Meet the Full-Length LAB Members!

2019-2020 Women’s Work Full-Length LAB Members

Members of this Full-Length LAB presented their longer completed works to the public at various stages in a Mini Fest in May 2019. Their works were presented by twenty-eight actors, in excerpt or draft form.

SUPPORT THE LAB

Joan Castagnone

JOAN CASTAGNONEearned her MA in English and Creative Writing from the University of North Dakota. She received an ATA award for an adaptation of The Three Sisters for the Drama Department’s main-stage and had a number of her plays produced throughout the state. A former playwright member of the Women’s Project, she was invited to New York for the development and reading of her full-length, Blackbirds, as part of their Midwestern Voices Project. She has published poetry and short fiction in over twenty quarterlies and literary magazines and was the founder and editor of Bloodroot, a literary magazine dedicated to the publication of women writers and artists. Joan was one of the first abridgers at Random House Audio Books. During a long hiatus from the creative writing life, she worked in corporate communications and, later, as an acquiring/ developmental editor at Church Publishing Inc. She was selected for the WW Short Play LAB in 2014, with her short play Occupy Bronxville produced in the ON THE MARGIN festival that year. Her play LEDA'S CHILDRENwas featured in the 2019 WW May Min-Fest, and recently received an in-depth workshop process for further revision.

ANN CHAMBERLIN is an early member of the WW Project, with JIHAD, The Playhaving been developed and produced in 1996 at NPTC, winning the OOBR Award for Outstanding Production that year. The play was reprised for the inaugural Midtown International Theatre Festival in 2000, and was NPTC's first venture to the Women On Stage for Peace Festival in Bogotá, Colombia in 2015. Ann is the author of many plays which have been produced across the country from Seattle to New York, and of several screenplays. She is also the author of nineteen books. Her trilogy set in the 16th-century Ottoman Empire was on the bestsellers list in Turkey for nearly a year. Another award-winning trilogy is set in the days of early Islam. She currently works part-time at the Middle East Library at the University of Utah as a research consultant. She has two scripts in development in the LAB: The Mind In The Cave and Kitty.

Charlotte Ortiz Colavin

CHARLOTTE ORTIZ COLAVIN: Full lengths Beautiful Fig and annie & betty: 2 Birdshave had staged readings at Performance Space, Santa Cruz, and in New York at the Barrow Group Theatre. Beautiful Fig received honorable mention at Ashland New Play Festival, OR and at Pandora Productions, L.A. One acts, Sweet Stuff(developed and produced in NPTC WW Short Play LAB 2014 and reprised in the WW Retrospective in 2016); Frankie and Ednaand JINX (workshopped at The Barrow Group Theatre); georgie(Festival Ten VIII, at The College at Brockport, Rochester); Pause (MSNBC) and Cece(The Performance Works, NY). Charlotte has also been a collaborative playwright for many years in California and in New York, most extensively with Joseph Chaikin on his Disability Project at the Public Theatre with John Belluso, Bill Hart and Charles Mee. She was a co-founder of Lilitheatre in San Francisco, co-writing 2 premiere scripts at its origin, and she conducts playwriting residencies for teachers and students in NYC and NJ High Schools, including with incarcerated youth. NPTC is producing her LAB-developed script, Splendid Graceat Theatre for the New City in Nov/Dec 2020.

Jennie Contuzzi

JENNIE CONTUZZIholds a MFA in Playwriting from the New School for Drama and is the Associate Artistic Director for Speranza Theatre Company, a Jersey City based women's theatre company. For Speranza, Jennie has written Women Rising: Stories of Hope, Unveiling Liberty, History Alive: The Revolution Comes to Jersey City, and most recently, Votes for Women, a play about Alice Paul and the 1913 Women's March on Washington. Other plays include My Father's Son; Love, Me (Margaret); and Millicent The Magnificent, a play for young adults. Jennie has been a member of the New Perspectives Women's Work Playwriting Lab since 2016 and is currently developing TRIBE, a new full-length script in the style of a YA novel.

Alison Lowenstein

ALISON LOWENSTEIN is a Brooklyn based writer. Her plays have been performed at the Abingdon Theatre’s Benefit Challenge, LIC One Act Festival, San Diego Center for Jewish Culture Short Play Festival, Ocean County College’s Comic Shorts, Hudson Warehouse Theater’s Monologue Festival, Gi60, Gi60 #NextGen, Teatro Moz, The Wild Project, NYWinterfest, and The Apron Strings Project. She is a member of the Dramatist Guild. In addition, she has an MA in Creative Writing from CCNY, and has authored NYC guidebooks, children’s books, and has written for a variety of publications and websites including The Washington Post, National Geographic Traveler, NY Daily News, Newsday,McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Gothamist, TravelandLesiure.com, The Hairpin and many others. She wrote Waiting Room for the 2018 Short Play LAB festival, RESISTANCE IS FUTILE, and is now working on a new full-length, BABY FEVER in the Full-length LAB. You can find her at www.brooklynbaby.com.

