NEW YORK: Atlantic Theater Company has announced the recipients of its annual Launch Commission, a program for early-career playwrights who have not yet had an Off-Broadway production. The 2019-20 Launch Commission playwrights are Lily Houghton and Brian Otaño.

“The Launch Commission has been an incredibly successful program for us,” said Atlantic artistic director Neil Pepe in a statement. “We look forward to continuing to invest in early career writers through Launch and our other play development initiatives.”

Houghton is a New York-based playwright whose work has been developed and produced at MCC Theater Company, the Flea Theater, and Seattle Repertory Theater, among others. A recipient of an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation grant, a PlayLab with MCC, and an Elizabeth George Foundation grant, Houghton is a member of the Obie Award-winning Youngblood playwriting collective at Ensemble Studio Theatre.

“My goal as a young artist has always been to find an artistic and supportive home for myself, a place that I feel truly hears my individual voice and produces material that thrills me,” Houghton said in a statement. “I am so lucky to have found that home at Atlantic.”

Otaño is a playwright and screenwriter whose work has been developed and produced at Roundabout Theatre Company’s Underground, Atlantic’s Latino MixFest, and LAByrinth Theater Company, among others. A recipient of New Dramatists’ Van Lier Fellowship and New York Theatre Workshop’s 2050 Fellowship, Otaño is an alum of Center Theatre Group L.A. Writers’ Workshop, the Geffen Playhouse Writers’ Room, the Ars Nova Play Group, and Page 73’s Interstate 73 Writers Group.

“Atlantic has been an artistic home to so many heavy hitters who’ve inspired me to find my voice and be a daring playwright,” Otaño said in a statement. “I am beyond thrilled to be working on something new with them!”