Erika Dickerson-Despenza News

On Thursday, June 27th The Kilroys celebrated the drop of THE LIST 2019 at WP Theater in New York City. The event celebrated the 13 founding members of the organization and the 33 plays featured on THE LIST 2019. 

Victory Gardens Theater Artistic Director Chay Yew, Executive Director Erica Daniels and Director of New Play Development Skyler Gray announce the lineup for the 2019 IGNITION Festival of New Plays, including The Tasters by Meghan Brown; The Gradient by Steph Del Rosso; [hieroglyph] by Erika Dickerson-Despenza; #NEWSLAVES by Keelay Gipson; Reckoning: Furies from a New Queer Nation by Geraldine Inoa; and They Could Give No Name by Exal Iraheta. The 2019 Festival runs August 2 -4, 2019 at Victory Gardens Theater, located at 2433 N Lincoln Avenue.

The Public Theater's Free Shakespeare in the Park production of MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING, directed by Kenny Leon, opened just last night at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park, running through Sunday, June 23.

Public Theater announced the line-up today for The Public's 2019-20 Season 

Vassar & New York Stage and Film announce casting for the first mainstage production of the Powerhouse Season as well as the addition of the musical Galileo and play Becky Nurse of Salem to the readings festival, and the announcement of the 2019 New York Stage and Film Founders' Award recipient and Fellows.

The New Black Fest and The Lark, two theater organizations dedicated to celebrating and advocating for stories that uplift the wide range of experiences in our complex world, are proud to announce the sixth annual The New Black Fest at The Lark.

The Public Theater announced the sixth season of PUBLIC STUDIO today, which will present two new works this spring. Continuing The Public's commitment to nurturing new playwrights, the two productions will run in succession in The Public's Shiva Theater and be presented as pared-down productions with the low ticket price of $15. This vital program continues The Public's mission of making new work by emerging artists accessible to all audiences.

Today, influencer and talent manager ChiChi Anyanwu of the NYC Black Theater Network, Marcia Pendelton, President of Walk Tall Girl Productions/Black Theater Online, and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture (Kevin Young, Director, Schomburg Center) announced BLACK PLAYWRIGHTS: THEY SPEAK. WHO LISTENS? A Black Theater Winter Preview: Broadway and Off-Broadway Edition. The event is scheduled at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture (515 Malcolm X Blvd) on Monday, January 28, 2019 at 6:30 p.m. Four-time Tony Award-winning producer Ron Simons of SimonSays Entertainment (A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder, Porgy & Bess, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, Jitney) will host the program whose purpose is to bring attention to the unprecedented number of plays by black playwrights being produced on Broadway and Off-Broadway this season.

The American Playwriting Foundation, established to make annual grants to new American plays, has selected Harrison David Rivers for The 2018 Relentless Award, the largest annual cash prize in American theater awarded to a play.

The Dramatists Guild of America is the originator of the Dramatists Guild Fellows program, with a mission is to enhance the sense of community among developing American dramatists by offering a year-long workshop designed to augment their training with practical experience and career information resources.

Ensemble Studio Theatre (EST) along with EST's Youngblood announce new EST/Youngblood members for the 2018-2019 season.

Last night, the 2017-2018 class of Dramatists Guild Foundation Fellows presented excerpts of full length works at Playwrights Horizons at 7:00 PM. This presentation caps off a year spent working under the tutelage of Michael Korie (War Paint), Laurence O'Keefe (Heathers), Diana Son (Stop Kiss), and Sheri Wilner (Kingdom City).

Dramatists Guild Foundation would like to formally announce the 2018-2019 class of DGF Fellows. The new Fellows class includes Rae Binstock, Erika Dickerson-Despenza, Mathilde Dratwa, Benjamin Velez and Aryanna Garber, Melissa Li and Kit Yan, Charles Gershman, Nambi E. Kelley, and Zack Zadek.

The Lark has announced that playwrights Erika Dickerson-Despenza and David Zheng have been selected as the recipients of the 2018 Van Lier New Voices Fellowship. This year long residency is designed to support extraordinary playwrights of color under the age of 30, in order to help address the lack of inclusion of early career playwrights of color in the theater field. The Fellowship includes a cash award of $15,000, plus up to $3,000 in health insurance reimbursement, as well as access to a wide range of Lark resources, including artistic program participation, office and rehearsal space, and staff support. The 2018 cycle marks this Fellowship's fifth year at The Lark. Past fellows include Brittany K. Allen (Redwood), C.A. Johnson (Thirst), Donja R. Love (soft), and Christina Quintana (Gumbo). The Van Lier New Voices Fellowship is a critical component in The Lark's acclaimed portfolio of fellowships, designed to engage a diverse community of visionary playwrights whose work collectively reflects the vibrancy and complexity of our world.

The Lark announces that after a five year hiatus, its BareBones program will return in March 2018, with a workshop production of In the Middle by Donja R. Love (soft, Sugar in Our Wounds) to be directed by Saheem Ali (Twelfth Night, The Public Theater). In the Middle is the third and final play in Love's trilogy, The Love* Plays, a surrealistic exploration of *Queer Love during pivotal moments in Black History: Slavery (Sugar in Our Wounds), The Civil Rights Movement (Fireflies), and the Black Lives Matter movement (In the Middle). The workshop will run at The Lark's BareBones Studio from March 2 11, 2018, at 311 West 43rd Street, 5th Floor, in New York City.