Lynn Marie Macy

LYNN MARIE MACY – Recent: Sister Resisters, (Luna Stage Short Play & Equity Library Theater Festivals), Three Seasons NJ 1 Minute Play Festival, Lady Susan, A Jane Austen Bodice Ripper (Reading, Theater 2020), Doubt & Deliberation (Reading, Theater for the New City), script commissioned by JASNA. Productions: Northanger Abbey, A Romantic Gothic Comedy (Distilled Spirits, Blue Room Theatre & Theater Ten Ten, published by New York Theatre Experience in Playing with Canons, Explosive New Works From Great Literature); Innocent Diversions, A Christmas Entertainment with Jane Austen & Friends(Distilled Spirits, Theater Ten Ten), A Thousand Merry Conceits, A Private Audience with Nell Gwyn (Theater Ten Ten, Bedlam Theatre, Edinburgh Fringe), Crunching Numbers (Distilled Spirits, published in Plays and Playwrights for the New Millennium), and a translation of Schiller’s Intrigue & Love (Jean Cocteau Repertory). Macy is Resident Playwright at Theater 2020 and a Member of the Dramatists’ Guild. She wrote The Color of Justice for the 2018 festival, RESISTANCE IS FUTILE, which has been subsequently produced in New Jersey and Louisiana festivals. Her new full-length, The Last Transit of Venus, is in progress in the LAB.

AMALIA OLIVA ROJAS

Screen Shot 2020-06-18 at 2.47.12 PM.png

AMALIA OLIVA ROJAS 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. Amalia was a 2019 Short Play LAB member and her piece, It's Not So Bad In My Brain was performed in the APPROVAL PENDING Festival. She is currently working on a new full-length in the LAB, The Misadventures of Lizard Girl.

Resident Director-Dramatrugs

Celia Braxton

CELIA BRAXTON, Ph.D. is the Senior Dramaturg for the Full-length LAB and co-leads the team of resident director-dramaturgs. She was previously a dramaturg with the Short Play LAB, directing in the 2012 and 2013 festivals. Elsewhere, she has helped devise numerous one-person shows, including initial work with Stephanie Berry on her Obie-winning The Shaneequa Chronicles, and a dance/drama adaptation of Macbeth with the Avalon Theatre of e/Motion. Celia has presented at numerous academic conferences. Her 2006 NETJarticle, ““Home, Sweet Home”: The Drunkard, Domesticity, and the New Theatrical Audience,” contextualizes the play within the climate of developing domestic ideology. She is working on a book examining the reinvention of the professional and cultural role of the actress in the United States in the final third of the nineteenth century,. She teaches at Queensborough Community College and LaGuardia Community College.

Teresa Fischer

TERESA FISCHER is a director, actress and cabaret performer, and holds an MFA in Theater Directing from the University of South Carolina. Teresa appeared in Night of the Working Dead at NPTC in 2014 and joined the Women’s Work Lab as a director in 2016. She previously directed Stillwater for the Venus/Adonis Play Festival, has directed several cabaret shows featuring Paul and Rochelle Chamlin including: Gems by Jule, Fine and Dandy: The Ladies of Tin Pan Alley and Let’s Get Away From It All. She has worked with Spotlight On Festivals and the Fresh Fruit Festival as a performer, director and behind the scenes. Her recent cabaret shows include: More Than You Know – A Tribute to Rosemary Clooney, Joyful Noise, What’s Next?, and Comedy Roulette. She released her debut CD Let It Go in 2012 and a holiday CD Christmas Is…in 2013. A fun fact: Teresa was featured in Andy Warhol’s Secret Girlfriend at Theatre de Neslé in Paris, France!

Mayahana Landowne

Screen Shot 2020-06-18 at 2.52.58 PM.png

MAYAHANA LANDOWNE (Yana) has directed numerous plays and musicals at a variety of New York theatres and regionally, including Abingdon Theater, Greenwich Street Theatre, HERE, Metropolitan Playhouse, the Mint, Ohio Theatre/ICE Factory, Yale Rep, and the Judith Anderson and Clurman on Theater Row, among many others. She has performed her solo shows at Baruch Performing Arts Center and DC Arts Center as part of a regional tour. Yana has been a directing Fellow at the Drama League, Second Stage Theatre, and Women's Project, and holds an MFA in Directing from Yale University and a BFA in Acting from NYU/Tisch. She joins the WW LAB this year.

