The Farm Theater and Stage Partners to Launch Exclusive Publishing Partnership
Stage Partners will publish The Farm Theater's College Collaboration Project plays, including works by Kimberly Bellflower and Gina Femia.
The Farm Theater and Stage Partners have announced an exclusive partnership. Beginning this year, Stage Partners will be the publisher of The Farm Theater's College Collaboration Project plays, making them available for productions worldwide.
Each year, The Farm Theater partners with colleges and universities to commission an early-career playwright to create a new work that is produced by participating schools throughout the academic year. The commissioned playwright works in collaboration with faculty and students to create a full-length play with a majority of characters under the age of thirty. Past College Collaboration Project playwrights include Kimberly Bellflower (John Proctor Is the Villain), Jake Brasch (Our Tempest), Lindsay Joy (In the Event of My Death), Lia Romeo (Greek Tragedy), and Gina Femia (We're Okay, We're Okay, We're All Gonna Be Okay), among others.
"I am thrilled about partnering with Stage Partners because this will increase the accessibility to communities that want to join the conversation these plays inspire, keep these stories alive, and build greater awareness of these talented writers." -Padraic Lillis, Artistic Director, The Farm Theater
"For more than a decade, Stage Partners has been bringing new and exciting plays to thousands of theaters and schools around the world. As our name suggests, we are especially invested in collaborating with artists and arts organizations. This partnership with The Farm Theater is an exciting opportunity for us to use our growing platform to shed light on some truly amazing writers," says Stage Partners Founder & Artistic Director Jason Pizzarello.
The partnership will kick off with the publication of Gina Femia's We're Okay, We're Okay, We're All Gonna Be Okay, which will receive a public reading on May 20th at Urban Stages in New York City; as well as Lia Romeo's Greek Tragedy, which was previously produced at Centre College and Wells College.
"I am so honored that We're Okay, We're Okay, We're All Gonna Be Okay is an inaugural recipient of this new partnership between The Farm Theater and Stage Partners. I'm excited for the pipeline that this will create, for these new plays to more easily wind up in the hands of the college-aged actors for whom they were written," says playwright Gina Femia.
Lia Romeo added, "I'm thrilled to be working with Stage Partners to bring Greek Tragedy to new audiences. All playwrights dream of our work having a life beyond the first few productions, and this new partnership is a great way to help make that happen, and to make the College Collaboration Project an even more exciting opportunity."
Combining The Farm Theater's highly successful new play development process with Stage Partners' extensive distribution will ensure that these talented playwrights find the wide audiences that they deserve, and that young performers and theater artists have access to new plays that speak directly to them.
Stage Partners is an independent play publisher dedicated to making exceptional new plays accessible to all theaters and schools. Founded and run by writers experienced in theatrical licensing, Stage Partners aims to make finding the perfect new play easy, engaging, and exciting, whether you are a new drama teacher or an experienced artistic director. With scripts that are always free to read, lightning-fast licensing, and a passionate staff, Stage Partners is committed to offering industry-best services to both its customers and its playwrights. www.yourstagepartners.com
The Farm Theater develops early career artists that may not have the support system afforded others, through workshops, productions, and mentoring. The centerpiece of their programming is the College Collaboration Project. This program is in its twelfth year and has so far commissioned fourteen playwrights, worked in collaboration with twenty-five colleges, and been featured in American Theatre Magazine and Southern Theatre Magazine. The Farm Theater has produced numerous solo shows including Artistic Director Padraic Lillis' show on suicide awareness, You Get To Eleven, which was awarded Best Solo Show and Planet Advocate Award at the Planet Connections Theatre Festival, and then turned into a film that was presented on PBS. In 2017 The Farm Theater partnered with Planet Connections Theatre Festival to produce Alex Riad's The Floor Is Lava. The play was awarded Best New Play and Best Production of a New Play and The Farm Theater was awarded The Planet Advocate Award for raising money and awareness for Girls Who Code. The Farm Theater also hosts a popular podcast, The Bullpen Sessions, which features working artists talking about how they built their careers. www.thefarmtheater.org
Gina Femia is an award-winning playwright and performer whose work has been seen/developed at The Goodman Theater, MCC Theater, Playwrights Horizons, EST, Page 73, New Georges, The Playwrights Center, CTG, Theater of NOTE, Rivendell Theater, Cape Cod Theater Project, among others. Selected honors include The Kilroys List, Leah Ryan Prize, Doric Wilson Award, the Otis Guernsey New Voices Award, the Neukom Award in Playwriting, The Lammy Award for Drama (Finalist), and The Relentless Award (Semi-finalist & Honorable Mention), as well as nominations for Drama League and NYIT. Gina has received commissions from The Farm Theater (College Collaboration Commission), New Light Theater Project, Boomerang Theater and MCC/Parsnip Ship. Gina is a former Core Writer with the Playwrights Center, and an Alum of EST Youngblood, Page73's Interstate 73, Pipeline Theatre's PlayLab, New Georges' Audrey Residency, the Ingram New Play Lab at Nashville Rep, and Parsnip Ship's Radio Roots Writer's Group. Gina's a New Georges Affiliated Artist and has received residencies with Page73, Powerhouse, NTI at the O'Neill, Tofte Lake Center, and Everwood Foundation. As a teacher, Gina has worked with The Playwrights Center, Primary Stages ESPA, among others. Gina's debut YA novel, Alondra, was named a Best Book for Teens in 2023 and was a Finalist for a Golden Kite award. Learn more: www.femiagina.com.
Lia Romeo is a queer playwright, novelist, essayist, and screenwriter. She is a recent graduate of the Juilliard playwriting program. In 2025, the Off-Broadway production of her play Still was nominated for the Outer Critics' Circle award for Best New American Play. Her plays have been developed at the O'Neill, La Jolla Playhouse, the Lark, and elsewhere, and produced at Colt Coeur, Dorset Theatre Festival, NJ Rep, Mile Square Theatre, Edinburgh Fringe, and many others. Her plays are published by DPS, TRW, and Broadway Play Publishing. She is the associate artistic director of Project Y Theatre and the co-founder of the Parent-Caregiver Playwrights Group. She is also the author of two books, Dating the Devil (BelleBooks) and 11,002 Things to Be Miserable About (Abrams Image), and her essays have been published in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Newsweek, and other national publications. She was one of four television writers selected for the most recent season of the STARZ #takethelead Writers' Intensive. She is a cancer survivor and the mother of a seven-year-old son.
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