Winner: B.J. Tindal
Goodnight Tyler
B.J Tindal (they/them) is a Black queer playwright, teaching artist, and sour candy enthusiast. BJ spends their creative time writing plays, poetry, and lists on lists on lists. They recently moved back to their hometown of Philadelphia after completing their MFA in Writing for the Screen and Stage at Northwestern University. Since moving back to the city, BJ has been working with a number of organizations devoted to arts-education, including Philly Young Playwrights and After-School Activities Partnerships as well as creating their own workshops designed to encourage writing-confidence for elementary school students. BJ’s play Goodnight, Tyler received its world premiere in February 2019 at Alliance Theater and has been published by Samuel French/Concord Theatricals in Fall 2020. Their other play, What We Look Like, had its inaugural production at Oberlin College’s new Irene and Alan Wurtzel Theater also in February 2019. BJ is an alum of PYP (2009) and is THRILLED to be back working for the organization that is responsible for their love of Playwriting.
Karina Billini
Faded: A Calypso
Karina Billini is a Dominican-American playwright, poet, and educator from Brooklyn. Karina completed her undergraduate degree in playwriting at Marymount Manhattan College and received her MFA in Playwriting from The New School for Drama. She is a proud alum of the New Harmony Project Conference, Ensemble Studio Theatre's Youngblood, Pipeline PlayLab, Gingold Theatrical Group's Speaker's Corner, among others. Her plays have been workshopped and/or produced at Alliance Theatre, Williamstown Theatre Festival, New Harmony Project, Fault Line Theatre, Teatro Vivo, among others. Her play, Apple Bottom is a recipient of the Ensemble Studio Theatre/Alfred P. Sloan Foundation commission and recent finalist for the 2023 Eugene O'Neill National Playwriting Conference. Her other plays include: 2144 South ST (Barrington Stage’s Bonnie and Terry Berman’s New Play Award Finalist), Faded (Williamstown/Alliance/Kendeda Finalist), Becoming Lucy (EST/Teatro Vivo), and All the Helium Hearts Over Belt Parkway (EST.). She is a Lila Acheson Wallace American playwriting fellow at The Juilliard School. www.karinabillini.com
Mary Kamitaki
Southernmost
Mary is a New York-based playwright born and raised on the Big Island of Hawaii. Her plays have been produced by Playwrights’ Arena and developed at Alliance Theatre, A Noise Within, Open Fist Theatre Company, Pasadena Playhouse, Skylight Theatre, Ensemble Studio Theatre/LA, UCLA, and USC. She is an alum of the New West playwrights’ group at Ensemble Studio Theatre LA and is currently developing new work with the Interstate 73 playwrights’ group at Page 73 in Brooklyn. 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.
Sam Riley
Happy Hour
Sam Riley is a writer whose work has been featured in The Rumpus' Funny Women column, The McSweeney's Internet Tendency, and The Lifted Brow. She has an MFA in Dramatic Writing from NYU, for which she received the Tisch School of the Arts Fellowship. Her play Happy Hour was a finalist in the 2018 Alliance/Kendeda National Graduate Playwriting Competition.
Marisela Treviño Orta
Shoe
Marisela Treviño Orta is an award-winning playwright, a graduate of the Iowa Playwrights Workshop, and a Playwrights’ Center Affiliated Writer. A poet for many years, Marisela found her way to the playwriting while completing an MFA in Writing at the University of San Francisco where she studied poetry.
Her produced plays include: A Place to Belong (2018 ACT’s Young Conservatory); Braided Sorrow (2008 Su Teatro); Ghost Limb (2017 Brava Theatre); Heart Shaped Nebula (2015 Shotgun Players); Nightfall (2021 Audible); Return to Sender (2019 Nashville Children’s Theatre); The River Bride (2016 Oregon Shakespeare Festival); Shoe; Somewhere (2020 Temple University); Wolf at the Door (2018 National New Play Network Rolling World Premiere); and Woman on Fire (2017 Camino Real Productions).
Marisela is an alumna of Goodman Theatre’s Playwrights Unit, the Playwrights Foundation’s Resident Playwright Initiative, and a member of the Latinx Theatre Commons’ national Steering Committee. Her awards include: 2006 Chicano/Latino Literary Prize in Drama; 2009 Pen Center USA Literary Award in Drama; 2013 National Latino Playwriting Award; 2016 Kilroys List; 2016 Latinidad Playwriting Award Runner-Up, The Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival; and 2019 Alliance/Kendeda Finalist. Currently, Marisela is working on a new play called A Girl Grows Wings for the Latino Theater Company as part of their Circle of Imaginistas commissioning program and is collaborating with Organización Secreta Teatro of Mexico City to develop the piece.
