The New Play Lab provides a virtual rehearsal room to each selected playwright, connecting them with professional actors from our ensemble and beyond. On Wednesday evenings, we invite audiences to join us for a virtual reading of the scripts on YouTube Live. You, the audience, will get a unique and exciting firsthand look at the development of these works. You can also become an integral part in the creative process by joining us for post-read discussion, sharing your questions, thoughts, and impressions with the team.
If you tuned in to the 2020 New Play Lab and liked what you saw, we welcome donations of any amount through our secure donation page HERE.
THE NEW PLAY LAB
2020 New Works
Sputnik in Suburbia
Midwest Porn
Ghost Story
dir. Jasmine B. Gunter
Invasions and Penetrations
The Venetians
dir. Anthony Irons
Mentors
dir. Kay Martinovich
Vow Keepers
dir. Ansley Valentine
You Were Mine
dir. Ismael Lara
The Humanities
dir. B.J. Jones
Be Mean to Me
dir. Hallie Gordon
Moreno
dir. Eddie Torres
The Broken Hearts of a Corrupted White House
dir. Justin Lucero
Young Love
dir. Daniil Krimer
Such Small Hands
dir. B.J. Jones
Danger and Opportunity
dir. Mark Brokaw
Adam Kraar
Quincy Long
Lia Romeo
Mike Solomonson
Matt Barbot
Kristen Palmer
David Valdes
Rachel Lynett
Zayd Dohrn
Sofya Levitsky-Weitz
Pravin Wilkins
Matthew Paul Olmos
Adam Szymkowicz
Ken Urban
ADAM KRAAR
Adam Kraar writes plays about cross-cultural clashes and connections, including works about American families in Asia, the Civil Rights Movement, and quixotic rebels who challenge societal boundaries.
Recent productions include ALTERNATING CURRENTS (The Working Theater); DANCING ON THE EDGE (Theatre Novi Most); GREEN-WOOD (Theatre East); EMPIRE OF THE TREES (NY Innovative Theatre Awards’ Outstanding Script Nominee); NEW WORLD RHAPSODY (Bloomington Plays Project); WILD TERRAIN (EST Marathon of One-Act Plays) and FREEDOM HIGH (Queens Theatre in the Park).
Upcoming: DIVO AND DIAVOLO (Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati).
Adam’s plays have been developed and/or produced at Primary Stages, The Public Theatre, Theater for the New City, Theatreworks U.S.A., The New Group, N.Y. Theatre Workshop, Cherry Lane, LaMama, Stella Adler Studio, Geva Theatre, and many others.
Fellowships from: Manhattan Theatre Club, Bogliasco Foundation, Millay Colony, and Sewanee Writers’ Conference. Adam’s plays are published by Dramatic Publishing, Smith & Kraus, and Applause Books (including six BEST AMERICAN SHORT PLAYS anthologies).
An Affiliated Writer of The Playwrights’ Center and a member of Ensemble Studio Theatre, Adam was previously a Playwrights’ Workshop Fellow at the Lark Play Development Center, Featured Artist at the Last Frontier Theatre Conference, and was twice a resident playwright at the Inge Center for the Arts.
He grew up in India, Thailand, Singapore and the U.S. He earned an M.F.A. at Columbia University, teaches playwriting at Primary Stages’ ESPA, and lives in Brooklyn with his wife, Karen.
QUINCY LONG
Quincy's past productions include: People Be Heard (Playwrights Horizons); The Joy of Going Somewhere Definite (Atlantic Theatre, starring Felicity Huffman, directed by William H. Macy, and Mark Taper Forum); The Virgin Molly (Atlantic Theatre and Berkeley Rep); Shaker Heights (Atlantic Theatre); The Lively Lad (New York Stage and Film, and Actors Theatre of Louisville’s Humana Festival); Yokahama Duty and The Year of the Baby (Soho Rep); The Only Child (South Coast Rep); The Huntsmen (Portland Playhouse); Buried Alive (Fort Worth Opera and Fargo Moorhead Opera). Quincy’s plays are published by Dramatists Play Service, Playscripts, Inc. and TCG. Current projects: Rikers, a play, Ximena, an opera, and Plum Island, a television series.
