Ars Nova Unveils 2025-2026 Artists in Residence

Ars Nova has revealed its inaugural Artists in Residence cohort for the 2025–2026 season. Ars Nova’s Artists in Residence Program is an individually tailored, development-based residency for early-career performing artists of all disciplines to explore a project in house at Ars Nova over the course of a season. The residency is a unique opportunity for artists who develop work in non-traditional ways to make use of Ars Nova’s customized, flexible support to discover new things about their project and process, and to build community and peer relationships with artists across genres in the residency cohort.

The 2025–2026 artists in residence are Jason Aguirre & Adam J. Rineer; Mack Brown, Emerson Mae Smith & Murphy Taylor Smith; Aneesa Folds; abigail jean-baptiste; and AriDy Nox. Their residencies at Ars Nova will continue through June 2026.

Co-Artistic Directors Andrew Neisler and Anna Morton Stacey remarked, “We’re thrilled to welcome these eight artists into the Ars Nova community this season. The focus of Ars Nova’s Artists in Residence Program is on a fruitful process and the development of an artistic practice, not on a finished product. We are excited to encourage these artists to think big, take risks and push their creative potential as they make work under Ars Nova’s roof. We can’t wait to see how the year unfolds.”

About the 2025–2026 Artists in Residence

Jason Aguirre

(he/him/el) is a queer, Mexican-American director, book writer, and choreographer. He has developed and presented work at Ars Nova, HERE Arts Center, Vineyard Theatre, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Roundabout Theatre Company, EST, and Musical Theatre Factory. He is a Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation (SDCF) Fellow mentored by Susan Stroman, an alumnus of the Directors Group at Roundabout Theatre Company, a graduate of the George and Joy Abbott MFA in Musical Theatre Collaboration at Temple University, a member of the BMI Workshop, and the recipient of the Boris Sagal Fellowship at Williamstown Theatre Festival. Jason is the Co-Artistic Director of UNTITLED Musical Project and the Associate Artistic Director of Vineyard Theatre. www.j-aguirre.com

Mack Brown

is a Brooklyn-based butch. They build precise new musicals and theatre about miracles happening to misfits. Recent: WATCHDOG (ANTFest 2025), Lisa Stephen Friday's TRANS AM (Joe's Pub). Associate: THE BIG GAY JAMBOREE (Off-Broadway), PICTURES FROM HOME (Broadway), I CAN GET IT FOR YOU WHOLESALE (Classic Stage Company). Mack is an NYU Tisch Drama Gender-Expansive Mentor, an NYCLU Artist Ambassador, and works at Convergence Magazine with grassroots organizers and activists to produce media that sharpens our collective practice. Proud SDC member. www.mack-brown.com 

Aneesa Folds

is the creator and star of Why Am I Here?, a one-woman psychedelic musical comedy. She can be heard as Cleon on The Warriors Album by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Eisa Davis, and her stage credits include Broadway’s Freestyle Love Supreme, Ginger Twinsies, Trading Places, and Co-Founders. On screen, her work spans tick, tick… BOOM!, Vivo, Alma’s Way, Disney Channel, Sesame Street, and Rolling Stone. A multi-hyphenate performer, writer, and comedian, Aneesa blends music, storytelling, and improvisation to create work that is as playful as it is powerful.

abigail jean-baptiste

is a theater maker born and based in New York City with roots in Haiti and the American South. guided by questions around blackness, gender expectations, and kinship, their work uses fragmented language, repeatable gestures, and found objects in a search to build nonsensical ways of being. most often a director and generative artist, some recent credits include: CHIAROSCURO by Aishah Rahman (NBT & The Flea), OLIO by Janice Lowe and Tyehimba Jess (Creative Capital), in search of (black) comfort (JACK Radical Acts). Proud Soho Rep Project Number One Artist. 

AriDy Nox

is a multidisciplinary black femme storyteller with a variety of forward-thinking creative works under their belt including the historical reimagining of the life of Sally Hemings BLACK GIRL IN PARIS (2020), the ancestral reckoning play A WALLESS CHURCH (2019), the cross-generational magical realism FRESHWATER PLAY (2020) series and many others. Their tales are offerings intended to function as small parts of an ancient, expansive, awe-inspiring tradition of world-shaping created by black femmes and with black femmes at the center.  They have been inordinately privileged to share the workings of their imagination in collaboration with a vast array of inspiring and supportive artists of various radical backgrounds throughout the country.

Adam J. Rineer

(they/xe/he) is a composer, writer, and music director focused on interdisciplinary performance. Adam’s musicals include THIRD SEX: 1930S TRANSVESTITE LIEDER (Ars Nova, HERE Arts Center, Musical Theatre Factory, Pete's Candy Store, The Parkside Lounge, The Maker's Ensemble), A TRIP TO THE MOON (HERE Arts Center, PRISM Festival at Judson Memorial Church, The Parkside Lounge, The Maas Building, Temple University, CAP21), OBSCENE, LEWD, LASCIVIOUS, AND FILTHY! (NAMT 15-minute Musical Contest Winner, The Latest Draft Podcast), and SICK MOVES! (OR THE DANCING PLAGUE OF 1518) (Temple University workshop production). They have music-directed for institutions like Goodspeed Musicals, MCC Theatre, NAMT, and TheatreWorks Hartford, and have performed at venues including Joe's Pub and 54 Below. Adam is a co-founder of the UNTITLED Musical Project, holds an M.F.A. from Temple University, and is an Adjunct Associate Professor at Pace University’s Sands College of Performing Arts. www.adamjrineer.com

Emerson Mae Smith

is a writer and performer kept in the great borough of Brooklyn. She created the musicals WATCHDOG, RADIO, and ELEKTRIC with her twin sister. Her horror dramedy WHO PUT BELLA IN THE WYCH ELM? will make its NYC premiere this November at Theater for the New City.

Murphy Taylor Smith

is an actress and songwriter who still believes in musical theatre. She originated roles in A TRANSPARENT MUSICAL (Center Theatre Group), Billie Jean (Chicago Shakespeare Theater) and DOLL/GIRL (Joe’s Pub). With her twin sister, she wrote the musicals WATCHDOG, a doppelgänger psychothriller; ELEKTRIC, a trans woman-centered Oresteia; and RADIO: A MUSICAL GHOST STORY, a lesbian horror film. The RADIO original soundtrack and her latest single Monster are available to stream on Spotify and Apple Music.