Atlantic Theater Commisions New Works by Simon Stephens, Jennifer Haley & More

Atlantic Theater Company has announced commissions of six new plays by Jocelyn Bioh, Jennifer Haley, Paola Lázaro, Qui Nguyen, Heidi Schreck, and Simon Stephens and Mark Eitzel.

"Atlantic is thrilled to be working with and supporting these amazing artists. They have such a wide range of backgrounds, aesthetics, and are at different points in their careers," said Neil Pepe, Atlantic's Artistic Director. "Some are artists we know and love, others we have been following and are new to the company. We look forward to seeing what all these writers come up with."

Qui Nguyen (Vampire Cowboys) whose play Vietgone will be seen at MTC next season will write a new play for Atlantic.

Jocelyn Bioh and Paola Lázaro are the recipients of Atlantic's Launch Commission for early career playwrights. They join David Mitchell Robinson who was announced earlier this season. Previous Launch commission writers are Dennis A. Allen II and Amy E. Witting. Lázaro has also been named Atlantic's 2016-2017 Tow playwright-in-residence, supported generously by the Tow Foundation.

Jennifer Haley (The Nether, Neighborhood 3) will collaborate with Tony Award-nominated director Jeremy Herrin (Wolf Hall) for this co-commission with London-based Headlong Theatre.

Heidi Schreck (Grand Concourse) is commissioned through Atlantic's association with the Kenyon Institute at Kenyon College. She will travel to the Kenyon Playwrights Conference in June to work on her play for two weeks with director Ken Rus Schmoll (The Invisible Hand) and teach a master class. It will be Atlantic's second partnership with Kenyon, having commissioned playwright Craig Lucas through the same program in 2013.

Simon Stephens (Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Heisenberg) and musician Mark Eitzel (American Music Club) will collaborate to create a play with music for Atlantic's Ensemble. They previously collaborated on Marine Parade which premiered at the Brighton Festival in 2010, and Song from Far Away, which was directed by Ivo van Hove for his company Toneelgroep Amsterdam in 2015 and subsequently played the Young Vic. Atlantic previously produced Stephens' plays Bluebird and Harper Regan.

Past Atlantic produced commissions include Doug Wright's Posterity, David Auburn's adaptation of Langdon Mitchell's The New York Idea, Jessica Goldberg's Get What You Need, Kia Corthron's Force Continuum and Tom Donaghy's The Beginning of August.

Recent Atlantic commissioned playwrights include Rachel Bonds, Bathsheba Doran, Melissa James Gibson, Chisa Hutchinson, Kenneth Lonergan, Craig Lucas, Rogelio Martinez, Dael Orlandersmith, David Pittu, Shelagh Stephenson, Jeff Whitty, and Roy Williams.

Atlantic's new play development activities are made possible by leadership support from the Time Warner Foundation with additional support from the Axe-Houghton Foundation, the Barbara Bell Cumming Foundation, the John Golden Fund, The Blanche and Irving Laurie Foundation, and the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation.

Atlantic productions and programs are also supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council, as well as the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

Biographies

Jocelyn Bioh has a B.A. in English and Theatre from The Ohio State University and MFA in Theatre-Playwriting from Columbia University School of the Arts. As a playwright, Jocelyn has been featured in New York City, Columbus, OH, Baton Rouge, LA and Washington D.C. Plays include: African Americans (Produced at Howard University 2015; Southern Rep Ruby Prize Award Finalist 2011; O'Neill Center Semi-Finalist, 2012), Nollywood Dreams (Kilroy's List 2015) and her new play School Girls. Her musical The Ladykiller's Love Story, which she conceived the story and wrote the book, with music/lyrics by Cee Lo Green, is currently in development with Hi-Arts NYC. As an actress, Jocelyn's credits include: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (Broadway; Tony Award Winner for Best Play, 2015), An Octoroon (Soho Rep, Obie Award Winner for Best Play, 2014), Booty Candy (Wilma Theater), Seed (Classical Theater of Harlem, Audelco Award Nominee), and Marcus: or the Secret of Sweet (City Theatre). She also originated the role of "Topsy" in the World Premiere of Neighbors (The Public Theater, Audelco Award Nominee). TV: Former Cover Girl spokesmodel, "The Characters" (Netflix), "Louie" (FX), and "One Life to Live" (ABC).

Jennifer Haley is a playwright whose work delves into ethics in virtual reality and the impact of technology on our human relationships, identity, and desire. She won the 2012 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize for her play, The Nether, produced in Los Angeles, off-Broadway, and in London's West End in a partnership between Headlong and the Royal Court Theatre. Other plays include Neighborhood 3: Requisition of Doom, a horror story about suburban video game addiction, and Froggy, a noir thriller with interactive media design and a live soundtrack. Jennifer has worked with Center Theatre Group, Royal Court Theatre, Headlong, Sonia Friedman Productions, the Humana Festival of New Plays, American Conservatory Theater, The Banff Centre, Sundance Theatre Lab, O'Neill National Playwrights Conference, Lark Play Development Center, PlayPenn, and Page 73. She is a member of New Dramatists in New York City and lives in Los Angeles, where she founded the Playwrights Union.

