Meet The 2011-12 Featured Writers...
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Nastaran Ahmadi Chantal Bilodeau Ian Cohen Bathsheba Doran
Colin Greer Étienne LePage Mona Mansour Dominique Morisseau

 
A. Rey Pamatmat Jose Rivera Tommy Smith  

 

 

Nastaran Ahmadi (EXILE) - Her plays have been developed and / or produced at New York Theatre Workshop, Actors Theater of Louisville, Lark Play Development Center, The Ontological-Hysteric Theater, 45th Street Theatre, The Access Theatre, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Queens Theatre in the Park, Playwrights Foundation in San Francisco, The InterArt Annex, The Yale Cabaret and The Yale School of Drama.  Nastaran is a 2011-2012 Playwrights Realm Writing Fellow and an Artist-in-Residence in Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s 2011-2012 Workspace program. Her work has received Honorable Mentions from The Jane Chambers Playwriting Award and The Middle East America Distinguished Playwright Award. Nastaran holds an MFA in Playwriting from Yale School of Drama where she received ASCAP's Cole Porter Prize in Playwriting.
   
Chantal Bilodeau (HOWL RED, translator) - A New York-based playwright and translator originally from Montreal, Canada. Recent productions include The Motherline (New York International Fringe Festival, 2009), Pleasure & Pain (Magic Theatre; Foro La Gruta, Teatro La Capilla and Festival de Teatro Nuevo León in Mexico City, 2007), the English translations of Bintou by Koffi Kwahulé (The Movement Theatre Company, 2010) and Abraham Lincoln Goes to the Theatre by Larry Tremblay (Alberta Theatre Projects, 2010). She has received commissions from the Lark Play Development Center, Play Company, Mo`olelo Performing Arts Company and Bated Breath Theatre Company; and fellowships from the Dramatists Guild, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Banff Centre (Canada), the Jerome Foundation and The Farm, Inc. Her translations include a dozen of plays by contemporary playwrights Mohamed Kacimi (Algeria),  Koffi Kwahulé (Côte d’Ivoire), Étienne Lepage (Quebec) and Larry Tremblay(Quebec). She is a member of the Dramatists Guild, NoPassport Theatre Alliance, Playwrights Guild of Canada, Playwrights' Workshop Montréal and The Fence. www.cbilodeau.com.
   
Ian Cohen (HE WHO LAUGHS) -Full length plays developed at The Lark include: Bertrand Priest, winner of the Kaufman & Hart Award for New American Comedy, and subsequently produced at Arkansas Rep in 2007. Lenny & Lou, world premiere, September 2004, Woolly Mammoth Theatre,Washington, D.C. Nominated, Charles MacArthur Award for Best Play and Best Resident Play as part of the Helen Hayes Awards. Also nominated, American Theatre Critic’s Association’s New Play Award. New York premiere, February 2006 at 29th St. Rep. Vattago, selected as a PlayLabs Playwrights Center semi-finalist and performed at undergroundzero/playgroundzero, PS 122, also winner of the Jerry Kaufman Award. Jefferson Street, finalist NAAA Playreading
Contest, performed at NYU Studio Tisch. God’s Creatures, semi-finalist, Stageplays’ International Playwrights Competition. Little Universe, screenplay (adapted from his play) semifinalist Scriptapalooza International Screenplay Competition and The Playwright and His Wife,
staged-reading at the Actors Studio Playwright-Directors Unit. Other plays include The Desert, Honorable Mention, 1999 Crossing borders/Approaching Millennium New Play Contest, Wharf Rat Theater. Luna Park, Runner-up, Jewish Ensemble Theatre Spring Festival of New Plays, Going, (one-act), The Workshop, semi-finalist, Chutzpah Festival, Manhattan Punchline. Published, 2006, Playscripts, Inc. Fantasy, (10 minute play), The Workshop. Film, co-directed by the author and Joe Leonard. Ian was nominated for a Lucille Lortel Foundation Fellowship
and teaches scene study for Different Directions, a community organization, committed to nurturing the creative, artistic and social abilities unique to each student. He also plays guitar and mandolin, performing with the Hell’s Kitchen Cookers.
   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 

