Now in its 16th year, this program brings together six to eight emerging playwrights each season to create new plays for the American theater. Under the direction of Primary Stages Associate Artistic Director Michelle Bossy, these playwrights attend weekly meetings in the fall and spring, where they bring new pages to each session and receive feedback on their works in progress. At the end of the season, Primary Stages presents the first public reading of these plays in The Dorothy Strelsin Fresh Ink Readings Series.

 

 

Joshua Allen, a native of Chicago, is the recipient of a “New Voices/New York” Fellowship from the Lark Play Development Center. His plays include Boy in a Blue Tweed Suit, About Monday Morning, Chrysalis, and The Last Pair of Earlies. His work has been developed at Primary Stages, the Lark's Playwrights' Week and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. A resident playwright at New Dramatists since 2011, he is also a member of the Ars Nova Play Group. Joshua is a proud graduate of the University of Southern California and the Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwrights Program at the Juilliard School.

 

 

 

Courtney Baron's productions include A Very Common Procedure (originally written with the Dorothy Strelsin New American Writers Group) produced at MCC (Off Broadway, NY) and under the title Morbidity and Mortality at The Magic Theatre, San Francisco; Consumption, commissioned by and produced at the Guthrie Theatre, Minneapolis; Not Our Last Hurrah, produced as part of the Australia Project at the Kraine Theatre, NYC; These Three Here, produced at Actors Theatre of Louisville; Earlstreetman as part of the Larson Project at New York Theatre Workshop and at the O'Neill Playwrights Conference; John Brown's Body as part of Keen Americana at the Jose Quintero Theatre, NYC; Black Fish as part of the Backstory Project at the Humana Festival of New American Plays at the Actors Theatre of Louisville; and The Blue Room, which was awarded a 1999 Heideman Award and nominated for the American Theatre Critics' Association's Osborn Award, premiered at Humana Festival and was remounted as part of Match Games in 2009 at ATL. Courtney holds an MFA from Columbia University. She recently workshopped Leave a new play with original songs by Juliana Nash at Primary Stages. She holds a MFA from Columbia University.

Cheri Magid's plays, which include The Tavern Wench, et al;, Manna, The Reluctant Dragon, and The Ghost of Enoch Charlton,  have been seen at The New Group, The Women’s Project, Keen Company, Rattlestick, The Slipper Room, Vital Theatre Company, La Mama, Makor, Abingdon Theatre Company, The Lark and the West Bank Theatre all in New York, M.Y.E Productions in Los Angeles, South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa, CA, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, The University of Iowa, and Calvin College in Michigan.  She is currently writing two musicals The Surreal Housewives of Woodstock with songwriters Jules Shear (All Through The Night for Cindy Lauper, If She Knew What She Wants for The Bangles) and Ed Sanders of The Fugs, and The Christmas Windows of 1937, commissioned by producer/director Jackson Gay.  The Keen Company commissioned her children’s play The Ghost of Enoch Charlton, which, along with Manna, has been published by Playscripts.  Excerpts of Manna are also included in The Best Stage Scenes of 2009 published by Smith and Kraus. Pretty Things Press published the Cliffs of Moher in 2006.  Cheri’s erotic story "She Grinds Her Own Coffee" is published in Cleis Press’ anthology Hide and Seek.

 

 

Rogelio Martinez's plays include When Tang Met Laika (Sloan Grant/ Denver Center/ Perry Mansfield), All Eyes and Ears (INTAR), Fizz (NEA/ TCG Grant/ Besch Solinger Productions at the Ohio Theatre), Learning Curve (Smith and Krauss New Playwrights: Best Plays of 2005/ Besch Solinger Productions at Theater Row), I Regret She’s Made of Sugar (Princess Grace Award), Arrivals and Departures (Summer Play Festival), and Union City... (E.S.T, winner of the James Hammerstein Award).  In addition, his work has been developed and presented at the Public Theater, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Mark Taper Forum, and the Magic Theater, among others. Mr. Martinez is an alumnus of New Dramatists, and his plays are published by Broadway Play Publishing. He has received commissions from the Atlantic Theater Company, the Arden Theater Company, Denver Center Theater, and South Coast Repertory. Mr. Martinez teaches playwriting at Goddard College, Montclair University, and Primary Stages. In addition, he runs the Hispanic Playwrights in Residence Lab at INTAR, and is a member of the Dorothy Strelsin Writers Group at Primary Stages. Mr. Martinez was born in Sancti-Spiritus, Cuba, and came to the U.S. in 1980 on the Mariel boatlift.