Quincy is from Warren, Ohio and lives in New York City.
He is a graduate of the Yale School of Drama, an alumnus of the Composer Librettist Development Program at American Lyric Theater, and a member of the BMI Librettists Studio, New Dramatists and Ensemble Studio Theatre.
LIA ROMEO
Lia Romeo’s play The Forest was selected for the O’Neill Playwrights Conference and the Kilroys List, and was scheduled to receive a National New Play Network rolling world premiere in the upcoming season (pre-coronavirus). Other plays have been produced at 59E59, Unicorn Theatre, Project Y Theatre Company, Dreamcatcher Rep, HotCity Theatre, and many other companies, and have received workshops and residencies from the Lark, the National New Play Network’s MFA Playwrights Workshop, Orlando Shakespeare Theatre’s PlayFest, and elsewhere.
She has been a nominee or a finalist for the Steinberg Award, the Kesselring Prize, the Weissberger Award, PlayPenn, the NYIT Award for outstanding full-length script, and other honors. She was the winner of City Theatre’s National Short Playwriting Award, and was an Individual Artist Fellowship winner in playwriting from the New Jersey State Council for the Arts.
Her plays are published by Broadway Play Publishing, Playscripts, Dramatists Play Service, and Smith & Kraus. She is also the author of a novel, Dating the Devil (BelleBooks), and a humor book, 11,002 Things to Be Miserable About (Abrams Image), which has sold over 35,000 copies.
She earned her B.A. from Princeton University and her M.F.A. in playwriting from Rutgers/MGSA, and she teaches for the New Jersey Play Lab and the MA program in creative writing at Fairleigh Dickinson University.
MIKE SOLOMONSON
Mike Solomonson is a Dramatists Guild member who is pleased to have Kane Repertory Theatre give INVASIONS AND PENETRATIONS its first public reading. The play also was a finalist for the Problematic Play Festival at the Z Space in San Francisco and a semi-finalist for both the 2018 Eugene O’Neill Theater Center’s National Playwrights Conference and the ScreenCraft Stage Play contest.
Another full-length play, THE GOODBYE LEVEE, won the NewWorks@TheWorks competition at the Playhouse on the Square in Memphis, where it is scheduled to be produced in 2021. It also was a finalist for the 2019 O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, and the ScreenCraft Stage Play competition.
A number of his 10-minute plays were produced across the nation in 2019, including New York, Connecticut, Michigan, Colorado, and California. Mike is an Arizona-based playwright whose plays can be read online at the New Play Exchange.
MATT BARBOT
MATT BARBOT is a writer from Brooklyn, NY.
His play EL COQUÍ ESPECTACULAR AND THE BOTTLE OF DOOM (Kennedy Center Darrel Ayers Award, Kennedy Center Latinidad Award) received its world premiere at Two River Theater in January of 2018. INFALLIBILITY (2018 Sheen Center Playwriting Fellowship) was selected as one of Indie Theater Now's "Best of FringeNYC 2013." PRINCESS CLARA OF LOISAIDA (finalist: Latinx Theatre Commons' 2018 Carnaval of New Latinx Work, 2018 Columbia@Roundabout New Play Series) and SAINTS GO MARCHING (semifinalist: 2018 Eugene O'Neill Theater Center National Playwrights Conference) were selected to feature on Steppenwolf's The Mix list. THE VENETIANS was a winner of Roundabout Theatre Company's 2019 Columbia@Roundabout New Play Series. Recently, his short play "A List of Some Shit I've Killed" was published as part of the Red Bull Theater's anthology Red Bull Shorts Volume III. Matt's first play for young audiences, STOO'S FAMOUS MARTIAN AMERICAN GUMBO, was commissioned by Peppercorn Theatre and will be produced in Summer 2019. Additionally, Matt has worked with comic book creator Edgardo Miranda Rodriguez as an editor and co-writer for Darryl Makes Comics' DMC, as well as Somos Arte's La Borinqueña.
Matt received his MFA from Columbia University, and was recently a New York Theatre Workshop 2050 Fellow and a member of The Civilians' R&D Group.
