Introducing the 2019 Short Play Lab Members!

Performing August 5-10, 2019

Please click here to know about the 2019 Short Play Festival: APPROVAL PENDING 

This Short Play LAB is completely free of charge to the writers, and they receive the UNIQUE opportunity to have their plays produced at the end of the writing process!

There is no other program like it - anywhere!

Sherry Friedman

SHERRY is a native Brooklynite and former NYC teacher who founded the nationally recognized Wonder Writers Workshop. Blessed with two Fulbrights and several NEH grants, she traveled to bring the world into her inner city classrooms by creating original curricula. At the same time, her magazine and newspapers articles have appeared in numerous publications, such as The New York Times, Newsday, New York Magazine and Writer’s Digest, for over 40 years. As a playwright, she studied and developed plays at NYU Tisch, Primary Stages, and Dramatists Guild with Tina Howe. Her piece, Rat Match.Com, was performed at the Cherry Lane. Currently a member playwright of Polaris North, her farce Seymour Sees a Shrink will be produced in their Chance Acts 2019 festival while workshopping her latest full-length Zombies and developing short plays.

Alyssa Haddad

ALYSSA is a Brooklyn-based, award-winning and award-losing playwright and screenwriter. Her plays have been presented at the Capital Repertory Theatre, Theater for the New City, Sundog Theatre, Paper Kraine, and The Midtown International Theatre Festival where she was the recipient of the Playwright’s Award. She holds a BA in History and Writing from The College of Saint Rose and a MFA in Dramatic Writing from NYU Tisch School of the Arts.

Amalia Oliva Rojas

AMALIA is a Mexican playwright, poet and spoken word artist who resides in NYC. She has trained at Vassar College Powerhouse Theater Apprentice Program and CUNY Lehman College and HB studio. Her work has been presented and workshopped at Lehman College, Vassar, Manhattan Theater Repertory, Nuyorican Poets Cafe, Americas Society/Council of the Americas, Abingdon Theater Company, PEN America, among others. Recently, Amalia was a writing fellow for Pen America’s DREAMING OUT LOUD writing workshop where she developed her current full-length I Would Die 4 U. In addition to her playwriting, Amalia has contributed to several online magazines such as City limits, Popula, La Revista De La Universidad De Mexico.

Breana C. Venable

BREANA is a 2012 graduate of Fayetteville State University where she received her Bachelor's of Arts degree in Speech-Theatre. She was also a nominee for the KCACTF Irene Ryan Acting Scholarship in 2011. Breana won the NC Campus Compact Community Impact Student Award in 2011. While at FSU she co-founded Commonly Uncommon; a student produced Performance Company, to facilitate discussions about relationships and interactions between men and women. She wrote, co-directed, and acted in two shows I Am and Black Love. Her play No Man Left was featured in the DC Black Theatre Festival and Hollins Playwright's Lab New Works Festival in 2014. Her play Sell Out was featured in the 2019 Fade To Black Play Festival in Houston, TX. She lives in Charlotte, NC and works as a theatre teacher for Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools. She recently graduated with an MFA in Playwriting from Hollins University in 2018.

Allison Zajac-Batell

ALLISON is a New York based Playwright whose plays include Everything Was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt, Under One Hundred Conditions, Ten Men and Tripoli. Allison's play World Without End was a finalist at the 2016 New York New Works Theater Festival. Her work has been produced and/or developed by Manhattan Reperatory Theater, Ruddy Productions and Poetic Theater Productions. She is a co-writer on the feature film Scenes From the Underground. She is an alumni of SPACE at Ryder Farms, The LAByrinth Theater Intensive and The Maggie Flannigan Studio for acting. She received her BA from Bennington College.

Meet the Directors!

Jenny Greeman

JENNY is an artist and educator currently serving as Program Manager for the Women’s Work Short Play LAB. She joined NPTC in 2007 after participating in the company's Shakespeare Bootcamp for Directors and Educators, and was formerly the Administrator of Youth & Community Development at NPTC. She also was a resident director for the Women's Work, World Voices and Apprenticeship programs. Jenny helmed the World Premiere production of Screenplay by Scott Brooks, which was awarded “Outstanding Production of a Play” at the 2010 Midtown International Theatre Festival and subsequently moved to an Off Broadway run at 59E59 For the 2008 MITF, Ms. Greeman and her writing partner, Elliot Lanes, were awarded “Best Staged Reading” for their original children’s musical, The Raggedy Ann and Andy Musical. Jenny is the Resident Director for Dark Lady Players, where her credits include Shakespeare’s Three Marys, Hamlet’s Apocalypse, and Shakespeare’s Gospel Parodies: A Medieval Mystery Tour. She is currently the Director of Programming at Pathways to Leadership/The Leadership Program. She holds a BA, Phi Beta Kappa, in Urban Studies from Connecticut College and was a Fellow at Barnard College’s Institute for Urban Education. She is currently pursuing an MPA at Baruch/CUNY.

