory Company and others. He's a Dramatist Guild member and received his MFA from NYU Tisch.

Strings - Charles Curtis

Performance and teaching artist, Curtis' work has been featured at the National Black Theatre Festival, Atlanta Black Theatre Festival, and Fresh Fruit Festival. His credits span from opera to film, and outside the performing world, he lectures on using Hip Hop to teach life skills.

Sublet - Alisa Zhulina

Zhulina is a playwright and Assistant Professor/Faculty Fellow in Drama at NYU Tisch. Her plays have been produced by Exquisite Corpse Company, at Dixon Place, New Perspectives Theatre, the Theatre Project and elsewhere. She holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Harvard University.

The Diplomats - Nelson Diaz-Marcano

Diaz-Marcano is an award winning Puerto Rican-born playwright based in NYC. Production credits include: "Rabiosa" (The Dirty Blondes Pa' Puerto Rico); "Mami's House" (Step1 Theatre Project AUxPR); "Promised Lands" (Stable Cable Lab Co's Livewire); and "Radical" (Winner of Best Play DUAF 2016).

The Vast Mystery of Who You Are - Kim Yaged

Yaged received the Kennedy Center's Meritorious Achievement Award for "America" and four Ann Arbor News Awards for www.love (New York City Opera). "Hypocrites & Strippers" is included in The Best Women's Monologues for the 21st Century.

Trash Talk - Alano P. Baez

Baez, born in Ponce, Puerto Rico was raised in NYC (East Harlem and the South Bronx). He is a community activist, poet, MC, graffiti writer, actor and teacher. He has released several independent music albums and published a book of poetry.

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DUAF is a five-week multi-disciplinary arts showcase with cultural offerings in theater, film, music and poetry held annually in the spring at renowned venues in downtown Manhattan, NYC. 2018 marks the 16th season of the THEATER series that was founded with the purpose to build a repertoire of new American theater that echoes the true spirit of urban life and speaks to a new generation whose lives defy categorizing along conventional lines. That purpose has been realized many times over, as 200 plays created and refined for the stage by 170 writers from New York and across America's burgeoning multicultural landscape. For more information about DUAF, visit www.duafnyc.com and www.facebook.com/dutfnyc.