Announcing 13 Semifinalists for the 2023 Page 73 Playwriting Fellowship

our 2023 fellow will be the 20th named in our history! the 13 semifinalists are Lucas Baisch, Benjamin Benne, Majkin Holmquist, Mary Kamitaki, Shayan Lotfi, Gloria Majule, Genne Murphy, Jeremy O'Brian, Charlie Oh, Audley Puglisi, Scott R. Sheppard, Genevieve Simon, and Noelle Viñas.

The finalists and the Fellowship recipient will be announced in January 2023.

Now in its 20th year, the Page 73 Playwriting Fellowship is the company's most prestigious award, annually supporting a playwright who has yet to have a professional premiere in New York City. Past recipients include Pulitzer Prize winner Quiara Alegría Hudes, Pulitzer Prize finalist and Tony Award nominee Heidi Schreck, and Obie winners Clare Barron and Kirsten Greenidge. The 2022 Playwriting Fellow is Marvin González De León. Each Fellow receives an honorarium of $10,000, and an additional $10,000 in development support from Page 73, which can be personalized to support the Fellow’s proposed project and can include such expenses as research, workshop and reading presentations, and fees for collaborating artists. Each Fellow works with Page 73 on at least one public presentation of the new play, including identifying artistic collaborators like directors, designers, and actors. 

LUCAS BAISCH

Lucas is from San Francisco. Select plays include REFRIGERATOR (First Floor Theatre), On the Y-Axis (The Bushwick Starr Reading Series), Dry Swallow (Brown University), import speech_memory (Cutting Ball’s Variety Pack Festival), and 404 Not Found (2022 O'Neill NPC Finalist). Lucas is a recipient of a Steinberg Playwright Award, the Princess Grace Award, The Kennedy Center’s KCACTF Latinx Playwriting Award, and a Jerome Fellowship. His plays have been published through Methuen/Bloomsbury and Yale’s Theater Magazine. His artwork has been presented at Elsewhere Museum, the Electronic Literature Organization, gallery no one, and the RISD Museum. MFA: Brown University. www.lucasbaisch.com

BENJAMIN BENNE

Benjamin’s plays include Alma (National Latinx Playwriting Award & Blue Ink Playwriting Award; WP: Center Theatre Group’s Kirk Douglas Theatre in cooperation with American Blues Theater; ArtsWest; forthcoming: Curious Theatre & Central Square) and In His Hands (KCACTF Latinx Playwriting Award & Clauder Competition Gold Prize; WP: Mosaic Theatre Company). He’s a Primary Stages’ DSNAWG member& Playwrights’ Center Affiliated Writer. Commissions: South Coast Rep & Seattle Rep. MFA: David Geffen/Yale School of Drama. www.benjaminbenne.com

MAJKIN HOLMQUIST

Majkin is a playwright originally from the Smoky Valley region in central Kansas where she was co-founder of The Next Stage Theatre Company. Her plays include Every Anne Frank, Quickmatch, The Dog Pack Play, Stargazers, and Skinflint. Her play Tent Revival will be produced by the Bard at the Gate series through McCarter Theatre Center. In addition, her work has been developed at New York Stage and Film, Woodshed Collective, Bay Street Theatre, Page 73, Ucross, and Roundabout Theatre Company. She has been a finalist for the P73 Playwright’s Fellowship, Colt Coeur, the Pacific Playwright’s Festival, and PlayPenn. She is currently a member of Midnight Oil Collective and a Lecturer in Playwriting at the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale. She holds an MFA in Playwriting from the Yale School of Drama.

MARY KAMITAKI

Mary is a New York-based playwright from the Big Island of Hawaii. Her plays have been produced by Playwrights’ Arena in Los Angeles and developed at the Alliance Theatre, A Noise Within, Open Fist Theatre Company, Pasadena Playhouse, Skylight Theatre, Ensemble Studio Theatre/LA, UCLA, and USC. Mary’s work explores questions of identity and self-determination facing young people today, particularly mixed, queer girls who reinvent themselves to survive in transforming worlds. marylyonkamitaki.com

SHAYAN LOTFI

Shayan has written some plays and thankfully still wants to write. He's been fortunate enough that some wonderful institutions have supported and developed his work, including MacDowell, The Working Farm at SPACE on Ryder Farm, Atlantic Theater, Roundabout Theatre, South Coast Repertory, The Lark, Marble House, Millay, and Boston Court. Maybe one day his biography will end with the fact that he, his partner, their six children, and pug split their time between Fort Greene, the Sicilian coast, and Kyoto, but currently that isn’t true.

