Personal Pizza Party and The Elif Collective Launch 2024 Oven Program Cohort

Personal Pizza Party has announced the 2024 cohort of their flagship new work development program, THE OVEN, produced in collaboration with The Elif Collective. This is the second year of the program, which invites six early-career playwrights to meet and develop short plays over the course of eight weeks. This year, the program also welcomes directors and actors to collaborate with the playwrights and each other in a safe, experimental workshop environment.

The 2024 Oven Writers Cohort welcomes playwrights Celine Cheung, Enya Lu, Derick Edgren Otero, Jaden Tyler Urso, and Jason Wang. Personal Pizza Party's Executive Artistic Director, Lee Melillo, will serve as the cohort's facilitator.

Michelle Chan, BT Hayes, Steven San Luis, Hannah Tarr, and Dylin Taylor join as directors for the program. Personal Pizza Party's Creative Producer, Alexandra Haddad, will serve as the cohort's facilitator. The Elif Collective's Executive and Literary Director, Sophie Craig, will serve as the program's dramaturg.

Rounding out the 2024 cohort as performers are Jon-Mykul Bowen, Alyssa James, Jacqueline McKenna, Niraj Nair, Joshua Piper, Sophia Colón Roosevelt, and Kana Seiki. Personal Pizza Party's Associate Artistic Director, Ethan Peña Mock, and The Elif Collective's Artistic Director, Shayan Hooshmand, will serve as co-facilitators for the actor cohort.

The Oven provides a deeply collaborative, non-hierarchical lab space for early-career creatives to generate new work without judgment or a concern for perfection. The program culminates in a staged reading series of the playwrights' new works, which will be open to the public for attendance in late June. Tickets will go on sale early this summer.

To learn more about this year's Oven, visit personalpizzaparty.org/theoven24. To see what the program cooked up last summer, check out personalpizzaparty.org/theoven23.

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