Melissa Skirboll

MELISSA SKIRBOLL is happy to be continuing her association with NPTC after the very positive experience she had directing Cara Hall’s The Doors or Perception with the Short Play Lab in 2017. She is a strong presence in the New York Indie Theater scene and her work has been recognized with a number of nominations and awards: she’s won the outstanding playwright award (for Blizzard: A Love Story) and outstanding direction (for The Closet by Amy Gray Piper) at Planet Connections Theatre Festivity where she has also been nominated for her acting in Blizzard…, for her direction on Superstars by Glory Kadigan and Straight-Faced Lies by Mark Jason Williams, and for her projections/SFX on A Madness of One Acts. She is a member of New York Madness and has directed for various companies including NyLon Fusion Theater Co, Urban Stages, Abingdon Theatre and Estrogenius Festival. Her plays have been staged by Ego Actus, Abingdon Theatre, Urban Stages here in New York. With her producing company, LifeDream Productions, she produced Hell is Where the Heart Is, (4 Nominations, 2 Wins), Blizzard: A Love Story, (6 Nominations, 2 Wins), and The Closet (5 nominations, 1 Win) at Planet Connections.

Playwright Members on Sabbatical

Teresa Lotz

TERESA LOTZ(she/they) is an award-winning playwright and composer-lyricist. Her work includes She Calls Me Firefly (2019 New York Innovative Theater Award Winner Best Original Short Script, World Premiere: Soho Playhouse, June 2018, produced by New Perspectives and Parity Productions); Akira & The Merpeople (music) with bookwriter/lyricist Claire Tran (Polyphone Festival 2020, Musical Theater Factory 4x15-2019, THEatre ACCelerator 2019); Red Emma & the Mad Monk (NY Times Critic’s Pick, 6 NYIT Nominations, LadyFest 2018 at The Tank, Ars Nova ANT Fest 2017) written by Alexis Roblan; ThreeTimes Fast (book and music) with bookwriter/lyricist Naomi Matlow (Florida Festival of New Musicals 2019, O'Neill Theater Festival Semi-Finalist, Pallas Theater Table Read Series Winner 2017, The Script at Stage 74, NYC, New York Film Academy, Winter New Works Series 2016, NYC, A Surrealist Sort of View (music, Prospect Theater Company’s WORLD VIEWS – 2017 Musical Theater Lab) with book-writer/lyricist Sarah Rebell, The Awakening (music) with bookwriter/ lyricist Sarah Rebell (O'Neill Theater Festival Semi-Finalist, Reading,, Musical Theatre Factory Developmental Series, Playwright’s Horizons, 2016). Mommy’s Little Princess: A Craigslist Love Story (Reading, NPTC Women's Work May Mini-Festival 2017; one of three scripts developed in the WW LAB to be presented as a staged reading for the 2018 Barbour Playwrighting Award.)Her one-act, The Bowlwas produced in NPTC's WW Short Play Festival in 2014. Teresa was a 2020 Finalist for the Jonathan Larson Grant and is a member of Dramatist’s Guild and ASCAP. Music Composition, B.M., Bowling Green State University. Musical Theatre Writing, M.F.A., New York University. TeresaLotz.com

Michele Miller

MICHELE MILLER’Sfull-length play, Real Estate, was a semi-finalist in the 2002 American Theatre Coop Playwriting Contest and received readings at Women's Project, Word of Mouth and Vital Theatre. Her one-act, Products of Conception,was produced in the Estrogenius Festival at Manhattan Theatre Source in 2003, the Strawberry Festival in 2004, and was a 2012 semifinalist for Eden Prairie Players Collection of One-Acts. Bedtime Stories was produced as part of the Development Series at Manhattan Theatre Source in 2004. Her short play Power Girls Support Group was part of the inaugural WW Short Play Festival in 2008 and in 2011 NPTC developed and produced her comedy, Mother of God! at the Richmond Shepard Theatre. With that play, Michele was also a finalist in the 2012 Princess Grace Awards. Her one-act comedy, Crazy For You, Babywas a finalist in the 2012 Estrogenius Festival where it was given a reading. Other short plays of Michele’s have been seen at Boston Playwrights' Theatre, the Women’s Project, and Blueberry Pond Theatre. She is currently developing a new musical, CHRONIC, with NPTC. She is a member of the Dramatists Guild of America and the League of Professional Theatre Women.

Yani Péréz

Screen Shot 2020-06-18 at 2.58.32 PM.png

YANI PÉRÉZis an Ecuadorian born, Brooklyn raised poet and playwright. Her work can be found in literary journals and websites such as Brooklyn Paramount, By the Overpass, Having A Whiskey Coke With You, Napalm and Novocain,Jellyfish Whispers, Barbie in a Blender Anthology and Storm Cycle 2012: The Best of Kind of a Hurricane Press.Her short play God Don't Exist for Girls From Brooklynwas developed in the NPTC Women's Work Short Play LAB 2012, and revised and presented in 2016 for THE WORK GOES ON, a WW Short Play Retrospective. A Spanish-translation performed in the Alternative Theatre Festival in Bogotá, Colombia in March 2016. When not writing plays, poetry or marketing materials, she teaches English at the university level. Her current research entails the merging of American and Hispanic concepts in second and third generations to accommodate the duality of Latinos in America. Yani is currently developing a new full-length, Rice, which received a reading at La Mama, Experimentals M.F.A in Creative Writing, Long Island University/Brooklyn. www.yaniperez.com