BROOKLYN: The Farm Theater has awarded Deneen Reynolds-Knott the College Collaboration Project commission. Reynolds-Knott will work with Oklahoma City University, Centre College in Danville, Ky., and Furman University and Greenville, S.C. The project marks Oklahoma City University’s first collaboration with the Farm Theater, along with Centre College’s fifth and Furman University’s second times participating.

Reynolds-Knott will have the opportunity to meet with groups of students from each school via video conference at the beginning of the spring 2022 semester. Each school will produce the play in person during the 2022-23 academic year, and Reynolds-Knott will continue to revise the text throughout the process. Oklahoma City University will produce the play this coming November, while Centre College will produce the play in Feb. 2023 and Furman University in April 2023.

Reynolds-Knott is a Brooklyn-based playwright who will have a workshop production of her play Babes in Ho-lland, which was featured at the 2020 Bay Area Playwrights Festival, at Shotgun Players this winter. She was a member of Clubbed Thumb’s 2019-20 early career writers group and received the 2021 Clubbed Thumb constitution commission. Her work has been produced at Alabama Shakespeare Festival, Orlando Shakespeare Theater, Premiere Stages at Kean University, San Diego Rep’s 2021 Black Voices Reading Series, PlayPenn, and the Fire This Time Festival, among others. She has also developed work with Liberation Theatre Company’s writing residency, Project Y’s Playwrights Group, Rising Circle’s INKTank Development Lab, and the 3in3 playwright residency of the Frank Silvera Writers’ Workshop. Reynolds-Knott received her MFA from Columbia University.

The College Collaboration Project asks multiple schools to commission an early-career playwright to write a play that each school will independently produce throughout the academic year. The majority of characters in the play will be under 30 years of age so that undergraduate students can successfully play the roles, and the play will reflect the students’ thoughts on a theme suggested by the playwright. This is the Farm Theater’s 10th installment of the project.

The Farm Theater develops early-career artists that may not have the support system afforded to others through workshops, productions, and mentoring.