Karin Crighton

KARIN has been acting and directing since she was 10 years old. After graduating from Towson University’s theater department with a concentration in directing, she produced and directed plays in Baltimore festivals for several years. She relocated to New York in 2012 to study with the Tom Todoroff Studio and began producing films as well as plays in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens. Recent credits include the “Once Upon a Dream” and “From the Shadows” festival at the John DeSotelle Studio, and Proof at Theatre54. www.karinpresents.com

Kimberly Loren Eaton

KIMBERLY is a theatrical director and creator focused on developing new works, member of SDC. Select directing credits: Daughters of the Sexual Revolution with Sarah Steele and Tim Busfield; Woodward Award finalist, American Dream, with David Morse, Tamara Tunie, and Sarita Choudhury (Manhattan Theatre Club); The Forgetting Curve (Boston Center for the Arts); Ain’t Far From Home (Playwrights Horizons Downtown), and has been developing Sammy’s Bowery Follies. A 2019- 2020 SDCF Observership fellow and alumni of DirectorsLab: Chicago 2018, Kimberly is represented by the Michael Moore Agency. Founder/ principal of Theatrum Mundi Productions, a NYC producing and creative development consulting company, Kimberly has been involved with the producing teams of Fun Home (Broadway- 5 Tony Awards including Best Play, and National Tour), The Velocity of Autumn (Broadway), and Freud’s Last Session (Off-Broadway Alliance Award for Best Play). Former Artistic & Managing Director of the Off-Broadway Marjorie S. Deane Theatre. Executive Board member, League of Professional Theatre Women. Guest lecturer: BroadwayCon, Juilliard, NYU Tisch. Training & Education: Hofstra University, London Academy of Music & Dramatic Arts, Commercial Theatre Institute.

Mary Hodges

MARY is a mom, actor, director, dramaturg, and teacher. She has been at the craft for 25+ years, mostly onstage, from Berkeley, California to The Berkshires of Massachusetts. She joined the Short Play Lab in 2017, directing Sex With Robots by Holly Hepp Galavan in the UNHINGED festival and The Last Daughter by Rachel Schroeder in the RESISTANCE IS FUTILE festival. Also for NPTC, Mary directed A Form Apart: Poetry and Short Plays by May Miller for On Her Shoulders at The New School. She has directed for Negro Ensemble, New Federal Theatre's Annual Playwright Workshop Showcase; National Black Theatre, Harlem9: 48 Hour Plays; Liberation Theatre Company; Queens Theatre: The Park Plays; Estrogenious Festival; The Fire This Time Festival; Astoria Performing Arts Center, Voices Inside/Out and many Harlem Libraries to name a few. maryhodges@gmail.com

Julie Ann Lucas

JULIE is a US Army brat born in Izmir, Turkey. She studied drama at D.C.’s Duke Ellington HS for the Arts, performing her senior year in Scott Joplins “Treemonisha” with the Houston Opera Company at the Kennedy Center. She majored in film at LA City College while professionally acting, producing, directing plays and short films. She won the Best Student Film Priced Pieces Award from The National Black Programming Consortium for her student film Chicken Bone. Julie Ann was hired by Capitol Records as a personal photographer to Rap artist legend, M.C. Hammer. She then worked with Walter Hill as an actress in HBO’s Tales from the Crypt and he encouraged her to pursue a directing career. Filmmakers Marceil Wright and Eugene Williams produced her second award winning short film AKA Girl with comedian/actor Sinbad as executive producer. Julie Ann later moved to NYC to co-produce the award winning feature film 30 Years to Life starring Tracy Morgan. Her NYC theatre credits are varied and diverse, including work for the Estrogenius Festival.

Chanon Judson

CHANON is a Choreographer, Director, and Performer with the critically acclaimed Urban Bush Women (Associate Artistic Director). Founded in 1984 by choreographer Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, Urban Bush Women (UBW) seeks to bring the untold and under-told histories and stories of disenfranchised people to light through dance. We do this from a woman-centered perspective and as members of the African Diaspora community in order to create a more equitable balance of power in the dance world and beyond. Currently, UBW is presenting “Hair and Other Stories,” Choreographed and Directed by Chanon Judson and Samantha Speis (proscenium Staging Director, Raelle Myrick). This work is utilizing hair as a lens to delve into conversation on race, equity, and liberation. Chanon is a 2018 Director’s Lab Fellow (Chicago) and an APAP Leadership Fellow, Cohort II. Performance credits include Taylor Mac’s 24Hour Spectacular, Cotton Club Parade and the Tony Award winning musical Fela!

Daniela Ortiz (2019 Directing Apprentice)

DANIELA has loved theater since her first day at Performing Arts camp. Since then, she's explored writing skits, scenes, and short plays. In high school, her ten minute play, Learning to Trust, was a finalist in the Fidelity Future Stage playwrighting contest which was published by Samual French in a collection of student plays. She graduated from SUNY Purchase with a BA in Theater Performance and Arts Management. She currently works at a community based organization supporting after school programs throughout NYC.