Meet Our Artists

Meet some of the playwrights that have benefitted from the New Play Initiative.
 

JULIA CHO (The Language Archive)’s plays include The Piano Teacher, Durango, The Winchester House, BFE, The Architecture of Loss and 99 Histories.  Her work has been produced at The Roundabout Theatre Company, The Vineyard Theatre, The Public Theater, South Coast Repertory, Long Wharf Theater, Playwrights Horizons, New York Theatre Workshop, East West Players, Theatre@Boston Court and Silk Road Theatre Project among others.  Honors include the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, the Barrie Stavis Award, the Claire Tow Award for Emerging Artists and the L. Arnold Weissberger Award.  Durango was also named one of the Top 10 Plays of 2006 by Entertainment Weekly and one of the Best of 2007 by the L.A. Times.  An alumna of the Juilliard School and NYU’s Graduate Dramatic Writing Program, Julia is also a member of New Dramatists. 

 

ADAM GWON (Ordinary Days) is a composer and lyricist named one of "50 to Watch" by The Dramatist magazine, and winner of the 2008 Fred Ebb award for excellence in musical theater songwriting. His musical Ordinary Days recently enjoyed a sold-out run at the Finborough Theatre in London, after making its world premiere at Pennsylvania Centre Stage and appearing in the 2008 NAMT Festival of New Musicals and the 2008 ASCAP/Disney Musical Theatre Workshop. His other musicals include Bernice Bobs Her Hair (with librettist Julia Jordan) and Ethan Frome. His work has been seen at Primary Stages, the York Theatre, New Dramatists, the Flea Theater, American Music Theatre Project, NYMF, Symphony Space, and many others. He's currently at work on an original musical with playwright Sarah Hammond, commissioned by Broadway Across America; a musical commission from South Coast Rep for a project with Octavio Solis; and an adaptation of Joe Meno's "The Boy Detective Fails," commissioned by Signature Theatre in Arlington, VA, as part of its American Musical Voices Project: The Next Generation. Adam and his work were presented in concert at the Kennedy Center as part of their series "Broadway: The Third Generation" and you can watch the concert on their website. Adam was a 2006-07 musical theater fellow at the Dramatists Guild and is a graduate of NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. Visit www.adamgwon.com.

 

 

STEPHEN KARAM (Sons of the Prophet, Speech & Debate) Karam is the author of Speech & Debate which was produced off-Broadway by Roundabout Theatre Company as the inaugural production of Roundabout Underground. Following an extended run in New York, Speech & Debate has received over 100 productions across the U.S. and Canada. Other plays include Sons of the Prophet (co-world premiere by Huntington/Roundabout Theater Companies), columbinus (New York Theatre Workshop), Girl on Girl (Brown/Trinity Playwrights Rep), and Emma (a re-imagining of Jane Austen's novel), performed this spring by the Professional Performing Arts High School in NYC. His work is published by Dramatists Play Service and Dramatic Publishing Company and his freelance writing has appeared in The Advocate and McSweeneys.net. Current projects include the film version of Speech & Debate and Dark Sisters, an original chamber opera with composer Nico Muhly (a co-production of Gotham Chamber Opera, Music-Theatre Group and Opera Company of Philadelphia). A MacDowell Colony Fellow, Stephen grew up in Scranton, PA and received his B.A. from Brown University.

 

STEVEN LEVENSON Steven Levenson's plays include Core Values (upcoming, Ars Nova), The Language of Trees (Roundabout Underground), Seven Minutes in Heaven (HERE Arts Center; Emerging America Festival/Huntington Theater Company), Retreat (Edinburgh Fringe Festival), Almost Stuck, and Girls Day. His work has been seen and developed by Roundabout, Lincoln Center Theater, Manhattan Theatre Club, Atlantic Theater Company, MCC Theater, Ars Nova, Hartford Stage, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Berkshire Theatre Festival, and the Araca Group. His plays are published by Dramatists Play Service and Playscripts. A graduate of Brown University and the 2010 Artist in Residence at Ars Nova, Steven has received new play commissions from Roundabout, Lincoln Center, MCC, and Ars Nova. He is a member of the MCC Playwrights' Coalition, an alumnus of Ars Nova’s Play Group, and a founding member of Colt Coeur. Steven is currently working on the book for an original musical with Benj Pasek and Justin Paul.   

 

ROBERT LOPEZ and KRISTEN ANDERSON-LOPEZ (Up Here, Roundabout Commission ) Robert Lopez is the Tony Award-winning co-songwriter of the smash hit musical, Avenue Q, which ran for six years on Broadway and four years in London’s West End, and is now entering its second year off-Broadway. Lopez’s latest project is the musical The Book of Mormon, co-written with Trey Parker and Matt Stone (South Park); as well as Up Here, a new musical co-written with his wife, Kristen Anderson-Lopez, whose show, In Transit, recently played off-Broadway. Lopez co-wrote the musical episode of the long-running sitcom, Scrubs, and Lopez and Anderson-Lopez have written for Nickelodeon and Disney, including the stage version of Finding Nemo, and songs for The Wonder Pets (two Emmy award wins) and the upcoming Winnie the Pooh animated film.

