NEW YORK CITY: The Playwrights Realm has announced the recipients of its 2017-18 writing fellowships: Isabella D’Esposito, Christina Quintana, Sarah B. Mantell, and Celine Song. The fellowship lasts nine months and lets early-career playwrights work with a director, actors, designers, the Realm’s staff, and mentors on a single play. The fellows will present their work at the INK’D new play festival in spring 2018. Each playwright will also receive $3,000.
“I’m thrilled with the visionary and fearless women who will be this season’s Writing Fellows, ” said the Realm’s founding artistic director Katherine Kovner in a statement. “It is an honor to get to be part of these playwright’s journeys, to offer them the resources of the Realm and, perhaps most importantly, to create a space for them to learn from each other.”
Isabella D’Esposito has previously had her works produced at Seven Devils Playwrights Conference, ANT Fest at Ars Nova, Arts Tristate, Carnegie Mellon University, Horizon Theater, Red Theater Purchase, and SUNY Stony Brook’s International Theatre Festival. She received her MFA in dramatic writing at Carnegie Mellon University where she was the recipient of the Jean and Samuel Elgart Legacy Fellowship.
Christina Quintana is the writer of The Great Lonely Roamer & The Night That Changed Everything, Evensong, Scissoring, and Blank Canvas. She has received the Van Lier New Voices Fellowship from at The Lark. She is a proud member of EST’s Obie-winning cohort of playwrights, Youngblood, and holds an MFA in playwriting from Columbia University.
Sarah B. Mantell is a recent graduate of the Yale School of Drama’s playwriting program. Her plays include Everything that Never Happened, Tiny, Mrs. Galveston, and Rochambeau. Sarah has received residencies with Wildacres and SPACE on Ryder Farm.
Celine Song is a member of the Public Theater’s 2016-2017 Emerging Writers Group and a member of Ars Nova’s 2014-2015 Play Group. Her play Endlings was a part of the Kilroys list 2017, and Tom & Eliza was a semifinalist for the American Playwriting Foundation’s 2016 Relentless Award. She holds an MFA from Columbia University.
Since the inception of the Writing Fellowship in 2009, 12 plays that were developed in it have gone on to full productions, including: After the Revolution by Amy Herzog, Sojourners by Mfoniso Udofia, Hey Brother by Bekah Brunstetter, and You For Me For You by Mia Chung. Donja R. Love’s play Sugar in Our Wounds was developed during his 2016-17 Writing Fellowship and will be produced by the Manhattan Theater Club in June 2018.