GLORIA MAJULE

Gloria is a playwright from Dodoma, Tanzania presently residing in Seattle, WA. She seeks to tell stories that bring multiple black voices together from across the world and are accessible to black audiences no matter where they are. She writes primarily for and about the black diaspora. Gloria is currently commissioned by Atlantic Theater Company and is an instructor at Cornish College of the Arts. BA Cornell University, MFA Yale School of Drama. https://www.gloriamajule.com

GENNE MURPHY

Genne is a playwright from Philadelphia. Her work has been developed with Page 73, Azuka Theatre, Yale Cabaret/Yale School of Drama, The American Playwriting Foundation, Ucross Foundation, Great Plains Theater Conference, PlayPenn, Philly Fringe, SF PlayGround and Theater Masters. Her selected plays include The Girl Is Chained (2019 Kilroys List; 2018 Relentless Award Finalist), Giantess (2016 Leah Ryan Award), The Skinny Killer Inside (Page73), Fuck Her (Yale Cabaret), Hope Street and Other Lonely Places (Azuka Theatre; O’Neill NPC Finalist). MFA: Yale School of Drama. BFA: NYU Tisch School. Website: gennemurphy.com

JEREMY O’BRIAN

Jeremy is an award-winning playwright, recording artist, songwriter, and currently a company member at Tectonic Theater Project. His work insists on the comedic tenderness, vulnerability, and cultural relevance of Black and Black LGBTQ visibility on stage, in music, on television, and in film.

CHARLIE OH

Charlie’s plays have been developed at Manhattan Theatre Club, South Coast Rep, The Lark, Second Stage, The Goodman, and others. His play LONG won the Kennedy Center’s Paula Vogel Award and was an honorable mention for the Relentless Award. His play Coleman 72 won the Paul Stephen Lim Playwriting Award and will premiere at South Coast Rep Spring 2023. Commissioned by MTC / Sloan and developing projects with Amazon and Universal. Northwestern University and The Juilliard School. charlieoh.com

AUDLEY PUGLISI

Audley is a playwright and poet. Audley has received fellowships from VONA/Voices, Lambda Literary, The Playwrights Realm, Blue Mountain Center and has worked with St. Paul's Penumbra Theatre. Writings have been published in ColorBloq and Garage Magazine. Plays include the salt women, Two Sisters (Sip Fest @ The Wild Project); blues for miss lucille (Lorraine Hansberry Award, finalist), Home on High; and The Misplaced Saints. Audley is a recent M.F.A. Graduate from the Yale School of Drama.

SCOTT R. SHEPPARD

Scott is an Obie award-winning theater artist and Co-Artistic Director of theater company Lightning Rod Special. Lead Writer/Performer in The Appointment (Best of 2019 Time Out NY, NY Mag, NYTimes Critics’ Pick). Co-creator/performer of Underground Railroad Game (Edinburgh Fringe First Award, NYTimes top 25 Best Play in 25 Years). Pig Iron School graduate. Writer of Blood Meal for Theater in Quarantine (NYTimes Critics’ Pick). I-73 Writers Group 2021-22

GENEVIEVE SIMON

Genevieve (they/them) centers nonbinary people in magical worlds at the intersection of family, queer identity, and water. Genevieve’s work has been supported by Actors Theatre of Louisville, New Georges, The Puffin Foundation, The Parsnip Ship, The Tank, Arts on Site, NYSCA, Holton-Arms School, and Cincinnati Fringe Festival. Finalist, EMOS Ecodrama Playwrights Festival (2022). Producer’s Pick of the Fringe (Cincinnati Fringe 2017). Finalist: EST/Youngblood, Pipeline Playlab. New Georges Affiliated Artist. www.genevieve-simon.com

NOELLE VIÑAS

Noelle is a playwright, TV writer, and educator from Springfield, Virginia and Montevideo, Uruguay who writes frequently about Latinidad, class, Christianity, politics, and sexuality by creating slightly fantastical or science fiction worlds. She was a recipient of the 2020 John Gassner Award and the 2021 Jeffry Melnick New Playwright Award at Primary Stages. During the pandemic, her plays were produced by Shotgun Players, Colt Coeur, Imagination Stage, and Westtown School. Her work has been developed or in residence as a member of the 2022 Working Farm at SPACE on Ryder Farm, New York Stage and Film, Tofte Lake Center, Civilians R&D Group and the Bay Area Playwrights Festival. Viñas resides between Brooklyn and LA, where she was mostly recently a staff writer on “Mrs. Davis”. BA: Emerson College, MFA: Brooklyn College.