KRISTEN PALMER
Kristen Palmer’s plays include ONCE UPON A BRIDE THERE WAS A FOREST, THINGS YOU CAN DO, LOCAL STORY, DEPARTURES, and ALL THE GIRLS LOVE BOBBY KENNEDY. Her writing has been produced and/or developed by Soho Rep, Orlando Shakespeare Festival, Women’s Project/WP Theater, New Georges, Capital Rep, FLUX Ensemble, The Brick, Live Girls! Theater, and Circle X among others. Awards include a Jerome Fellowship at the Playwrights Center, the Goldberg and Zarkower Prizes at Hunter College, and two CT State Artist Awards.
She is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild. kristenpalmerplaywright.com
DAVID VALDES
David Valdes is the author of plays including The Mermaid Hour, Full Code, Bully Dance, and Brave Navigator. His work has appeared in the Humana Festival, Portland Stage Little Festival of the Unexpected, New York Theater Workshop Thursday Studio, New York International Fringe Festival, and Orlando Shakes PlayLab. Recent work includes Much Undone (Shakespeare's New Contemporaries Shortlist, 2020), Last Catastrophist (Fresh Ink Theater 2020), Up the Ladder, Down the Slide (2019 National New Play Showcase), and Downtown Crossing (in development). He is at work on a new play, Alamar, about the Cuban diaspora.
RACHEL LYNETT
Rachel Lynett is a queer Afro-Latinx playwright. Her recent playwriting credits include commissions with Barrington Stage Theatre Company (HOLY GROUND), Florida Studio Theatre (CARRY ME and AS YOU ARE), and Theatre Lab (LAST NIGHT). Other credits include LAST NIGHT presented as a reading with Theatre Lab (2020); HERE BE DRAGONS presented as a reading with Capital Rep (2019); YOU WERE MINE presented as a reading at the Kennedy Center Page to Stage Festival presented by Theatre Prometheus (2019); HE DID IT presented as a reading with Theatresquared (2019) with Equity Library Theatre, Chicago (2018) and presented as a workshop production with University of Central Florida's Pegasus PlayLab (2017); GOOD BAD PEOPLE as part of Talk Back Theatre's Reading Series (2018), part of American Stage Theatre Company's 21st Century New Voices New Play Festival (2018), part of Jackalope Theatre's CIRCLE UP series (2017) and as a reading as part of Unicorn Theatre Plays In Progress (2018); WELL-INTENTIONED WHITE PEOPLE as the Michigan premiere with Matrix Theatre (2018), the world premiere with Barrington Stage Theatre Company (2018), the Downstage Left Residency with StageLeft (2017), part of Orlando Shakespeare New Play Festival (2017), and receiving honorable mention for the 2017 Kilroys for her play (2017). Her play, ABORTION ROAD TRIP received a workshop production produced by Theatre Prometheus as part of Capital Fringe where it won Best Comedy (2017) and as a part of the 2017 Kennedy Center Page to Stage Festival. Rachel Lynett is also the artistic director of the Rachel Lynett Theatre Company.
ZAYD DOHRN
Zayd Dohrn’s plays include The Profane (Playwrights Horizons), Outside People (The Vineyard Theatre/Naked Angels), Want (Steppenwolf First Look), Sick (National New Play Network rolling world premiere), and Reborning (The Public/SPF).
Awards include the Horton Foote New American Play Prize, the Edgerton Foundation New Play Award, the Kennedy Center’s Jean Kennedy Smith Award, the Sky Cooper American Playwriting Prize, Theatre Master’s Visionary Playwright Award, and Lincoln Center’s Lecomte du Nouy Prize. Zayd has written TV pilots for HBO, Showtime, and BBC America, and is currently writing feature screenplays for Netflix and FilmNation.
He attended Brown and Columbia Universities, received his MFA from NYU, and was a two-year Lila Acheson Wallace Fellow at Juilliard. He is Professor and Chair of the Radio/TV/Film Department and co-Director of the MFA in Writing for the Screen + Stage at Northwestern University. www.zayddohrn.com.
