No other collaborative partnership in the New York area brings together an esteemed Ivy League MFA program with a Tony Award-winning, not-for-profit theatre.

Roundabout Theatre Company and Columbia University School of the Arts are pleased to announce the winners of Columbia@Roundabout’s 2021 New Play Reading Series.

The playwrights featured in the sixth annual Columbia@Roundabout New Play Reading Series are: Adam North (Central Air), Kate Pressman (Piano for Four Hands) and Alaudin Ullah (The Halal Brothers).

Finalists include A.A. Brenner (Blanche and Stella), Justin Aaron Halle (Cowgirl), Julián Mesri (Immersion), Alle Mims (Pink), Paola Alexandra Soto (The Sosa Sisters).

Meet the Winners

Adam North (he/him) is a playwright and screenwriter from Fairfax, Virginia. Plays include Central Air (fka Adjustment of Status, O’Neill Semi-Finalist), The Entheogens, Full Course Menu (Fresh Fruit Festival), Breakfast (Winner: Best Performance, Act One One Act Fest), Spin (Columbia@Roundabout Finalist), Home Delivery (New Harmony Project Finalist, Geffen Theater Annex). He's written opera libretti with composers such as Nico Muhly and David Little, and is currently assisting Bess Wohl with development of a new play and several television and film projects. Adam co-wrote and co-directed Complete Works, a comedy series about a National Shakespeare Competition that aired on Hulu in 2013. Prior to living in New York, Adam worked as a feature film development executive at Columbia Pictures in Los Angeles, California. Adam has an MFA in Playwriting from Columbia University, as well as an MFA in Film Producing from USC's Peter Stark Program and a BA in English Literature, also from University of Southern California. He lives in the East Village.

Kate Pressman (she/her) received her Playwriting MFA from Columbia in 2020. Her play Twenty-Six Seconds received a studio presentation at the Park Avenue Armory as part of the Culture in a Changing America Symposium in February 2019. Her other full-length plays have been read at New Georges, Red Fern Theatre Company, The Kraine Theater, The Access Theater and Play on Words. Her short plays have been performed in New York City, regionally and digitally. In addition to playwriting, Kate has worked as a stage manager, dramaturg, designer, and assistant director.

Alaudin Ullah (he/him) has been trailblazing the past few decades as one of the first South Asian comedians to be featured on Networks such as Comedy Central, MTV. BET, and PBS. He’s appeared in several national commercials as well as done voiceovers for radio and TV. As a voiceover artist he’s been featured in the award-winning animated film Sita Sings the Blues. Limited by negative stereotypes, with little to no representation of his people, Alaudin turned from acting to writing. As a member of The Public Theater's Inaugural Emerging Writers Group, he worked on his trilogy of plays based on Harlem and Bangladesh. His solo play Dishwasher Dreams, directed by Chay Yew, will have its world premiere next season at Hartford Stage. His plays were workshopped in theaters such as The Public Theater, New York Theater Workshop, The Lark, Labyrinth, The Culture Project, Victory Gardens and Silk Road Theater (Chicago), Shakespeare in Paradise festival (Bahamas), and Classical Theater of Harlem. A book was inspired by his plays called Bengali Harlem and a documentary he co-directed by the same name is premiering next year on PBS. Recipient of Ford Foundation Grant, CAAM (Center of Asian American Media), Paul Robeson Grant, LMCC (Lower Manhattan Cultural Council) playwright grant,
and currently is a 2022 MFA candidate in Playwriting at Columbia University.