Tennessee Playwrights Studio Reveals 2024 Fellows

Tennessee Playwrights Studio has revealed their 2024 TPS Fellows, selected from a competitive application process. TPS Fellows typically meet one Sunday per month to develop their scripts with the help of peer feedback and readings with local actors. TPS then presents staged readings of these working first drafts to the public in winter.

Bios for the five Fellows selected for this year are below:

MJ (Myah Jackson) is a writer, actor, dancer, and singer from Chicago, IL where she has been performing ever since she was 3 years old. She is currently a graduating MBA student at Tennessee State University, where she also received her BA in English with a History minor and BS in and Communications with a Theatre Performance focus. She discovered her love for writing at a young age and has continued to cultivate her storytelling voice and styles ever since! She began working in Nashville in 2019 with Sistastyle Productions performing as Tracy Ada in STEAL AWAY and continues to be active in Nashville's theater community. She directed and co-produced her first show with Verge Theater Company as their featured collegiate playwright for Black Future month in 2022 with her original play CHANCE. Her poetry was also featured in the Orlando Museum of Art and Black Girl Theatre Magic's Onija event in 2019 and her piece BEFORE THE SUNRISE won Best in Show. She works with love, not against hate, and the power of storytelling to heal and expand community in this world. MJ is so excited to explore her new ideas and expand her writing skills with the Tennessee Playwrights Studio Fellowship program in 2024 and can't wait to bring this very special project to life.

Melissa McKnight is a playwright living in Memphis whose work explores metamodernist views of class and gender. Her interest in theater manifested after a few acting roles and improv classes in Nashville. Since graduating as a Human Relations major from The University of Oklahoma in 2010 she has worked as a Backup Singer, sang in an award winning Sweet Adelines Show Chorus, and worked as an Organizer on Barack Obama's incumbent Campaign in 2012. She began performing as a Standup Comedian eight years ago and hosted The Moth storySLAM in Nashville from May 2019-December 2020. Her latest gigs were as a principal performer in a few Vicks Vapor Rub commercials, and she grew an entire human in 2023.

Keisha Morrow is from West Tennessee and grew up doing theatre. She has been in plays such as the Glass Menagerie and Macbeth and is returning to theatre after a long absence. She is currently studying for a minor in theatre and ETSU and teaches high school English/Theatre Arts.

Allison Page is a nationally produced and published playwright & comedy writer living in Nashville, by way of San Francisco and rural Minnesota. She generally writes about monsters, some with scales or fur, and some who look like your aunt. She has written: THE PYRAMID, a comedy about a group of high schoolers who start a dangerous wellness cult, HELLHOUND, a comedy about six teens chased along the River Styx by a three-headed dog, THE SON OF SAM IS IN THE BATHROOM AT THE DRUNKEN HORSE, a comedy about three young New Jersey women who narrowly escape an encounter with a serial killer and get a plate of cannoli - and many others. Her pilot script, BEWARE THE JABBERWOCK, about the importance of free knowledge and libraries, was a semifinalist in the 2023 Nashville Film Festival Screenwriting Competition and a quarterfinalist in the Final Draft Big Break Screenwriting Contest. She spent eight years as the Artistic Director of San Francisco's largest sketch comedy company, Killing My Lobster, where she also wrote and performed for over a decade. You can find some of her scripts at newplayexchange.org/users/3403/allison-page, and find her very niche, very goofy rural Minnesota stories at https://allisonpage.substack.com.

Natalie P. Wright was born and raised in Nashville, Tennessee. She first fell in love with the theatre wearing a pillowcase as a dress in a first-grade production of ANNIE. She is currently a student at Vanderbilt University studying psychology, theatre, and creative writing. Her short play WWI ESSAY SHITTY FIRST DRAFT was selected for a staged reading as part of Vanderbilt University Theatre's New Play Fest (2023). Natalie wrote, directed, and produced the full-length play ENTER MACBETH with Vanderbilt University's Iceberg Theatre Company in October of 2023. She is currently serving as the president of both Vanderbilt University Theatre and Iceberg Theatre Company.

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