SOFYA LEVITSKY-WEITZ
Sofya is a member of EST/Youngblood, a current Core Writer and a 2018/2019 Jerome Fellow at the Playwrights’ Center, where her play Cannabis Passover was included in PlayLabs for their public season last fall and was a 2020 finalist for the O’Neill Playwrights’ Conference. Other plays include this party sucks (2019 Kilroys List, New York Theatre Workshop development), be mean to me (semi-finalist for Premiere Stages at Keane, IATI Theater) Intuitive Men (UCF’s Pegasus PlayLab, Williamstown, the Brick, the Tank), Gehinnom (semi-finalist for O’Neill Playwrights’ Conference, semi-finalist for Playwrights’ Realm and Princess Grace Award), The Gleaming (commission, Steep Theatre, Chicago), and LADY (The Araca Project, semi-finalist Stage Left Residency.) Commissions from the Hearth, Prelude Festival, The Sloan Foundation and Chinatown Soup. Short plays produced by the Sam French Off-Off Broadway Festival, Ensemble Studio Theatre, the Flea, Chicago Dramatists, and more. Finalist for the Ingram New Works Lab, Page 73 Fellowship, Dramatist Guild Fellowship, the Heideman Award and published in The Kenyon Review, the 53rd State Press Occasional, & (twice) in The Dionysian.
She’s been working on an Untitled Joan Didion project through Hulu and Big Beach with Sarah Gubbins and Heidi Schreck and served as script consultant for Michael Showalter's film The Eyes of Tammy Faye through Fox Searchlight. Most recently, she was awarded a commission from Penn State for their New Musical Initiative.
She’s the official annual playwriting judge for Hendrix College’s playwriting competition and got her MFA in Writing for the Screen & Stage at Northwestern University. www.sofyaweitz.com
PRAVIN WILKINS
Pravin Wilkins is a playwright, poet, and fiction writer from San Diego, California whose works typically deal with race and class struggle and the many intersections between. Pravin began writing plays during his time as an undergraduate student of literature and political science at the University of California, San Diego. There, he received the Eric Bowling Award from the UCSD Department of Theatre & Dance for his one-act play, #takebackgraffitihall, a site-specific protest piece centered on the decision of campus administration to shut down the University Art Gallery. Inspired by the success of the piece in its mission to both commemorate & contribute to a collective act of political resistance, he applied to graduate school in order to learn more about the craft and industry of playwriting, in the hopes of continuing work in the spirit of #takebackgraffitihall, but in new spaces and on even greater scales. During his time at Carnegie Mellon University, he wrote his first full-length play, Moreno, a drama centering four fictional NFL players who are faced with career-making decisions in the summer of 2016 when Colin Kaepernick begins his protest against police violence and racial inequity; this play was recognized as a 2020 finalist for the O’Neill National Playwrights’ Conference.
In May 2020, Pravin received his MFA in Dramatic Writing from Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Drama; currently, he is a Writer-in-Residence at City Books in Pittsburgh, where he is continuing his work as a writer and activist.
MATTHEW PAUL OLMOS
Matthew Paul Olmos is a three-time Sundance Institute Fellowship/Residency recipient, Actors’ Theatre of Louisville Humana Festival Commissioned Playwright, New Dramatists Resident Playwright, Center Theatre Group LA Playwright Workshop Writer, Geffen Playhouse Writers Room Playwright, Oregon Shakespeare Festival Black Swan Lab Playwright, Humanitas Play LA Workshop Playwright, Princess Grace Awardee in Playwriting, National Latino Playwriting Awardee, Cherry Lane Mentor Project playwright as chosen by Taylor Mac, and La MaMa e.t.c.'s Ellen Stewart Emerging Playwright Awardee as selected by Sam Shepard.
He spent two years as a Mabou Mines/SUITE Resident Artist being mentored by Ruth Maleczech and is a former New York Theatre Workshop's Emerging Artist Fellow, Baryshnikov Arts Center Artist in Residence, Dramatists Guild Fellow, Primary Stages' Dorothy Strelsin New American Writer, two-time INTAR H.P.R.L Playwright, Echo Theater Company Resident Playwright and an Ensemble Studio Theater lifetime member. He is a proud Kilroys nominator.
His work is produced internationally and nationally, published by Samuel French and No Passport Press; and is taught in university.
