Winner: Stephen Brown
The Many Wondrous Realities of Jasmine Starr-Kidd
Stephen recently graduated from The Juilliard School’s Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwrights Program. His play The Many Wondrous Realities of Jasmine Starr-Kidd won the Alliance/Kendeda Award and was produced this past spring at The Alliance Theatre in Atlanta; it is currently under option to be adapted into a film. His play everything is super great was produced at 59E59 Theaters by New Light Theatre Project where it was a TimeOut NY Critic’s Pick. His other work has been developed and received readings by Primary Stages, MCC, Page 73, Ensemble Studio Theatre, The Road Theatre, Barter Theatre, Theatre Lab, and the Aurora Theatre. He’s been a Finalist for the Play Penn Conference, Seven Devil's Playwrights Conference, the Blue Ink Award, the Neukom Prize, The Aurand Harris Award, and the Working Farm at SPACE on Ryder Farm. He was a member of Youngblood at EST, Page 73’s playwriting group I-73 and has had residencies with the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and SPACE on Ryder Farm. Two of his plays The Many Wondrous Realities of Jasmine Starr-Kidd and Country Girls will be published by Sam French / Concord Theatricals this year. He’s currently developing a TV show based on his pilot Barbara.
Adam Ashraf Elsayigh
Memorial: A Verbatim Play
Adam Ashraf Elsayigh is a writer of stage and screenplays about modern humans living across and between cultures. Adam prides himself on creating worlds that are socially complex but also quite silly and a lot of fun! Adam’s plays (including Alaa: A Family Trilogy, Drowning in Cairo, Revelation, Memorial, and Jamestown/Williamsburg) have been developed and seen at New York Theater Workshop, The Lark, NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, The Alliance Theater, and Golden Thread Productions. Adam is an alum of the Laboratory for Global Performance at Georgetown University. He holds a BA in Theater History and Dramaturgy from NYU Abu Dhabi and an MFA in Playwriting from Brooklyn College.
Brittany Fisher
How to Bruise Gracefully
Brittany is a NYC-based playwright with roots in Richmond, VA, and graduate of Juilliard's Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwrights Program. Her play How to Bruise Gracefully won the 2021 Kennedy Center Lorraine Hansberry Award and was recognized by the Rosa Parks Award and Paula Vogel Award. Her play Your Regularly Scheduled Programming was a 2022 O’Neill NPC selection and recognized by the Kennedy Center Mark Twain Award. She was a 2018-20 Pipeline New Works Playwriting Fellow, and her work has been featured at and developed with the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival, National Black Theatre, Great Plains Theatre Conference, the Alliance Theatre's Kendeda Graduate Playwriting Competition, Cadence Theatre Company and Virginia Repertory Theatre. She received her B.A. from James Madison University.
Charlie O'Leary
Ridgway
Charlie O’Leary is a playwright, lyricist, and librettist. He is an alumnus of the 24 Hour Plays: Nationals, the BMI Workshop, the Brooklyn Generator, Crashbox Theatre Company's Write Play Launch, the Fornés Playwriting Workshop, the Project Y Playwrights Group, and the Road Theatre Company’s Under Construction Playwrights Group. His plays and musicals have additionally been developed and presented by the Artist Co-op, CAP21, the Dare Tactic, Dartmouth College, Dixon Place, Dreamwell Theatre, the Flea Theater, the Fresh Fruit Festival, the Habitat, the Iowa New Play Festival, Jersey City Theater Center, Loading Dock Theatre, Middle Voice at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, the PIT, Pipeline Theatre Company, the Players Theatre, the Samuel French OOB Festival, Shuga Pie Supreme, the Tank, and the University of Notre Dame. His short works have been published by Methuen Drama, Smith & Kraus, and Theatre Now New York, with licensing by Music Theatre International. He has been a finalist for the Alliance/Kendeda National Graduate Playwriting Competition, the DVRF Playwrights Program, the O'Neill National Playwrights Conference, Sanguine Theatre Company's Project Playwright, the Seven Devils Playwrights Conference, and the Woodward/Newman Drama Award, as well as the recipient of a New York Innovative Theatre Award and an Iowa Arts Fellowship. His song “A Date” (music by Helen Park) was a selection of the BMI Workshop Smoker; his songs have also been performed at places like 54 Below, Don’t Tell Mama, the Duplex, and the West End Lounge. MFA: Iowa Playwrights Workshop.
Jamie Rubenstein
Ruth and Lydia
Jamie Rubenstein is a New York-based playwright who worked for ten years as an English teacher in public and private schools. She is the inaugural Hunter-American Renaissance Theater Company Playwriting Fellow (2023) and an Alliance/Kendeda National Graduate Playwriting Competition Finalist (2023), WP Lab Semi-Finalist (2022), Bechdel Project ROO Residency Semi-Finalist (2022), and Trustus Playwrights Festival Finalist (2020). Her work has been seen or developed with the Alliance Theater, Hunter College, ESPA/Primary Stages, the Bechdel Group, and Spark Creative Works. She was an MFA Mentor at Horizon Theater’s Young Playwrights Festival. She teaches at Hunter College. MFA, Playwriting: CUNY Hunter College; MA, English: Middlbury’s Bread Loaf School of English; BA, English: Barnard College.
Arianna Gayle Stucki
Memorial: A Verbatim Play
Arianna Gayle Stucki is an actor and playwright, born into a large nonconformist Mormon family in Utah, USA. Arianna received her Bachelors in Theatre Arts from NYU Abu Dhabi, traveling to 20+ countries to witness the myriad ways of being in this great globe, and to celebrate how different cultures express story, belief, and what it means to be human. She graduated with her Masters of Fine Arts in Acting from the Juilliard School, and most recently performed in the first National Tour of Aaron Sorkin’s (and Harper Lee’s) To Kill a Mockingbird, playing the role of Mayella Ewell. Her plays have been seen at New York Theatre Workshop, The Lark, The Juilliard School, Tisch School of the Arts, and LaGuardia Performing Arts Center; and streamed throughout the world including NYU Abu Dhabi and Kampala International Theatre Festival. Arianna’s guiding question in all of her life’s work is how we may encounter difference without fear; a question she’d never have the courage to continually ask without her idiosyncratic family, her global community, her artistic homes, her mother, and particularly those that come to listen. Thank you all. Onwards.
