BOSTON: Company One Theatre (C1) has announced the Season 22 Volt Lab writers. This season’s cohort includes Robin Berl, Jennifer Bobiwash, Taiga A. Christie, Maru Colbert, Elana Lev Friedland, Thato R. Mwosa, Quentin Nguyen-duy, Alicia Margarita Olivo, and Hayley St. James. The Volt Lab, previously known as the PlayLab Unit, provides emerging playwrights with mentorship opportunities to allow them to enhance their craft while engaging with C1 mainstage programming.

“This cohort exemplifies the dynamic new works ecology Company One seeks to support and engage with,” said C1 resident playwright Kirsten Greenidge in a statement, “and I am honored to spend this season with these amazing humans and the lab’s co-facilitators, C1 dramaturgs Elena Morris and Jessica Scout Malone.”

Greenidge will meet monthly with the Volt Lab cohort, during which time the writers will present and develop a writing project of their choosing, offering an opportunity to learn best practices for giving and receiving feedback. The Volt Lab cohort will join the Flux Lab and Surge Lab writers to make up C1’s Season 22 PlayLab Circuit, an expansive set of writing labs and incubators of new work aimed at providing professional development while nurturing civically engaged artists and aiming to create a more equitable city.

“This year’s Volt Lab feels galvanic to me,” said Ilana M. Brownstein, C1 director of new work, in a statement. “These nine writers represent a wide variety of lived experiences and interests, including writers who identify as activists, Indigenous artists, neurodivergent, queer; writers who are devisers, educators, filmmakers, poets. While the pandemic has deeply curtailed much of this season’s planned programming at C1, one silver lining has been our ability to extend our new work initiatives beyond our local borders. We’re thrilled to welcome participants from Boston, New England, and even further afield.”

More information about the Volt Lab and the Season 22 cohort is available on Company One’s website.