Jeremy Herrin trained as a theatre director at both the National Theatre and the Royal Court, where he became Deputy Artistic Director in 2008. Between 2000 and 2008 he was an Associate Director at Live Theatre in Newcastle upon Tyne. Jeremy replaced Rupert Goold as Artistic Director of Headlong Theatre in September 2013. In 2007, he directed the UK premiere of David Hare's play, The Vertical Hour, as well as Polly Stenham's award-winning That Face at the Royal Court. That Face later transferred to London's West End, where it starred Lindsay Duncan and Matt Smith and was produced by Sonia Friedman. Two years later, in 2009, Jeremy directed Polly's second play, Tusk Tusk for which he was nominated for an Evening Standard Best Director Award. Other work at the Royal Court includes EV Crowe's Hero, Richard Bean's The Heretic, Kin, Spur of the Moment, Off The Endz and The Priory, which won an Olivier Award for best Comedy. In 2012 Jeremy directed the Olivier-nominated This House, written by James Graham, at the National Theatre and was named as one of the Stage top 100. In 2014 Jeremy directed the critically acclaimed adaptations of Hilary Mantel's novels Wolf Hall and Bring up the Bodies for the RSC and was nominated for an Olivier Award for Best Director. The productions transferred to the West End at the end of 2014 and opened on Broadway in April 2015. His production of People, Places and Things at the National Theatre will transfer to the Wyndham's Theatre in 2016 and his Broadway production of Noises Off opened in January 2016.

Featured Works

Paola Lázaro is a playwright and actress born and raised in San Juan, Puerto Rico. She holds a B.F.A. in Dramatic Writing from SUNY Purchase College and an M.F.A. in Playwriting from Columbia University. Paola was recently awarded The Tow Foundation Playwright-in-Residence grant at the Atlantic Theater Company. Her plays also include Tell Hector I Miss Him, Contigo, Rich Port and There's Always the Hudson, which will have a reading at The Labyrinth Theater Company in May as part of Labyrinth's Up Next Reading Series. Paola is the recipient of the Arts Entertainment Scholarship Award (2011) from the National Hispanic Foundation for the Arts for her pilot episode of "Trópico." She was a member of the Public Theater 2015 Emerging Writers Group. Paola was selected as Playwright-in-Residence for the upcoming Sundance Theater Lab in Morocco this summer. In 2015 she was nominated for a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actress in a Play for her role in To the Bone at the Cherry Lane Theatre.

Qui Nguyen, often credited as a pioneer of "geek theatre", is a playwright, TV writer, and co-founder of the OBIE Award-winning Vampire Cowboys Theatre Company of NYC. His plays include Vietgone (premiered October 2016 at South Coast Repertory with upcoming productions at Oregon Shakespeare Festival in April 2016 and Manhattan Theatre Club in October 2016); War is F**king Awesome (developed by Sundance Theatre Institute, Frederick Loewe Award); She Kills Monsters (The Flea, Buzz22 Chicago/Steppenwolf, Company One, 2014 AATE Distinguished Play Award, 2012 GLAAD Media Award nom); Krunk Fu Battle Battle (East West Players); Bike Wreck (Ensemble Studio Theatre); Soul Samurai (2009 GLAAD Media Award nom), The Inexplicable Redemption of Agent G (Ma-Yi Theater & Vampire Cowboys); and the critically acclaimed Vampire Cowboys productions of Alice in Slasherland, Fight Girl Battle World, Men of Steel, and Living Dead in Denmark. He is a recipient of the 2015 New York Community Trust Helen Merrill Playwriting Award and 2014 Sundance Institute/Time Warner Fellowship. He is currently under commission from the Atlantic Theater Company, Manhattan Theatre Club/South Coast Repertory, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and Children's Theatre Company. He is a resident artist at New Dramatists, a core member of The Playwrights Center, and a member of Ensemble Studio Theatre and The Ma-Yi Writers Lab. For television, he's writes for the Emmy Award-winning PBS children's cartoon, Peg+Cat.

Ken Rus Schmoll is currently directing Anne Washburn's Antlia Pneumatica at Playwrights Horizons, and last season directed the world premiere of Iowa by Jenny Schwartz and Todd Almond at Playwrights Horizons. He directed Anne Washburn's The Internationalist for both 13P and the Vineyard Theatre and her one-act October/November for Ensemble Studio Theater's 2008 Marathon. Recent credits include Max Posner's Judy for Page 73, Kate E. Ryan's Card and Gift for Clubbed Thumb and Ayad Akhtar's The Invisible Hand at New York Theatre Workshop (Lucille Lortel nomination). Previous work includes The Grown-Up, Death Tax (Humana Festival); George Brant's Grounded (Walkerspace); Not What Happened (BAM Next Wave); Red Dog Howls (NYTW); Luther, Telethon, Amazons and Their Men, Demon Baby(Clubbed Thumb); A Map of Virtue, Mark Smith, Aphrodisiac (13P); Telephone (Foundry Theatre); Middletown(Vineyard Theatre); What Once We Felt (LCT3); Hello Failure (PS 122); and Cause for Alarm (NY Fringe Festival). Ken is a usual suspect at New York Theatre Workshop, an affiliated artist with Clubbed Thumb, a three-time Sundance Theatre Institute alum, co-chair of the Soho Rep. Writer/Director Lab, co-mentor of the Clubbed Thumb Directing Fellowship and the recipient of two Obie Awards.

