NEW YORK CITY: The Playwrights Realm has selected playwrights for the second installment of its Scratchpad Series. Darren Canady, Keiko Green, and Jordan Ramirez Puckett were chosen from a pool of more than 650 submissions from across the U.S.
The writers will receive a developmental workshop of up to one week at the Playwrights Realm, and their travel and housing will be facilitated by the theatre. The playwrights will receive support from the artistic staff, a director, and cast for the developmental workshops.
“This year’s Scratchpad Series will enable us to work with three incredibly talented early-career playwrights from Kansas, Washington, and Ohio,” said founding artistic director Katherine Kovner in a statement. “Each of them is taking on complicated questions of family, legacy, and history in their own unique and thought-provoking ways, and I’m honored to get to collaborate with them on their plays.”
Canady’s works have been produced at American Conservatory Theater, Aurora Theatre, the Alliance Theatre, Congo Square Theater, Horizon Theatre, London’s the Old Vic Theatre, M Ensemble, Milwaukee Repertory Theater, Edinburgh Festival Fringe, and American Blues Theater, among others. He has received the Alliance Theatre’s Kendeda Graduate Playwriting Award, Chicago’s Black Excellence Award, the Black Theatre Alliance Award, and the American Theatre Critics Association’s Osborn Award. He is an alum of Carnegie Mellon University, New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, the Juilliard School, and is a former member of Primary Stages’ Dorothy Strelsin New American Writers Group. Canady is an artistic affiliate with American Blues Theater and Congo Square Theatre, and is a Core Writer of the Playwright’s Center. He currently teaches playwriting at the University of Kansas.
Green’s works include Nadeshiko, which was produced at Sound Theatre Company, won the Gregory Award for Outstanding New Play, and was a finalist for the Kilroys list. She also wrote the book and lyrics for the musical Bunnies, and co-wrote Puny Humans with Bret Fetzer. She received the 2018 Amy Award for Outstanding Emerging Artists in Kitsap County. She was a finalist for the 2018 Many Voices Fellowship and the Jerome Fellowship at the Playwrights’ Center, as well as a semi-finalist for the 2018 Bay Area Playwrights Festival. Green was a member of Seattle Repertory Theatre’s 2015-17 Writers’ Group and a 2016 Core Company Member of ACT Theatre. She also works as a teaching artist and lends her writing skills to the nonprofit Theatre Puget Sound, a resource to theatre artists and organizations in the Puget Sound Region. She received a BFA in experimental theatre from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.
Ramirez Puckett is a playwright and lighting designer based in the San Francisco Bay Area. She received Abingdon Theatre Company’s Christopher Brian Wolk Award for her play Restore. Her other plays include A Driving Beat (written at the 2018 National Winter Playwrights Retreat in Creede, Colo.), Las Pajaritas (2018 Bay Area Playwrights Festival Finalist), Inevitable (produced at San Francisco Playhouse), The American Traitor (produced at Playwrights’ Center in San Francisco), and Gringo Baseball (staged reading at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre). She has designed lights for the world premieres of Bauer by Lauren Gunderson, 77% by Rinne Groff, and 1 2 3 by Lila Rose Kaplan, among others. She is a graduate of Northwestern University and the former associate artistic director at San Francisco Playhouse. She is currently pursuing her MFA in playwriting at Ohio University.
