The Public Announces Members Of 2009 Emerging Writers Group

The Public Theater (Artistic Director Oskar Eustis, Executive Director Andrew D. Hamingson) has announced the 10 members of the 2009 Emerging Writers Group, the second season of an annual program that targets playwrights at the earliest stages of their careers and nurtures their artistic growth by providing necessary resources and support. The 10 writers were selected from more than 400 applicants.

The 2009 Emerging Writers are J. Julian Christopher, D.S.A. Deen, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Bridget Kelso, Mona Mansour, Vickie Ramirez, Jordan Seavey, Alena Smith, Kevin Christopher Snipes, and Lauren Yee.

Each emerging writer receives a one-year fellowship at The Public which includes a $3,000 stipend; participation in a biweekly writers' group led by Associate Artistic Director Mandy Hackett and The Public's Literary Department; master classes with established playwrights; career development advice and artistic support from acclaimed writers and Public artistic staff; complimentary tickets to Public shows and supplemental stipends for productions at other theaters; and presentation of their work in at least one reading at The Public.

The Emerging Writers Group strengthens The Public's commitment to creating an artistic home for diverse and exceptionally talented up-and-coming playwrights. The Emerging Writers Group is one element of The Public Writers Initiative, a long-term program that provides key support and resources for writers at every stage of their careers. Time Warner is the Founding Sponsor of The Public Writers Initiative.

Last year's Emerging Writers Group (Radha Blank, Leila Buck, Raul Castillo, Chris Cragin, Christina Gorman, Ethan Lipton, Alejandro Morales, Nick Hadikwa Mwaluko, Don Nguyen, Akin Salawu, Aladdin Ullah, Pia Wilson) will present excerpts from their original works on Wednesday, February 11 and Thursday, February 12 at 7 p.m. (These readings are not open to the public.) All 12 excerpts will be performed by professional actors and directed by The Public's Artistic Leadership Associate Niegel Smith. Later this spring, The Public will present the Spotlight Series, a weekly reading series featuring the writers' full-length plays. Complete schedule to follow.

"These brilliant, fierce writers are the future of American theater," said Public Theater Artistic Director Oskar Eustis. "We are proud to make them part of the Public family."

"Time Warner believes in the importance of supporting new and diverse voices in the arts," said Lisa M. Quiroz, Senior Vice President of Corporate Responsibility at Time Warner Inc. "We are proud to partner with The Public Theater in investing in these 10 talented writers and all the artists supported through the Public Writers Initiative."

2010 Emerging Writers Group application guidelines will be available as of spring 2009. Check www.publictheater.org/artists/emergingwriters.php regularly for details on applying for the next cycle of this program.

J. Julian Christopher has acted in many New York area productions, including TBA, The Karaoke Show, Art Gallery, A Bright Room Called Day, Nina in the Morning, The Three Gods, On Broken Wings, Taming of the Shrew, and The Flea's 'Twas the Night Before... series. His directing credits include Robert J. Bonocore's The Onion Lovers (Fringe Festival 2006). Julian is a founding member of Three Monos Ensemble, where his first play, Beast: A Parable (Fringe Festival 2008) was developed. He holds an MFA from the New School.

D.S.A. Deen is a first-generation South Asian-American writer, actor, and activist. He won the Dennis Johnston Playwriting Prize and the James Baldwin Award for his play Shut Up!. His writing includes the plays Butchus Homosexualis, Sikhandini, Barely Breathing (semi-finalist, Samuel French Festival of One-Acts), Saffron, Seven-Year Itch, and ...Tank & Horse (2007 Berkshire Fringe Festival) as well as the short film Pigeon Man. He holds an MFA from The Actors Studio Drama School.

Branden Jacobs-Jenkins' plays include Neighbors, Face #1-3, Thirst, Zoo, Heart!!!, and Content. With the performance duo enemyResearch, he created and performed in Garbage, Schnechnershirts, and The Amateurs. His work has been presented by Prelude '08, New York Theatre Workshop, PS122, McCarter Theatre, Dixon Place, Providence Black Repertory, Links Hall, and Soho Rep. A former NYTW Playwriting fellow and alumnus of the Hemispheric Institute's EMERGENYC Program, Branden is a member of the Soho Rep writers/directors lab and holds an MA in Performance Studies from NYU.

