Liberation Theatre Company Selects Four Emerging Playwrights For Their 2022-2023 Writing Residency Program

Liberation Theatre Company has chosen four early career playwrights to participate in the fifth year of their Writing Residency Program for 2022-2023.

Playwrights will receive dramaturgical and career support over a ten-month period beginning in May, during which time they will be required to complete the first draft of a new original full-length play. The plays will then receive a public reading in the Spring of 2023.

The Harlem-based theatre company is a home for emerging Black playwrights and launched the Writing Residency Program in 2017. Support is provided by the New York State Council on the Arts.

"We are delighted to be able to provide a fifth year of the Writing Residency Program and to welcome this new group of playwrights," said Sandra A. Daley-Sharif, Producing Artistic Director of LTC. "The four writers we have chosen come to us with varying degrees of playwriting experience, but all share exciting new ideas for stories they want to tell. We never tell playwrights what to write but rather help them clarify their ideas so that their plays are presented as they intend them."

"We're also excited to be able to provide this valuable and necessary opportunity to a population that desperately needs it. The past two years of the pandemic have affected theatre companies large and small, and we were certainly not immune. Our last group concluded in the Spring of 2021 and met entirely online. We have been planning how to return ever since. As submissions for this year demonstrated, there are still a great many playwrights who want and need this program," she added.

Playwrights will meet monthly as a group with LTC staff to share work in progress and receive constructive criticism. They will also have access to theatre events around New York, dialogue with working professional theatre artists, attend a writers' retreat, and collaborate with a director and professional actors for both a table read and the public reading that concludes the residency. Each writer will receive an honorarium upon successful completion of the program.

Participants in the Liberation Theatre Company Writing Residency Program for 2022-2023:

Calley N. Anderson is a Brooklyn-based playwright from Memphis, TN. Past and current affiliations include American Theatre Group PlayLab, Clubbed Thumb Early Career Writers Group, The Civilians R&D Group, and Dramatists Guild Foundation Fellows. Beyond writing, Anderson is Program Manager at NY Writers Coalition. More at calleynanderson.com.

Brysen Boyd is a playwright, TV writer and essayist originally from Tacoma, WA. He served as a Writing Fellow (a position created for him) for season 3 of HBO's SUCCESSION. He is the inaugural Playwright-in-Residence at Reverie Theater Company and a proud member of Youngblood/Ensemble Studio Theater.

Zakeia Tyson-Cross is a Brooklyn-based creative writer, and her work has appeared on numerous blogs and media platforms such as Harlem World Magazine, BRIC TV, BK Nation and more. Zakeia is a current fellow playwright with the New Perspectives Theatre Company.

Devon Kidd is a New York-based writer, from Milwaukee, WI who aspires to work in poetry, playwriting, television, and film and has a passion for writing both surrealist and realist works in fantasy, sci-fi, comedy, and drama. He graduated Summa Cum Laude from Morehouse College and is currently a distinguished MFA playwright at Columbia University.

Liberation Theatre Company is managed by Sandra A. Daley-Sharif, co-founder and Producing Artistic Director, Spencer Scott Barros, co-founder and Associate Artistic Director, and Bernard J. Tarver, Associate Producing Director.

Past members of the Liberation Theatre Company Writing Residency Program are:

2017-2018: Shawn Nabors, Germaine Netzband, Liz Morgan, Nathaniel Blake Johnson

2018-2019: Deneen Reynolds-Knott, Maia Matsushita, Marcus Scott, Tylie Shider

2019-2020: Jessica Charles, Camille Darby, Johnny G. Lloyd, Jeremy O'Brian

2020-2021: Gethsemane Herron-Coward, Karen Chilton, Malcolm Tariq, Travis Tate

LTC was established in 2009 with the mission to create a home for emerging Black playwrights to develop their work and express themselves artistically in a supportive and focused environment. Directly and indirectly, LTC has helped to develop or provide exposure to more than 100 writers through various programs.