Zakiyyah's plays include SICK? (SPF)), THE ETYMOLOGY OF BIRD (Hip Hop Theater Festival), BLURRING SHINE (Market Theater, Johannesburg), SWEET MALADIES (Rucker Theatre), AFTER THE SHOW: A PLAY IN MASK, PRALYA, ELECTED, and (900). She has received development support from Hartford Stage, the Hip Hop Theater Festival, Vineyard Theater, the Women's Project, GAle GAtes et. al, La Mama etc.,Greenwich StreetTheater, etc. Awards include the Theodore Ward Prize, Jackson Phelan Award, Drama League New Directors/New Works, New Professional Theatre Playwriting Award, Young Playwrights Inc. and more. Her work is included in the current New Monologues for Women by Women and will be featured in the upcoming book of essays, Girls who like Boys who like Boys. She is a resident member of New Dramatists. Past residencies/fellowhips include: Youngblood, the Women's Project Writer's Lab, the Women's Work Project, the Drama League, and New Dramatists. Currently under comission with 2nd Stage (Time Warner Comission), adapting THE PEOPLE COULD FLY with a Playground comission from the Children's Theater Company, and the University of Wisconsin to create an original piece for their BFA program Yale School of Drama (MFA in playwriting), Zakiyyah is a native New Yorker and was raised in Brooklyn.
Annie Baker--Fall '07
Emily Conbere--Summer '04
In New York Ms.Conbere's work has been seen at the Daryl Roth II, Atlantic Theatre (24 Hour Plays), HERE, the Manhattan Theatre Source, Pantheon Theatre, Present Company Theatorium, Shapiro Theatre and the Ensemble Studio Theatre. In Minneapolis, her plays have been produced at the Loring Playhouse, the Red Eye Theatre (best attended Fringe musical of 1998) and Bryant Lake Bowl Theatre (City Pages "A" List). Emily’s comic screenplay INSECURITY HURTS was recently read at the Tribeca Film Center and featured Armando Riesco. In 2001, Emily's interest in international collaboration led her to co-produce Stage One: Playwrights Perspective, a two-week festival at the Battersea Arts Center in London uniting theatre practitioners from London and New York. Participants included Complicité, Stephen Belber, Kelly Stuart, Simon Russell Beale and Mel Kenyon. Emily has won the John Golden Playwriting Award, was a 2004 MabouMines/Suite resident artist and is a current member of Youngblood, the Ensemble Studio Theatre’s emerging playwrights group. She is a graduate of the MFA Playwriting Program at Columbia University.
Zayd Dohrn--Spring 06
Zayd Dohrn grew up in New York City and Chicago, attended Brown University, and received his MA in playwriting under Derek Walcott at Boston University. His plays have been produced in New York at the Beckett Theatre in Theatre Row, and regionally at the Boston Actor's Workshop, Boston Director's Lab, and Boston Playwrights Theatre, where Haymarket was nominated for seven IRNE awards and Permanent Whole Life won the IRNE for Best New Play of 2005. Zayd's play MAGIC FOREST FARM won the Rita and Burton Goldberg Award in Playwriting at NYU's Department of Dramatic Writing. MFA NYU DDW, May 07.
Ron Fitzgerald--Summer '04
Plays include CYCLONE, PARTS UNKNOWN, THE RIVER, HAIR OF THE DOG, SAFE and an adaptation of THE DIARIES OF ADAM AND EVE by Mark Twain. CYCLONE and PARTS UNKNOWN were originally presented at The National Playwrights Conference. Ron attended The Juilliard School on a Playwriting Fellowship with Marsha Norman and Christopher Durang. At Juilliard, Ron was twice awarded The LeCompte du Nouy Grant from The Lincoln Center Foundation. He is also the recipient of the John Golden Award from Columbia University for Best Play, a Mentor Fellowship from the Cherry Lane Theatre and a Tennessee Williams Fellowship from the University of the South. In addition to the University of the South, Ron has taught at Randolph-Macon Woman’s College, University of Montana and Yakima Valley Community College. He is the author of three books for teens, two on baseball and one on fishing. Ron has a BA from the University of Pennsylvania and an MFA from Columbia University, but his real education came from touring Montana in the Montana Rep’s production of TURN OF THE SCREW.
Graeme Gillis--Summer '04
Graeme Gillis is from Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. He is a member and Co-Artistic Director of Youngblood, the company of emerging playwrights at Ensemble Studio Theatre. His plays have been produced at EST in Thicker Than Water 2004, and the Marathon of One-Act Plays. Other venues: Epic Rep at the Daryl Roth Theatre, Williamstown Theatre Festival, the Actors Studio, Rattlestick Theatre Exposure Festival , Cherry Lane Theatre Tongues Festival. Banff PlayRites Colony Fellow, 2003 and 2004; Walter Dakin Fellow, Sewanee Writers Conference; Member of the Actors Studio.
Jason Grote--Fall '07
Ashlin Halfnight--Summer '04
Ashlin Halfnight is in the second year of the Playwriting MFA program at Columbia's School of the Arts. His plays have been produced in Toronto, Montreal and New York. He is the recipient of a Ludwig Vogelstein Artists Grant, a Ford Grant, and is a member of the Dramatists Guild.
Lucas Hnath--Winter '04
Recent productions include a new adaptation/translation of WOYZECK (the Culture Project), SIEGFRIED'S NERVE (Target Margin), and SENJO: AN OPERA IN FOUR PARTS (Ontological Theater/Active Eye). Other plays include THREE ATTEMPTS AT CORRECTIVE EYE SURGERY (Manhattan Theatre Source), MOTH LIGHT (The Piano Store), and BORDER CROSSING: A PLAY IN TRANSLATION (4th Street Theatre). Lucas' work has been developed at The 24Seven Lab and Cleveland Public Theatre. He is a two-time winner of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Grant. He holds both a B.F.A and an M.F.A. from the Department of Dramatic Writing at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts.
J. Holtham--Spring '05
Recent productions & workshops: PRINCE OF DARKNESS (PACT), 11th HOUR (Vital Theatre); HALVES (Vital Theatre); ART OF NOISE (Youngblood/E.S.T.); ASSHOLES (Vital Theatre); POSTERITY (Ensemble Studio Theatre/Youngblood, Studio Upstairs); ISLE OF JOY (DAP Ensemble); MOTOWN (Studio Upstairs); RACE MUSIC (Vital Theatre, The Actors Studio). Upcoming: PILGRIMAGE (The Actors Studio). Other plays include: SPLENDID (The Actors Studio, E.S.T. Octoberfest 2003, Lexington Center for the Arts), KEEPERS (E.S.T. Octoberfest ’00, New Dramatists), MARGO AT SEA (HERE), DOUBLE DATE (Dallas, TX), HOW TO SURVIVE AN ATOMIC BOMB (Portland, OR), ONIONS (Youngblood/E.S.T., Finalist- ATL Ten Minute Play Contest), SCHOOL OF THE AMERICAS (Youngblood/New York Int’l Fringe Festival). Awards: E.S.T./Dasha Epstein Next Step Fellowship (E.S.T.), Van Lier Fellowship (New Dramatists). Several of his plays are published by Playscripts, Inc. (www.playscripts.com). Literary Director, Youngblood; Program Director, EST/Sloan Project. He is a member of E.S.T. & the Dramatists Guild. He is a product of the New York & New Jersey public education systems.
