NEW YORK CITY: Latinx Playwrights Circle has named Iraisa Ann Reilly and Justin Santory to the company’s 2023 Intensive Mentorship program. In addition to mentorship and a stipend, Reilly and Santory will have access to classes at the Primary Stages Einhorn School of Performing Arts.
LPC’s Intensive Mentorship gives playwrights the space and support to develop a full-length play. Over the course of the intensive, both playwrights will have two private table reads of their work, as well as a public industry reading at participating theatres in the fall. Playwright Migdalia Cruz returns to the program to mentor Reilly, while playwright Georgina Escobar will mentor Santory.
Reilly, a playwright, screenwriter, and performer who describes herself as half-Cuban, half-Irish, and whole New Jersey, was selected for the mentorship for her play Miss American Pretty. She has developed and produced work with Teatro del Sol, Theatre Exile, the New Harmony Project, the Chain Theatre, the Workshop Theater, and the New York University Production Lab’s Development Studio, as well as with Latinx Playwrights Circle. Reilly’s play House Bill 3979: Amendment #10: The Life and Works of Dr. Hector P. Garcia was commissioned and produced by Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, and she is currently under commission with the Arden Theatre Company and Michigan State University. Her work has been shortlisted for the Yale Drama Series and a finalist for the Leah Ryan Prize at the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival, among other honors. Reilly is a member of the 2022-23 Art House INKubator New Play Program. She holds a B.A. from the University of Notre Dame and an MFA in dramatic writing from NYU.
Santory is a native Nuyorican playwright and performer who was selected for his play Time, Don’t Take It Away. His play Three’s a Party premiered with the Juntos Project at Teatro Bravo and Mesa Community College, and his play On a Higher Vibration was developed with 59E59 Theaters. He was among the inaugural recipients of the Creative Access Grant from Primary Stages, and has been commissioned by the Arte Pa Mi Gente Festival. Santory is a graduate of the American Musical and Dramatic Academy and Queens College.
Latinx Playwrights Circle is an artist-led development and production organization for Latinx(é) playwrights. Playwrights Guadalís Del Carmen and Oscar Cabrera founded Latinx Playwrights Circle in 2017 to build a network of Latinx playwrights nationwide to promote, develop, and elevate their work and to make their plays accessible to theatremakers.