Bridget Kelso is a writer and actor who has performed on several prominent New York stages and around the world. As a member of the Creative Arts Team, she devised and implemented educational theater workshops in the New York City public schools, Her work, Symptoms of Liberty, dramatizes Nat Turner's famous slave rebellion while incorporating the traditional African techniques of call and response, storytelling, and spiritual co-existence. Bridget's current projects include a children's book series, a book of poetry, and a new play entitled A Little Bird Sings Freedom.

Mona Mansour's first play, Me and the SLA, was named "Best of the Fest" at Seattle's Fringe Festival. Her play Girl Scouts of America (co-written with Andrea Berloff) was presented as part of The Public's New Work Now! series and received a reading at New York Theatre Workshop; her play Others received a staged reading at The Flea. She has written episodes of Showtime's "Dead Like Me" and CBS's "Queens Supreme." She and Lisa Kron curated a piece for LGBT youth called ‘Nuff Said, which was performed at Dance Theater Workshop.

Vickie Ramirez is a founding member of Chukalokoli Native Theater Ensemble and Amerinda Theater. She co-created In the Spirit (Ensemble Studio Theater) with Edward Allan Baker. The first part of her Cornsoup Trilogy, Smoke, received a reading at The Public in partnership with Amerinda Theater and will receive a reading at BOO-Arts; she is currently at work on the second play in the trilogy, Ashes. She has written screenplays for MonkeyDog (which made it through the first rounds at The Sundance Institute in 2006), Lotto Munney, and Rachel vs. The Little Warriors.

Jordan Seavey is the author of The Truth Will Out, Townville, The Astronomer's Triangle (six New York Innovative Theatre Award nominations), The Trading Floor, This Is a Newspaper (FringeNYC Excellence Award), Dante's Inferno, 6969 (three NYIT awards), Children at Play, Ann Coulter: I'm Going To Blow Your f-ing Brains Out, Are You Writing From the Heart?, 69 Love Songs, American Child, and The Long Distance. He is a former Edward F. Albee Foundation fellow, two-time Robert Wilson Watermill Center fellow, and two-time LMCC grant recipient.

Alena Smith is a 2008-2009 NYFA Artists Fellow. Her plays include The Sacrifices, The Lacy Project (produced at A.R.T. Institute, the Ice Factory Festival, and Yale's Carlotta Festival of New Plays), Saturnalia in Poughkeepsie, Alice Eat Your Words, It or Her, and Apple of Discord. A finalist for the O'Neill Playwrights Conference and the Princess Grace Award, she was nominated by The Public for the Old Vic New Voices US/UK Exchange. She is the co-founder and resident playwright of Dead Genius Productions. She holds an MFA from the Yale School of Drama and received an ASCAP Cole Porter Prize in Playwriting.

Kevin Christopher Snipes' plays include A Bitter Taste, The Chimes, Small Gods, Party Lights and Hip-Skidoo. His work has been performed at Ensemble Studio Theatre, Orlando Shakespeare, Bailiwick Repertory, New York Stage & Film, Moving Arts, Luna Stage, the Hippodrome State Theatre (FLA), and in the Pittsburgh New Works Festival. His play Virgin Rock was published in The Best Plays of the Riant Strawberry One-Act Festival: Volume 3. A 2008 NYFA Artists Fellow, he has received the Larry Corse International Prize for Playwriting and an Alfred P. Sloan Screenwriting Fellowship. He holds an MFA from Carnegie Mellon.

Lauren Yee is a Dramatists Guild fellow. She is a recent Yale graduate and resident at MacDowell Colony and has received fellowships from the American Antiquarian Society, the Byrdcliffe Artist Colony, the Edward F. Albee Foundation, the Hawthornden Castle International Retreat for Writers, and the New York Mills Arts Retreat. Her upcoming play about commercial surrogacy in India is funded by the Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation and Theatre Bay Area. Her play Ching Chong Chinaman was a finalist for the Princess Grace Award. She also won the Pacific Rim Prize, was named one of the top 10 plays of 2008 by the East Bay Express, and has been produced in Minneapolis, Berkeley, and New York.

 

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