Introducing the 2019 Page 73 Playwriting Fellowship Semifinalists
We are thrilled to announce the 14 semifinalists for the 2019 P73 Playwriting Fellowship!
We look forward to reading more from these writers who stood out from among a field of 370 applicants. Finalists for the Fellowship, as well as members of our 2019 Interstate 73 writers group, will be announced later this winter.
Raquel Almazan
Will Arbery
Kevin Artigue
Lee Edward Colston II
Emily Feldman
Zora Howard
Phillip Howze
Jessica Huang
Genne Murphy
Philana Imade Omorotionmwan
Iraisa Ann Reilly
Stacey Rose
Andrew Saito
Sanaz Toossi
Raquel Almazan
Interdisciplinary artist, facilitator and activist. (M.F.A. – Playwriting, Columbia University). Her eclectic career spans original multi-media solo performances, playwriting, new work development and dramaturgy; featured work in New York City, Off-Broadway, throughout the United States and in Greece, Italy, Slovenia, Chile, Colombia, Guatemala and Sweden. Residencies: Eugene O’Neill Center, Playwrights Conference, The Playwrights' Center. Awards: Kennedy Center’s Latinidad Award, Kate Neal Kinley Playwriting Fellowship and the Arch and Bruce Brown Foundation Playwriting Prize. www.raquelalmazan.com
Will Arbery
Will Arbery is from Texas + Wyoming. Plays include Plano (Clubbed Thumb), Evanston Salt Costs Climbing (New Neighborhood), and Wheelchair (3 Hole Press). He’s a member of The Working Farm at SPACE on Ryder Farm, Youngblood, and an alum of Clubbed Thumb’s Early Career Writers Group. His plays have been developed at Playwrights Horizons, Ojai Playwrights Conference, The Vineyard, Cape Cod Theater Project, The New Group, The Bushwick Starr, Alliance/Kendeda, and Tofte Lake Center.
Kevin Artigue
Kevin Artigue writes plays, TV, and film. He was raised in Redlands, CA and lives in Brooklyn. He’s a newly minted member of the Dorothy Strelsin New American Writers Group at Primary Stages, and an alum of Interstate 73 Writers Group and the Public Theater's Emerging Writers Group. His plays have been developed with Page 73, The Public Theater, South Coast Rep, the National New Play Network, New York Theater Workshop, Portland Center Stage, Golden Thread, and more. Upcoming: SHEEPDOG at South Coast Rep, April 2019.
Lee Edward Colston II
Lee Edward Colston II, is a Philly native, former prison guard turned actor, playwright, director, acting & writing coach, & author. Plays include Roost, Solitary, & The First Deep Breath. His new plays currently in development include: For Which It Stands, This Is My America, & Station. His play ‘SOLITARY’ was winner of the 2008 Philadelphia Theater Workshop. His play ‘ROOST’ won the 2010 Life Media Award in the Philadelphia Urban Theater Festival & the 2013 Hidden River Arts Award for best new play. He was a 2017 Finalist for the Shonda Rhimes 'Unsung Voices' Playwriting Commission and a 2017 recipient of the National Black Theatre 'I Am Soul' playwriting fellowship. In 2018, Lee's play 'The First Deep Breath' was selected to be a part of the Victory Gardens IGNITION Festival of New American Plays.
As a teaching artist he trains actors (and writers) in both one on one and classroom settings with a special focus on classical training and preparing actors and writers for the industry as well as undergrad & grad school audition preparation. MFA: The Juilliard School.
Emily Feldman
Emily’s work has been developed by Colt Coeur, Actors Theatre of Louisville, The Magic Theatre, The Alliance Theatre, Roundabout Theatre Company, The Playwrights Realm, Portland Center Stage, The Cape Cod Theatre Project, WildWind, The New Harmony Project and Second Stage. Emily is a recent Jerome Fellow/Core Apprentice at The Playwrights’ Center, member of the working farm at SPACE on Ryder Farm and Shank Playwright in Residence at Playwrights Horizons. She’s currently a member of I-73 and The Orchard Project NYC Greenhouse. She has commissions from Manhattan Theatre Club Playwrights Horizons, and Arena Stage and teaches playwriting at NYU/Tisch. MFA: UC San Diego. BA: Middlebury College.
Zora Howard
Zora Howard is a Harlem-bred multidisciplinary creator and performer. Her work with filmmaker Lisa Russell to turn her original piece “Biracial Hair” into a short film won an Emmy for Outstanding Advanced Media Interactivity in 2009. At UCSD, she studied playwriting with Naomi Iizuka and Deborah Stein. Her play STEW was a 2018 Eugene O’Neil NPC Finalist, Synchronicity Theatre’s SheWrites Competition Semi-finalist and Berkeley Rep Ground Floor 2nd Round Selection. BA: Yale University. MFA in Acting: UCSD.