Heidi Schreck is an award-winning playwright and actor living in Brooklyn. Her most recent play Grand Concourse was produced by Playwrights Horizons, Steppenwolf, and many theaters around the country, and was a finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize in 2015. Other plays include There Are No More Big Secrets, produced by Rattlestick in 2010 (Time Out New York and New York Magazine Critics' pick); and Creature, presented in 2009 by Page 73 and New Georges. Heidi is the recipient of the P73 Playwriting Fellowship, the Roe Green Award from the Cleveland Playhouse, the Sundance Playwriting Residency, the Lilly Awards Stacey Mindich Prize, and the Claire Tow Fellowship at Playwrights Horizons. She has commissions from South Coast Rep, True Love Productions and MTC, and has written for the Showtime series "Billions" and "Nurse Jackie." As an actor, Heidi has performed at theaters such as The Roundabout, Playwrights Horizons, The Public, Women's Project, Clubbed Thumb and Manhattan Theatre Club. She has received two Obies, a Drama Desk, and the Theatre World Award.

Simon Stephens is an award-winning playwright. His early work at the Royal Court includes Bluebird (1998); Herons (2001), Country Music (2004) and Motortown (2006). In 2008 his play Harper Regan opened at the National Theatre, and Sea Wall, starring Andrew Scott, played at the Bush. Simon then had success with his plays Pornography (Deutsches Schauspielhaus, Hanover, 2007 and Edinburgh Festival / Birmingham Rep, 2008 and Tricycle Theatre, 2009) and Punk Rock (Lyric Hammersmith / Manchester Royal Exchange, 2009) which won the 2009 Manchester Evening News Award for Best Production. In 2011, I Am the Wind, an adaptation from Jon Fosse's original, opened at the Young Vic. 2012 saw Three Kingdoms performed in London, Tallinn and Munich, Morning at the Lyric Theatre, and a new version of Ibsen's A Doll's House at the Young Vic which subsequently transferred to the Duke of York's Theatre in 2013. His adaption of Mark Haddon's novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time won the Olivier and Tony Awards for Best New Play (National Theatre, 2012; Apollo Theatre, 2013; Gielgud, 2014 - present; Barrymore Theatre on Broadway, 2015). In 2014 Simon premiered Carmen Disruption at Deutsches Schauspielhaus in Hamburg, which transferred to the Almeida Theatre in London in 2015, and Birdland at the Royal Court. His adaptation of Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard also opened at the Young Vic in 2014. In 2015, Heisenberg opened at MTC in New York; The Funfair, Simon's new version of Ödön von Horváth's Kasimir and Karoline, opened at Home Theatre in Manchester; and Song from Far Away, directed by award-winning Belgian director Ivo van Hove, received its UK premiere at the Young Vic. His version of Brecht and Weill's Threepenny Opera will open at the National in May 2016. Simon also writes for radio; plays include Five Letters Home to Elizabeth (2001) and Digging (2003), both BBC, Radio4. Simon's screenwriting includes a two-part serial Dive (with Dominic Savage) for Granada / BBC (2009), a short film adaptation of Pornography for Coming Up: Channel 4 (2009) and Cargese for Sprout Pictures (Sky Arts, 2013). Other awards include the 2001 Pearson Award for Best Play for Port and the 2005 Olivier Award for Best New Play for On the Shore of the Wide World. Simon has won the Theater Heute's Award for Motortown in 2007, Pornography in 2008 and Wastwater in 2011. Simon is Artistic Associate at the Lyric Theatre and Associate Playwright at the Royal Court. He was also on the board for Paines Plough between 2009 and 2014, and was a Writers' Tutor for the Young Writers' Programme at the Royal Court between 2001 and 2005.

Mark Eitzel grew up in San Francisco California, Taipei Taiwan, and Southampton UK. He has been a songwriter since 1980. Albums written for American Music Club include: Restless Stranger, Engine, California, United Kingdom, Everclear, Mercury, San Francisco, Love Songs for Patriots and The Golden Age. Solo work includes: Songs of Love (Live From The Borderline); 60 Watt Silver Lining, West (written with Peter Buck from REM); Caught in a Trap, The Invisible Man, Klamath and Don't Be A Stranger. His first collaboration with Simon Stephens was Marine Parade, which will have a revival in London March 2016. He is currently working on a new album of music.

Photo by Jennifer Broski