 

 

Molly Smith Metzler grew up in Kingston, New York. She is the author of Carve, Close Up Space, Training Wisteria and Elemeno Pea, which recently premiered at the 2011 Humana Festival at Actors Theatre in Louisville and will make its West Coast premiere at South Coast Rep in January 2012. Her comedy Close Up Space will make its world premiere at Manhattan Theatre Club in December 2011, starring David Hyde Pierce, Rosie Perez & Michael Chernus. Molly’s work has also been produced and developed at The Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center, MTC 7@7, Playwrights Horizons, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Chautauqua Theater Company, Summer Play Festival (SPF), Cherry Lane Mentor Project, Ars Nova, hotINK, London’s Tristan Bates Theatre, and the Kennedy Center, where she was the winner of three KCACTF Awards, including The Kennedy Center National Student Playwriting Award. Molly is a member of EST, Ars Nova Play Group, and Primary Stages Writing Group; she holds degrees from Boston University and NYU Tisch, and is a recent graduate of The Juilliard School, where she was a two-time recipient of the Le Comte du Nouy Prize from Lincoln Center. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband, Colin McKenna, and their awesome Boston terrier.

 

 

Janine Nabers's recent honors include: Sundance @ UCross Residency, The Macdowell Colony Residency and The Sam French New School for Drama Emerging Writer Award and the 2009-2010 Dramatist Guild Playwriting Fellowship. Janine is currently a member of Ars Nova Play Group and the Dorothy Strelsin New American Writers Group at Primary Stages and is an alumni of Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab.  Her play West of the Willow Tree was a finalist for: the Princess Grace Award, The Victory Gardens Theater Ignition playwriting Award, The Theodore Ward Playwriting Prize, Bay Area playwrights Festival and the winner of the 2009 New Professional Theater Playwriting Award. Other plays include: Welcome to Jesus (Soho Rep), When the Levee Broke (Workshop Theater Company), Juniper; Jubilee (Samuel French Festival Winner 08), and Generation Graffiti (Samuel French Festival finalist 09). Her play Annie Bosh Is Missing will be developed at the TLC emerging writing program this fall. Janine is published by Sam French. MFA: The New School for Drama.

 

 

Brian Pracht’s prize-winning plays are produced in festivals all over New York, including: the Gotham City Improv’s Midnight Festival (Midnight and Kill the Critic), the Riant Theatre’s Strawberry One Act Festival (the Proof is in the Pudding, Missing Mike Vitelle), the Brooklyn Lyceum’s Swampking Play Competition (Don’t Panic, Animal Planet, and The Industry, for which he won first, second, and first prizes respectively),  4x4 Play Fest (The Last Vera Wang), and Mind the Gap Theatre’s Brits Bits (Bazalgate & Croxen).  An evening of his short plays, lowbrow (and a little bit tacky), was produced in New York City by the Plum Theatre Company.  His work has been developed by Primary Stages, Naked Angels, Flux Theatre Ensemble, and Axial Theatre Company.
 Brian was an Artist-in-Residence at the Makor/Steinhardt Center in New York City, a finalist for the Jerome Fellowship, and a semi-finalist twice for the Eugene O’Neill Playwrights Conference. Brian graduated from Webster University and currently lives in New York.
 

 

Adam Szymkowicz's plays have been produced throughout the U.S., and in Canada, England, The Netherlands and Lithuania.   His work has been presented or developed at such places as MCC Theater, Ars Nova, South Coast Rep, Playwrights Horizons, LAByrinth Theater Company, The Lark, Kitchen Dog, HotINK, Theatre of Note and Studio Dante among others.  Plays include Deflowering Waldo, Open Minds, Anne, The Art Machine, Pretty Theft, Food For Fish, Hearts Like Fists, Herbie, Incendiary, Old Fashioned Cold Fusion, Bee Eater, Temporary Everything, Susan Gets Some Play, Fat Cat Killers, The Why Overhead, Elsewhere, and Nerve. Several of his plays have been published, by Dramatists Play Service and Samuel French.   He received a Playwright’s Diploma from The Juilliard School's Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwrights Program and an MFA from Columbia University where he was the Dean’s Fellow. Szymkowicz is a two-time Lecomte du Nouy Prize winner, a member of the Dramatists Guild, Primary Stages’ Dorothy Strelsin New American Writers Group, the MCC Playwright’s Coalition and was a founding member of the Ars Nova Play Group.  He has been commissioned by South Coast Rep.

 

 

 

Past Members

• David Lindsay Abaire
• Tanya Barfield
• Neena Beber
• Alex Beech
• Brooke Berman
• Darren Canady
• Andrew Case
• David Caudle
• Cusi Cram
• Janis Astor del Valle
• Bruce Faulk
• Josh Fox
• Jessica Goldberg
• Daniel Goldfarb
• Rinne Groff
• Stephen Adly Guirgis
• Katori Hall
• Jerome Hairston
• Rolin Jones
• Julia Jordan
• Dan O’Brien
• Edwin Sanchez
• Julian Sheppard
• Tommy Smith
• Lucy Thurber
• Sheri Wilner