Boston Playwrights’ Theatre Unveils Jack Welch Residency And Fellowship Recipients

Boston Playwrights’ Theatre has announced Walt McGough and Deirdre Girard as the recipients of the Jack Welch Developmental Residency and Fellowship, which provide continued support to alumni of Boston University’s M.F.A. Playwriting Program in developing new works for the stage.

Now in its third year, the Jack Welch Residency and Fellowship will culminate in free public readings:

• Crime Fiction by Deirdre Girard, directed by Scott Edmiston, on December 7 at 4 p.m.

• Clockwork by Walt McGough, directed by M. Bevin O’Gara, on December 8 at 7 p.m.

Both events will take place at Boston Playwrights’ Theatre, 949 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, with receptions following each performance.

“I am thrilled to support two local playwrights with this year’s Jack Welch workshops,” said BPT Artistic Director Megan Sandberg-Zakian. “Though Deirdre’s and Walt’s plays couldn’t be more different—one is an edge-of-your-seat literary murder mystery, while the other is a time-bending look at our preoccupation with AI—both are smart, funny, and interested in interrogating our relationship to information.”

The Residency provides 30 hours of rehearsal and development for McGough’s Clockwork, a sharp exploration of labor, capitalism, and human connection in the age of artificial intelligence. The Fellowship supports eight hours of rehearsal for Girard’s Crime Fiction, a suspenseful and witty look at truth, perception, and gender dynamics in the literary world.

Girard, whose play (Re)considering Hannah was produced by BPT in 2014, said: “I’m so excited to be back at BPT and working with a top-notch creative team to finish the development of Crime Fiction—something suspenseful, fun, and funny, which I think is just right for the theater at a time when so many of us are feeling anxious and unsettled.”

McGough, who previously premiered The Farm (2011) and Brawler (2018) at BPT, added: “BPT [and BU’s Playwriting Program] is what brought me to Boston 15 years ago and has been my primary artistic home ever since. I’m thrilled to be back, developing Clockwork alongside artists I met mostly within these walls.”

The Jack Welch Residency honors the late Jack Welch (1935–2017), a tireless champion of Boston’s theatre community whose estate provides endowed funding for playwright development at BPT.

BPT’s season continues in February 2026 with R.N. Sandberg’s Zabel in Exile, a powerful memory play set in a Soviet prison in 1937.

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