Ground Floor Theatre Launches New Program 'GFT Writes'

Ground Floor Theatre (GFT) is launching GFT Writes, a new yearlong playwriting intensive beginning this month. The first group of four playwrights include Maxine Dillon, Kairos Looney, Eliya Smith, and Jessica L. Peña Torres. Additionally, Ground Floor Theatre announced that Megan Thornton who recently joined the team as Director of New Works will serve as GFT Writes program lead.

GFT Writes will provide a support system and soundboard for Austin-based playwrights as each works on a new play. The program looks to foster plays that center around historically underrepresented communities.

During the yearlong intensive, each playwright will work on a new play culminating in a workshop and public reading at Ground Floor Theatre. Throughout the process, the four playwrights will meet twice monthly to read and respond to one another's work.

“Having Megan Thornton join our family as Director of New Works is exciting. With her insight and understanding to help create this program, Megan is the perfect person to head up GFT Writes,” said GFT Co-Artistic Director Lisa Scheps. “At Ground Floor Theatre we believe that artists should be compensated for their work, and this program is another extension of that commitment – we are proud that everyone involved in this program gets paid.”

“It is an honor and absolute delight to work with such a talented group of playwrights as they develop their plays,” said Megan Thornton, GFT Writes lead and GFT Director of New Works. “We have such a rich community of theatre artists in Austin, GFT is one of the few places I can think of that would sustain this work.”

Each year Ground Floor Theatre will accept applications from Austin playwrights that fit within its mission of focusing on underrepresented communities. GFT will seek passionate theatre makers who will benefit from an environment that nourishes and challenges them. GFT Writes serves as an incubator to foster and grow new and groundbreaking works that shine a light on groups that are often overlooked.

Visit groundfloortheatre.org/writes to learn more about GFT Writes or to donate. All funds donated to GFT Writes are tax deductible and will be used to compensate artists participating in the program.

About Megan Thornton:

Megan Thornton (she/her) is a dramaturg and producer of new work. Playwrights she has worked with include Katie Bender, Jenny Connell Davis, Sarah Saltwick, and Raul Garza. She is the former literary manager at Hyde Park Theatre, where she founded the HPT Audio Plays, a podcast featuring short audio works. Produced playwrights for the podcast included Adrienne Dawes, Taji Senior, and Megan Tabaque. In her free time, she performs in Fragile Rock, an emo puppet band that somehow ended up with a Tiny Desk Concert at NPR. She has an MFA in Dramatic Writing from the University of Idaho.

About the Playwrights:

Maxine Dillon (she/her) is a playwright and performer based in Austin. Fascinated by the language and relationships we invent and construct to make sense of ourselves, her work includes It Do Be Like That Sometimes And Sometimes Like That It Do Be (24 Hour Plays: Viral Monologues), DOGGO (24 Hour Plays: Nationals), and Strange Flesh (Yale University). She received a degree in English from Yale University, where she was a Eugene O'Neill Fellow, working closely with New Haven high school students under the mentorship of playwrights at the David Geffen School of Drama. As a performer, Maxine is part of the comedy community at Fallout Theater, where she is a member of improv troupe Barf Gang. 

Kairos Looney (they/them) is a theatremaker and cultural organizer living on unceded Lipan Apache, Coahuiltecan, Comanche and Tonkawa lands. They write big, fantastical webs of relationships in order to lovingly investigate how our macrocosmic wounds fester in the interpersonal. They find comfort in deep time. Kairos is alumnus of the Pipeline Theatre 2021-2022 PlayLab, Southern Rep 2018-2019 Cohort, Pipeline Theatre 2017-2018 Playlab, and The Civilians 2016-2017 Field Research Team. They have loved playing with and picking apart works-in-progress at RudeFusion@Crashbox, Judson Memorial Church, and Barn Arts Collective artist residencies. While they are allergic to social media, more can be found at kairoslooney.com. 

Eliya Smith (she/her) is a writer from Ohio. Her plays have appeared at Ice Factory, HERE Arts Center, the American Repertory Theater, the Harvard Playwrights' Festival, the Cohen New Works Festival, and the MadLab Young Writers' Festival. Her work has received support from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts and the Phyllis Anderson Foundation, which awarded her its prize for the best play by an undergraduate or graduate student at Harvard. She is currently pursuing her Playwriting MFA as a Michener Fellow at UT Austin.

Jessica L. Peña Torres (she/her) is a dance/theatre artist focused on Mexican identity and performance. In 2014, she graduated from The University of Texas—Pan American with a B.A. in Dance and a B.A. in Theatre. At UTPA, Peña Torres performed with the Latino Theatre Initiatives and the UTPA Ballet Folklórico.
In 2020, Peña Torres obtained an M.A. in Performance as Public Practice from the University of Texas at Austin, where she is now pursuing a Ph.D. In both Mexico and the U.S, Jessica has had a chance to work and perform for big and small arts organizations, such as Maru Montero Dance Company, Academia de Danza Condesa, and the Ballet Folclórico Nacional de México de Silvia Lozano. With her company, Coctel Explosivo, Peña Torres produces dance- theatre works that explore the intersection between nationalism and the performing arts in postrevolutionary México.

About Ground Floor Theatre:

Ground Floor Theatre (GFT) produces works focusing on historically underrepresented communities. It serves as an incubator to foster and grow new and groundbreaking works that shine a light on groups that are often overlooked. It is also a home for the Austin theatre community to come together and learn from one another in order to help Austin continue to excel as a leader in The National Theatre community. For more information visit www.groundfloortheatre.org.

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