 Bathsheba Doran (Playwrights' Workshop) - Her critically acclaimed new play Kin received its world premiere in spring 2011 at Playwrights Horizons, directed by Sam Gold. Her play Parents’ Evening premiered last spring at The Flea Theater, directed by Jim Simpson; and her play Ben and the Magic Paintbrush premiered in spring 2010 at South Coast Repertory Theater. She is currently adapting the no. 1 Ladies Detective Agency as a feature for HBO Films; and is currently writing on Season Two of the acclaimed Martin Scorsese/HBO series BOARDWALK EMPIRE. Other plays include: Living Room in Africa (produced Off-Broadway by the award-winning Edge Theater), Nest (commissioned and produced by Signature Theatre in DC), Until Morning (BBC Radio 4) and adaptations of Dickens’ Great Expectations (starring Kathleen Chalfant at The Lucille Lortel), Maeterlinck’s The Blind (Classic Stage Company), and Peer Gynt (directed by Andre Serban at the Theater of the riverside Church). Bathsheba is a 2009 recipient of the Helen Merrill Playwriting Award and three Lecomte du Nouy Lincoln Center playwriting awards. She is a Cherry Lane Mentor Project Fellow and a Susan Blackburn Award finalist. Ms. Doran’s work has been developed by Manhattan Theatre Club, O’Neill Theatre Center, Lincoln Center, Sundance Theater Lab, Almeida Theatre (London), and Playwrights Horizons among others. Ms. Doran’s first play Feminine Wash was produced at the Edinburgh Fringe festival while she was a student at Cambridge University, from which she holds a BA and an MA. She then went on to Oxford University, where she received an MA before working as a television comedy writer with the BBC. Ms. Doran moved to the United States on a Fulbright Scholarship in 2000, and received her M.F.A. from Columbia University and went on to become a playwriting fellow of the Julliard School. She is currently under commission from Atlantic Theater and Playwrights Horizons in New York City. Her work is available from Samuel French and Playscripts Inc. She lives in New York City.
   
Colin Greer (SARAH AT NOON) - Has been the President of The New World Foundation since 1985. Formerly, he was a Professor at Brooklyn College, CUNY.He is the author (with Herbert Kohl) of The Plain Truth of Thingsand A Call to Character. Other books include: What Nixon is doing to Us; The Solution is Part of the Problem; After Reagan What?; and The Divided Society. He is best known for The Great School Legend and Choosing Equality: The Case for Democratic Schooling (which won the American Library Association’s Eli M. Oboler Intellectual Freedom Award).He was a founding editor of Change Magazine and Social Policy Magazine. He is a contributing editor to Parade Magazine.Dr. Greer participated in and directed several studies of US Immigration and urban schooling policy and history (at Columbia University and CUNY). He wrote briefing papers on philanthropy and government for First Lady, Mrs. Hillary Clinton, and on education policy for Senator Paul Wellstone.He chaired the President’s White House Fellows Program (1992-4) and chaired the Funders Committee for Citizen Participation (for 10 years). He currently chairs The LARK Theater Company(NYC), and Culture Project (NYC).He serves on the Boards of the Center for Social Inclusion, The Opportunity Agenda, the Teachers and Writers Collaborative(NYC), New York City Interfaith Center, Tikkun Magazine(California),  openDemocracyUSA (US/UK), and the American Institute for Mental Imagery.Colin Greer also writes poetry, plays and non-fiction, and now also writes a blog onwww.newwf.org.
   
Odile Gakire Katese (BOOK OF LIFE) - A poet, director, and writer from Rwanda.  Through her work with the arts in Rwanda, Katese seeks to bring Rwandans together in reconciliation and healing.  She is the founder of Ingoma Nshya, Rwanda's first all-female drumming troupe, open to women from both sides of the conflict.  In her capacity as assistant director at the University Centre for Arts and Drama of the National University of Rwanda, in Kigali, she has organized festivals, workshops, and performances to bring Rwandans together through culture and art.  Recently, the League of Professional Theatre Women named Katese as the first recipient of the Rosamond Gilder/Martha Coigney International Award.
   
