NEW YORK CITY: Manhattan Theatre Club has announced the eight new recipients of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Initiative commissions. The Foundation commissions about 20 science plays each year from MTC, the Ensemble Studio Theatre, and the National Theatre. The new cohort of commissioned writers are Brittany K. Allen, Eboni Booth, Nick Gandiello, Jessica Huang, Barney Norris, Charly Evon Simpson, Deborah Stein, and Alexis Zegerman.
Brittany K. Allen is a playwright, prosewright, and performer based in Brooklyn. Her plays include Redwood, The Late Greats, and Happy Happy Joy Joy.
Eboni Booth is a playwright and actor from NYC. She is currently a playwriting fellow at Juilliard and a member of WP Lab and Two River Theater‘s Writers Group.
Nick Gandiello teaches playwriting at Marymount Manhattan College and is the head of the dramatic writing division at Broadway for All. His plays include Blameless, The Wedge Horse, Oceanside, and Cicada.
Jessica Huang is a NYC-based playwright and producer from Minneapolis. Her work includes The Paper Dreams of Harry Chin, Zero-Infinity Flight Path, Purple Cloud, and Transmissions in Advance of the Second Great Dying.
Barney Norris is the co-artistic director of the touring theatre company Up in Arms. His plays include Nightfall, While We’re Here, and Echo’s End.
Charly Evon Simpson is currently a member of WP Theater’s 2018-2020 Lab, the New Georges Jam, Primary Stages’ Dorothy Strelsin New American Writers Group, the Amoralists 18/19 ’Wright Club, and she is the Pack Theater’s current playwright-in-residence. Her plays include Behind the Sheet, Jump, and Scratching the Surface.
Deborah Stein is a playwright and director living in Los Angeles. Her plays include Marginal Loss, The Wholehearted, and Chimera (the latter two being the result of a collaboration with Suli Holum).
Alexis Zegerman is a writer for television, theatre, film, and radio. Her plays include The Steingolds and Holy Sh!t.
Since 2001, MTC has awarded a total of 88 commissions through the Sloan Foundation Program.