He is currently working on a devised piece, AMERICAN NATIONALISM PROJECT, with director Luke Harlan and designer Nick Benacerraf, which was recently developed through New York Theatre Workshop’s Adelphi Residency. He is also in development on a 3-play cycle about our tumultuous relationship with U.S. presidents, developed through New Dramatists Creativity Fund, and he is collaborating with composer April Guthrie on a play with music, entitled WE WALK ALONG THE CHRISTMAS BRIDGE, exploring the racial polarization of the left and right; as part of Center Theatre Group’s LA Workshop.
He is currently developing an original screenplay inspired by his play THAT DRIVE THRU MONTEREY. www.matthewpaulolmos.com.
ADAM SZYMKOWICZ
Adam Szymkowicz’s plays have been produced throughout the U.S., and in Canada, England, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Australia, Germany, Greece, Mexico, Turkey, South Korea, Thailand, Sweden, Austria, Slovenia and Lithuania. His work has been presented or developed at such places as Portland Center Stage, MCC Theater, Ars Nova, South Coast Rep, Playwrights Horizons, LCT3, LAByrinth Theater Company, The Lark, Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, Primary Stages and The New Group, among others.
Published plays include Deflowering Waldo, Pretty Theft, Food For Fish, Hearts Like Fists, Incendiary, Clown Bar, The Why Overhead, Adventures of Super Margaret, 7 Ways To Say I Love You, Rare Birds, Marian Or The True Tale of Robin Hood, Kodachrome, Mercy and Nerve. His plays are published by Dramatists Play Service, Samuel French, Playscripts, Broadway Play Publishing and Original Works Publishing, and featured in New York Theatre Review, the Dionysian, NYTE’s Cino Nights, Geek Theater, and numerous Smith and Kraus and Applause books.
He was the premiere Resident Playwright at The Chance Theater in Anaheim, CA and the first playwright to participate in Bloomington Playwrights Projects’ Square One Series. He has been to The Orchard Project and to JAW at Portland Center Stage, served twice as Playwright in Residence at the William Inge Center, and twice as a Dramatists Guild Fund’s Traveling Masters. Szymkowicz received two grants from the CT Commission on Culture & Tourism, and has been commissioned by South Coast Rep, Rising Phoenix Rep, Texas State University, The NOLA Project, Single Carrot Theater, Majestic Rep, The Chance Theater and Flux Theater Ensemble.
Adam received a Playwright’s Diploma from The Juilliard School's Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwrights Program and an MFA from Columbia University where he was the Dean’s Fellow. Szymkowicz is a two-time Lecomte du Nouy Prize winner, a member of the Dramatists Guild, Writer’s Guild of America, and was a member of Primary Stages’ Dorothy Strelsin New American Writer’s Group, the MCC Playwright’s Coalition and of the very first Ars Nova Play Group.
He has interviewed over 1000 playwrights on his blog.
For more, go to www.adamszymkowicz.com.
KEN URBAN
Ken Urban’s plays include A Guide for the Homesick, The Remains, Sense of an Ending, The Correspondent, A Future Perfect, The Awake, and The Happy Sad. His plays have been produced Off-Broadway by Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, 59E59 Theatres, The Amoralists and the Summer Play Festival at the Public Theater. In London, his work was staged at Trafalgar Studios in the West End and on the fringe at Theatre503. Regionally, his work has been seen at the Huntington Theatre Company, Studio Theatre, SpeakEasy Stage Company, and First Floor Theater. Awards include the EST/Alfred P. Sloan Science & Technology Project Commission, Weissberger Playwriting Award, New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, the Independent Reviewers of New England’s Award for Best New Script, Huntington Theater Playwriting Fellowship, Headlands Artist Residency, Djerassi Artist Residency, Dramatist Guild Fellowship, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts Fellowship, MIT Center for Art, Science & Technology (CAST) Grant, and MacDowell Colony Fellowships.
He is a resident playwright at New Dramatists and an affiliated writer at the Playwrights’ Center. For the screen, Ken wrote the screenplay for the feature-film adaptation of The Happy Sad. His plays are published by Dramatists Play Service.
He leads the band Occurrence and lives in New York City with his partner Johnny.