Alliance Theatre Reveals Winning Play of Alliance/Kendeda National Graduate Playwriting Competition
The four competition finalists will receive a developmental workshop and presentation as part of the 2027 Alliance/Kendeda Week.
By: Chloe Rabinowitz Feb. 20, 2026
The Alliance/Kendeda National Graduate Playwriting Competition will continue to spotlight the best emerging playwrights with a full production for the competition winner and staged readings for four competition finalists. The winning play of the 23rd competition is The Red Man by JuCoby Johnson of The Juilliard School. Johnson is a New York-based playwright, actor, and screenwriter whose plays have been developed and produced by the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center, Ojai Playwrights Conference, The Playwrights’ Center, and many others. Described as a Southern Gothic thriller and love story, THE RED MAN will be produced as part of the Alliance’s 2027/28 season.
The four competition finalists, which will receive a developmental workshop and presentation as part of the 2027 Alliance/Kendeda Week, are:
The Fifth of November by Nora Brigid Monahan, CUNY Hunter College
8½ Collisions by Danielle Keiko Eyer, New York University
Vulturine by Matt Thekkethala, University of Texas at Austin
Water Aerobics with Christopher, 8:30 am by Helen Gallagher, Brooklyn College
The Alliance/Kendeda National Graduate Playwriting Competition solicits plays from the leading MFA graduate programs in the United States and then conducts a rigorous selection process to find four finalists and one winning play. The judges for the 23rd competition include playwright, theater director, and MacArthur “Genius” Luis Alfaro; award-winning playwright York Walker; and director and educator Nicole A. Watson.
Past winners of the Alliance/Kendeda National Graduate Playwriting Competition have become some of today’s most exciting playwrights and writers including Tarell Alvin McCraney, whose play In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue inspired the 2017 Academy Award-winning film for Best Picture, Moonlight; a.k. payne, whose Alliance/Kendeda Competition-winning play Furlough’s Paradise was the winner of the 2024 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize and received subsequent productions in Los Angeles and Washington D.C.; Mansa Ra, whose winning play Too Heavy For Your Pocket received multiple productions including an Off-Broadway production; and Marcus Gardley, who wrote the recent film adaptation of the musical, The Color Purple.
Additional information regarding the production dates, creative team, and casting details for The Red Man will be announced in the coming months. Originally workshopped and developed in the 2025 Pacific Playwrights Festival as part of The Lab@South Coast Repertory, The Red Man was developed with the Ojai Playwrights Conference: Jeremy B. Cohen, Producing Artistic Director.
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