Phillip Howze
Phillip Howze is a playwright whose work has been developed at American AF Festival, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, Clubbed Thumb, Lincoln Center, PRELUDE, The Public Theater, San Francisco Playhouse, SPACE at Ryder Farm, Sundance Institute, and Yale Cabaret. His play Frontieres Sans Frontieres premiered at The Bushwick Starr in 2017 and is published by Samuel French.
Jessica Huang
Jessica Huang is a playwright and producer from Minneapolis. Her work includes THE PAPER DREAMS OF HARRY CHIN (History Theatre, 2017 Kilroy’s List, 2018 Stavis Award) and PURPLE CLOUD (Theater Mu). She cofounded and co-directs Other Tiger Productions, which has a mission to pursue multidisciplinary collaborations and intentional inclusivity and re-examination of traditional theater practices. Jessica is a MacDowell Fellow, two-time Playwrights’ Center Jerome Fellow and attends the Playwrights Program at Juilliard.
Genne Murphy
Genne Murphy’s plays include The Girl Is Chained, Bluebeard’s Wife, The Skinny Killer Inside: A Fat Rage Play, Blind Door, Fuck Her, Sea Witch, Giantess, and Hope Street and Other Lonely Places. Her work has been developed with Azuka Theatre, Great Plains Theater Conference, PlayPenn, Philly Fringe, SF PlayGround, Theater Masters, Yale School of Drama and Yale Cabaret. Awards: 2016 Leah Ryan Prize; 2017 Theater Masters’ Visionary Playwright. MFA: Yale School of Drama. BFA: NYU, Tisch.
Philana Imade Omorotionmwan
Philana Imade Omorotionmwan is a 2018-19 Playwrights’ Center Jerome Fellow. Her plays include Before Evening Comes; Strong Face, or Misogynoir; Fireflies; and The Defiance of Dandelions. A semifinalist for the 2017 Relentless Award and two-time Heideman Award finalist, Philana has developed her plays with BAPF, Br!nk, La MaMa, and the Athena Project. She is originally from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, earned her BA at Stanford University, and completed an MFA at OU in 2018. philanaplays.weebly.com
Iraisa Ann Reilly
Iraisa Ann Reilly is a theatre artist from New Jersey. Her Cuban-Irish-American roots play out in her characters on the page. Iraisa Ann’s works are bilingual, bi-cultural tragi-comedies that make an effort to actively ameliorate social concerns through empathy. She is a member of The Foundry, facilitated by Play Penn in Philadelphia. Most recently, she was a member of Labyrinth Theatre’s Summer Intensive. She holds a BA in Theatre and English from the University of Notre Dame. https://iraisaannreilly.com.
Stacey Rose
Stacey hails from Elizabeth, NJ and Charlotte, NC respectively. She holds an M.F.A in Dramatic Writing from NYU. Her work has been presented at The Fire This Time, The Bushwick Starr, Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, and JACK. She's held several prestigious fellowships including The Dramatists Guild, Playwrights’ Center Many Voices and The Sundance Theatre Lab. She's a 2018 - 21 Playwrights' Center Core Writer, a current member of The Goodman Theatre's Playwrights Unit, and The Civilian's R&D Group.
Andrew Saito
Andrew Saito was Cutting Ball Theater’s Mellon Resident Playwright (2013 – 2016). Productions: Krispy Kritters in the Scarlett Night and Mount Misery: A Comedy of Enhanced Interrogations, Cutting Ball Theater; Stegosaurus (or) Three Cheers for Climate Change, FaultLine Theater. Collaborations: Yuyachkani (Peru), Korimakao (Cuba), Victory Gardens, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Crowded Fire, East West Players, Playwrights Center (Minneapolis), Mu Performing Arts, Playwrights Foundation, Just Theater, AlterTheater. Upcoming productions: El Teatro Campesino and Brava Theater. MFA: Iowa Playwrights Workshop. Fulbright Scholarship: Papua New Guinea.
Sanaz Toossi
Sanaz Toossi is an Iranian-American playwright from Orange County, CA. She received her MFA in playwriting from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts where she received the John Golden Award for excellence in playwriting. Her short play Baba Karam was read at the Atlantic Theater as a part of Middle Eastern MixFest. She is a member of the Clubbed Thumb early career writers’ group and currently lives in New York City.
