NEW YORK CITY: The Playwrights Realm has announced the recipients of its Writing Fellowships and Annual Scratchpad Series.
Tanya Everett, Maya Macdonald, Christopher Reyes, and Tasha Gordon-Solmon have been selected as the 2019-20 Writing Fellows. The company’s third installment of the Scratchpad Series will feature developmental workshops from Andrew Siañez-De La O, Daria Miyeko Marinelli, and Marisa Carr.
“Welcoming new playwrights into the Realm Family is a joy—one of my favorite parts of the job!” said founding artistic director Katherine Kovner in a statement. “This year we received nearly 650 applications to our two open submission programs and so making the choice of writers was not easy but I couldn’t be more delighted by the Writing Fellows and Scratchpad playwrights who will be joining us this season.”
Playwrights, producers, dramaturgs, and directors read the applicants’ submissions. Semi-finalist plays go through several rounds of readings, and the finalists are interviewed by Playwrights Realm staff.
The Writing Fellowship offers four early-career playwrights with nine months of resources, workshops, and a $3,000 stipend to support the development of a new work. The program will culminate in a public reading of each of the works as part of the INK’D Festival of New Work in February of 2020. The works will include Everett’s A Dead Black Man, Macdonald’s Brunch; Reyes’s Balikbayan; and Gordon-Solmon’s The Lasagna Incident.
Established in 2017, the Scratchpad Series offers playwrights from across the country the opportunity to work with professional collaborators and receive a developmental workshop of up to one week in New York City. The Realm will facilitate the playwright’s travel and housing for the workshop. The works include Sangre Mía by Siañez-De La O, This is Not What I Expected When I Imagined a Republic by Marinelli, and Punk Rock Mix Tape Play by Carr.
“Maya Macdonald, Christopher Reyes, Tanya Everett and Tasha Gordon-Solmon each possess vibrant distinct voices and exemplify the type of talented early career playwright we are trying to support,” said Kovner in a statement. “I’m looking forward to diving into the year with these wonderful Fellows, as well as with our 19-20 Scratchpad playwrights.”