Étienne LePage (HOWL RED) - A graduate from the Dramatic Writing Program of the National Theatre School of Canada, Étienne Lepage is a playwright, translator and jack-of-all-trades. Some of his plays, including Rouge Gueule and L'Enclos de l'éléphant, have been presented internationally and translated into several languages. His most recent play, Histoires pour faire des cauchemars, will premiere this spring in Brussels. He is currently at work on a new piece in collaboration with choreographer Frédérick Gravel.
   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Mona Mansour (Playwrights' Workshop) - Her play, Urge For Going had a production at the Public Theater in April 2011. Previously, the play was read at The Public (New Work Now), Theater J, Golden Thread, and the Ojai Playwrights Conference. Mona completed a year in The Public’s Emerging Writers Group, where The Hour of Feeling was read in The Public’s Spotlight Series (directed by Mark Wing-Davey). The Hour of Feeling was also read at New York Stage and Film in July 2011. Mona started writing as a performer in the Sunday Show at L.A.’s famed Groundlings Theater. Her play Girl Scouts of America (co-written with Andrea Berloff) had readings at NYTW, The Public (New Work Now), and a production in NYC Fringe 2006. Television writing credits: “Dead Like Me,” (Showtime) and “Queens Supreme,” (CBS). Current projects include a commission for the third-year graduate acting class at NYU, as well as a piece on journalist Anna Politkovskaya for NYC’s Continuum Theater.  A Core Writer of Minneapolis’ Playwright Center, Mona was named “One of 50 to Watch” by the Dramatists Guild, and is most proud of having curated, with Lisa Kron, Nuff Said, a piece for gay, lesbian, and transgender youth that was performed at Dance Theater Workshop in NYC. Honorable Mention, Middle East America Playwright Award.
   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Dominique Morisseau (Playwrights' Workshop) - She is a writer and actress, and currently a member of the 2011 Public Theater Emerging Writer’s Group and the 2010-2012 Women’s Project Playwrights Lab.  Her play, Follow Me To Nellie’s, was developed at the 2010 O’Neill National Playwrights Conference and produced at Premiere Stages in July 2011. Her produced one-acts include: Third Grade (FTT Festival), Black at Michigan (Cherry Lane Studio/DUTF), Socks, Roses Are Played Out and Love and Nappiness (Center Stage, ATH). Dominique’s commissions include: love.lies.liberation (The New Group) and Bumrush (Hip Hop Theater Festival). Dominique is currently developing a 3-play cycle on her hometown of Detroit, entitled “The Detroit Projects”. The first play in the series, Detroit ’67, was developed at The Public Theater and was a finalist for the 2011 O’Neill National Playwrights Conference. Dominique has worked as an actress with BET/Viacom, The Lark, Women’s Project, McCarter Theater, NYSAF, and MCC Theater. Her work has been developed with: the Kennedy Center, African Continuum Theater, Classical Theatre of Harlem and published in NY Times bestseller- “Chicken Soup for the African American Soul”. Dominique is a Jane Chambers Playwriting Award Honoree, a two-time NAACP Image Award Recipient, a nominee for the Wendy Wasserstein Playwriting Prize, and a runner-up for the 2011 Princess Grace Award.
   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 A. Rey Pamatmat (PONY Fellows/Playwrights' Workshop) - He was awarded the 2010 Princess Grace Fellow for Playwriting. His play Edith Can Shoot Things and Hit Them began its rolling world premiere at the Actors Theatre of Louisville’s 2011 Humana Festival before productions at New Theater, Actors’ Express, Mu Performing Arts, and B Street. His full-length plays have been produced by Second Generation (Thunder Above, Deeps Below) and the Vortex Theatre (Deviant), and his shorts have been produced by Actors Theatre (This is How it Ends, Ain’t Mean, and 1,260-Minute Life), Vampire Cowboys (Red Rover), and HERE (High/Limbo/High). His work has been developed at the O’Neill Playwrights Conference, The Public, Victory Gardens, Playwrights’ Horizons, The Magic, Ars Nova, Ma- Yi, Rattlestick, E.S.T., The Lark Play Development Center, New Dramatists, NNPN, and the National Asian American Theater Conference. He has been commissioned by South Coast Repertory, Actors Theatre, E.S.T./Sloan, Mabou Mines, and Vampire Cowboys. Rey is a member of the Ma-Yi Writer’s Lab, and has been a NYFA Playwriting Fellow, an artist-delegate to the first U.S. Social Forum, and a Truman Capote Literary Fellow. Other plays include: Beautiful Day, New, Picture 24, and Pure. B.F.A.: NYU, Drama. M.F.A.: Yale School of Drama, Playwriting.
   
Jose Rivera (Playwrights' Workshop) - He is the two-time Obie Award winning author of Marisol, Cloud Tectonics, References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot, and Boleros for the Disenchanted, and many other plays. Currently in the works are Human Emotional Process, The Hours are Feminine, Lessons for an Unaccustomed Bride, The Book of Fishes, and a new translation of Kiss of the Spiderwoman. Rivera was nominated for an Academy Award, a BAFTA, and a Writers Guild Award for his screenplay “The Motorcycle Diaries,” directed by Walter Salles. His screenplay of Kerouac’s “On the Road,” also directed by Salles, will premiere fall/winter 2011. “Celestina,” based on his play Cloud Tectonics, will mark his debut as a feature film director.
   

 

Tommy Smith (BLACK LIGHT) - Tommy Smith’s plays include PIGEON (Ensemble Studio Theatre; dir. Billy Carden), The Wife (Access Gallery;  dir. May Adrales), White Hot (Here Arts Center; dir. May Adrales), Sextet (Washington Ensemble Theatre; dir. Roger Benington), PTSD (Ensemble Studio Theatre;  dir. Billy Carden), The Break-Up (Flea Theater; dir. Sherri Kronfeld), Air Conditioning (Eugene O’Neill Playwrights Conference; dir. Steve Cosson), among others.  His work has also appeared at PS 122, The Ontological Theatre, A Contemporary Theatre, Portland Center Stage, Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab, The Yale Cabaret, The Huntington Theatre; internationally, he has been produced in Prague, Edinburgh, Amsterdam, Montreal and Athens.  His award-winning theatrical collaborations with Reggie Watts have played at The Public Theatre, Lamama, The Warhol Museum, MCA Chicago, ICA Boston, On The Boards and PICA: TBA, among others.  He is the recipient of the PONY fellow at The Lark, a two-time winner of the Lecomte du Nouy Prize, a recipient of the E.S.T. Sloan Grant, a winner of the Page73 Productions Playwriting Fellowship, a recipient of the Creative Capital award and a member of the Dorothy Strelsin New American Writer’s Group at Primary Stages.  Publications include White Hot in the New York Theatre Review and STREAKin “Laugh Lines: Short Comic Plays”, printed by Vintage.  Recently, his feature film Figment was optioned by Ridley Scott’s production company ScottFree.  He is a graduate of the playwriting program at The Juilliard School.  He lives in New York City. http://smithsmith.wordpress.com.

 

 
 
 

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