 

JULIE MARIE MYATT (Roundabout Commission)’s play The Happy Ones premiered at South Coast Repertory, and won the LA Drama Critic Circle’s Ted Schmitt Award for Outstanding New Play. Welcome Home, Jenny Sutter premiered at Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and a tour of that production went to the Kennedy Center as part of the Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays.  Her play Someday, premiered as part of Cornerstone Theater’s Justice Cycle.  Her play My Wandering Boy premiered at South Coast Repertory in the 2007, was part of Pacific Playwrights Festival, and was also produced in New York as part of the 2007 Summer Play Festival.  Boats On A River premiered at the Guthrie Theater, was a finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, and was recorded for the LA Theatre works radio play series, “The Play’s The Thing”.  Her ten-minute play, Mr. and Mrs. premiered at the 2007 Humana Festival.  Her play The Sex Habits of American Women was produced by the Guthrie Theater, among others, and premiered at the Magic Theatre in San Francisco.  Her work has been developed or seen at Actors Theatre of Louisville, Seattle Rep, Cherry Lane, A.S.K. Theatre Projects, LAByrinth Theater Company, Denver Center Theatre Company, ACT Seattle, among others.  She received a Walt Disney Studios Screenwriting Fellowship, a Jerome Fellowship at the Playwrights’ Center, and a McKnight Advancement Grant.  Hell Leaves Odessa was a commission from ACT Seattle.  She is currently working on commissions for Roundabout Theatre, Yale Repertory, and Center Theatre Group.  She is an Ensemble member of Cornerstone Theater Company, and a resident member of New Dramatists.

 

DAVID WEST READ (The Dream of the Burning Boy) is currently a Lila Acheson Wallace Playwriting Fellow at The Juilliard School, and a recent graduate of the MFA program in Dramatic Writing at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. His play The Dream of the Burning Boy was developed at the 2010 National Playwrights Conference at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center. His work has been featured in the Pacific Playwrights Festival at South Coast Repertory, the Samuel French Off-Off Broadway Short Play Festival, NYU's Festival of New Works, the Toronto Fringe, and the SummerWorks Festival, and he is currently working on a commission for South Coast Repertory. Selected honors include the Robertson Davies Playwriting Award, the Alta Lind Cook Prize for Drama, and NYU's John Golden Prize for Graduate Playwriting. David is a native of Toronto, Canada.

 

KIM ROSENSTOCK (Tigers Be Still) recently earned her MFA in playwriting under the mentorship of Paula Vogel at the Yale School of Drama where she is the recipient of the Eugene O'Neill Memorial Scholarship. Her work has been developed and produced by The Kennedy Center, Ars Nova, The Old Vic in association with The Public Theater, Voice and Vision, the NY Fringe Festival, Vital Theatre and New York Stage & Film. Her play 99 Ways To Fuck A Swan was featured in Portland Center Stage's 2009 JAW Playwrights Festival. She was the Artistic Director of the 2009 Yale Summer Cabaret where she produced several shows including Fly-By-Night, a new indie rock musical she co-wrote about star-crossed love and blackouts. From 2005-2007 she was Associate Producer of Ars Nova in New York City where she produced new works of music, comedy and theater. She has her BA from Amherst College where she first began writing plays under the mentorship of Constance Congdon. She is originally from Baldwin, Long Island.

 

ALEX TIMBERS (Director, The Language of Trees)  is a Tony-nominated writer and director and the recipient of Lucille Lortel, Drama Desk, and Outer Critics Circle Awards, as well as two OBIE Awards. BROADWAY: Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson (also book writer; Tony nomination and Drama Desk Award- Best Book; Lortel and OCC Awards- Best Off-Broadway Musical), The Pee-wee Herman Show (aired on HBO); OFF-BROADWAY: Peter and the Starcatcher (OBIE Award- Best Director; Disney Theatricals/New York Theatre Workshop and La Jolla Playhouse), Hell House (Drama Desk nom.- Unique Theatrical Experience), Gutenberg! The Musical! (Drama Desk nom.- Best Director of a Musical), A Very Merry Unauthorized… (also conceiver; OBIE Award; Garland Award- Best Director), The Language of Trees (Roundabout Theatre Company), Heddatron, Boozy, Dance Dance Revolution (writer of latter two, all Les Freres), and Beyond Therapy (Williamstown Theatre Festival/Bay Street Theatre). Alex graduated from Yale University and is Artistic Director of downtown company Les Freres Corbusier.