Announcing the 2021-22 Interstate 73 Writers Group
Selected from more than 400 applicants, the eight playwrights are Heidi Armbruster, Jahna Ferron-Smith, Dylan Guerra, Roger Q. Mason, April Ranger, Scott R. Sheppard, juliany taveras, and Max Yu.
For the first time in the award’s history, this class of I73 playwrights will span a two-year residency.
We can't wait to get to know these eight incredible writers better! Over the course of 2021, they'll share their newest pages with each other and Page 73's artistic staff over Zoom, and we hope to begin in-person meetings at our Brooklyn office next year. We're proud to pay a stipend to each Interstate 73 playwright.
ALSO, rejoining us for another year of virtual meetings (unless the public health situation allows us to reunite sooner in person!) are seven playwrights from the 2020-21 I73 Writers Group: Bleu Beckford-Burrell, Vichet Chum, Tyler English-Beckwith, Emma Goidel, Marvin González De León, Emily Gardner Xu Hall, and Haygen-Brice Walker.
We are overjoyed to be in the company of so many talented writers in the coming year!
HEIDI ARMBRUSTER is a founding member and co-curator of Dorset Theater Festival’s Women Artists Writing, a group dedicated to cultivating the emergence of diverse theatrical voices. Heidi’s play Mrs. Christie received its world premiere at Dorset Theater Festival in the summer of 2019 after development at Primary Stages, Dorset Theater Festival, SPACE on Ryder Farm (as a member of the resident writer’s group The Working Farm), and multiple residencies at The Orchard Project. Dairyland received its world premiere in the fall of 2019 at Playmakers Repertory Company after workshops at Playhouse on Park, Primary Stages’ ESPADrills, The Lark, Red Fern Theater, Luna Stage, and the New Play Workshop at The Chautauqua Theater Festival in 2014.
As an actress, Heidi has extensive TV, film, and theater credits including Lincoln Center’s production of the Pulitzer Prize winning play Disgraced, the New York premieres of Sam Hunter’s Lewiston/Clarkston at Rattlestick, Anna Ziegler’s Boy at Keen Company, Tracy Letts’ Man from Nebraska at Second Stage, and Theresa Rebeck’s Poor Behavior at Primary Stages. Heidi was awarded a Drama League Nomination for her work in the Keen Company’s revival of Tea and Sympathy.
Heidi received her MFA in Acting from American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco.
JAHNA FERRON-SMITH is a Lila Acheson Wallace Playwriting Fellow at the Juilliard School, as well as a member of the Obie Award-winning playwrights collective Youngblood. Her plays have been performed at Ensemble Studio Theatre and the Samuel French Off Off-Broadway Short Play Festival. Her plays include THE WOODS (developed at SPACE on Ryder Farm), SIR. (published by Samuel French), and SALT: A Rom Com (The Lark Jerome New York Fellowship Finalist).
DYLAN GUERRA is a gay Latinx New York City based artist originally from Miami, Florida. He's a member of EST's Youngblood and Ars Nova's Playgroup. He has been a finalist for The Emerging Writers Group at The Public Theater, NBC Universal's Writers on the Verge Program, The MTC Directing Fellowship, The Drama League Hangar Directing Fellowship, and a semifinalist for the Sundance Episodic Television Writers Program. His solo-show "Find Him" recurs at Ars Nova.
ROGER Q. MASON (he/they) is an award-winning writer/performer and educator. Mason's writing has played on Broadway (Circle in the Square Reading Series); Off/Off-Off-Broadway at New York Theatre Workshop, New Group, The Fire This Time Festival, American Theatre of Actors, Flea Theatre, and Access Theater; and regionally at McCarter Theatre, Victory Gardens, Chicago Dramatists, EST/LA, and Skylight Theatre. He/they've been honored by the Kilroys List and Chuck Rowland Pioneer Award. Mason holds degrees from Princeton University, Middlebury College, and Northwestern University. https://www.rogerqmason.com
APRIL RANGER is a poet and playwright from Maine. Her play Bathsheba’s Psalms, Or A Woman of Unusual Beauty Taking A Bath (Dir. Christina Roussos) premiered at The Tank in 2019, after workshops with Fault Line Theatre and Pegasus PlayLab. Her plays have been performed at The Public Theatre, Rattlestick Playwright’s Theater, The Wild Project and The New Ohio Theatre. She received her MFA in playwriting from Brooklyn College in 2018, where she currently teaches.
SCOTT R. SHEPPARD is a playwright, theater artist and Founding Co-Director of theater company Lightning Rod Special (Wolfson Award for Evolving Theater Company 2019). Recently, he was a lead writer and performer in LRS’s The Appointment at New York Theatre Workshop’s Next Door Series (NYTimes and TONY Critics’ Pick, Best of 2019 NY Mag, TONY, NYTimes) and writer/performer of Topside with Theater in Quarantine. He is a co-creator and performer of Underground Railroad Game at Ars Nova which toured internationally (Edinburgh Fringe First Award, Edinburgh Stage Award, OBIE for Best American Theatre Work, and NYTimes' 25 Best Plays of 25 Years). Other recent credits: Pig Iron Theatre Company’s Period of Animate Existence, 99 Breakups (deviser/performer) and Gentlemen Volunteers (performer); George & Co.’s Holden (deviser/performer); Scott was an Independence Foundation Fellow, a Guild Hall Resident Artist, a BRIC Lab Fellow, and a proud graduate of Pig Iron’s School for Advanced Performance Training.
juliany taveras is a writer, artist, & facilitator from Ayiti-Kiskeya by way of Lenapehoking. they wake up everyday on a strange & miraculous planet with the mission of crafting new, just worlds into existence. their storytelling manifests as plays—among them Desarrollo (The Lark’s Playwrights' Week, Corkscrew Theater Festival); the anatomy of light (Kilroys' List, 50 Playwrights Project List); & YAELIS (Page 73 Finalist)—as well as through poetry, photography, graphic design, & teaching artistry. everything they do & make & dream of centers bodies in diaspora, & exists in pursuit of nothing less than Black liberation & Indigenous sovereignty.
MAX YU is a first-generation Chinese-American playwright and performer from the San Francisco Bay Area who is now based in Shanghai. He is the recipient of the 2019 Relentless Award for his play, Nightwatch. His plays have been developed at Horizon Theater and Shaking the Tree Theatre. He received his B.A. in Theater from the University of California, Los Angeles.
