Meet the Full-Length LAB Members!

2020 Women’s Work Full-Length LAB Members

We were unable to present the annual May Mini Festival this year due to COVID-19.
Instead we presented Women's Voices Sustain the World as the first virtual programming from NPTC ever! It contained excerpts from six of the current scripts in progress and information about Women's Work, including testimonials from our writers, past and present.

If you are interested in learning more about the Women's Voices video, please contact
Melody Brooks at melody@nptnyc.org

Joan Castagnone

JOAN CASTAGNONE earned 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 CHILDREN was featured in the 2019 WW May Min-Fest, and recently received an in-depth workshop process for further revision.

Ann Chamberlin

ANN CHAMBERLIN is an early member of the WW Project, with JIHAD, The Play having 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.

Jennie Contuzzi

JENNIE CONTUZZI holds 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. Her play, Body Language received its World Premiere with The Active Theater in June 2012. She was a member of the now-defunct MCC Theater Playwrights Coalition and continues to work in their literary department as a script reader. 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 which will eventually become a trilogy.

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's work has been staged nationally and internationally. Recent productions include Jane Austen at Prinny's Palace (Virtually for Theater 2020); The Surprising Measure of Buried Treasure, Sister Resisters and The Couch Potato & The Armchair Activist with The Theater Project in New Jersey; Lady Susan, A JaneAusten Bodice Ripper (Reading, Theater 2020); Doubt & Deliberation (Reading, Theater for the New City.) Previous 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; The Thrice Three Muses and Innocent Diversions, A Christmas Entertainment with Jane Austen & Friends for Distilled Spirits Theatre and 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 Vengeance 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

Alisa Zhulina

ALISA ZHULINA is a playwright and Assistant Professor in the Department of Drama at NYU. Her plays have been produced at Dixon Place, the Exquisite Corpse Company, the Theatre Project, and Manhattan Repertory Theatre. She holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Harvard University and is the founder of Cacolet Collective, a performance group dedicated to exploring alternative economies through performance and public art. Alisa is a playwright-in-residence at Exquisite Corpse Company, and is developing Riptide in the WW Full-length LAB. SUBLET, developed and produced in the WW Short Play LAB in 2017, was one of two scripts presented by NPTC in the 2018 Alternative Theatre Festival in Bogotá, Colombia. An excerpt of her current full-length, Riptide, was performed in the 2019 Short Play Festival.

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 NETJ article, ““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 M.A. 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 and has directed several cabaret shows featuring Paul and Rochelle Chamlin including: The Marvelous Mr. Mercer, Gems by Jule, and Fine and Dandy: The Ladies of Tin Pan Alley. She has worked with Spotlight On Festivals and the Fresh Fruit Festival as a performer, director and behind the scenes. Teresa won the 2017 Tomatoes Got Talent Show - a contest that celebrates women over 40. Teresa received the Hanson Award in March 2019 from the Board of the Manhattan Association of Cabaret for her excellent work over a sustained period of time  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!

Melissa Skirboll

MELISSA SKIRBOLL is an award-winning director, writer, actor and producer – for both screen and stage. She looks forward to directing the upcoming showcase run of Charlotte Colavin’s SPLENDID GRACE this fall. As a director for the Women’s Work Play Lab at New Perspectives, she is very proud to be involved in the development of exciting work such as this. In addition to directing a staged reading of Splendid Grace in 2018, Skirboll directed readings of Jenny Contuzzi’s TRIBE in 2019 and Cara Hall’s DOORS OF PERCEPTION in 2017 as part of the WW Short Play Festival. Her work in theater has been recognized with a number of nominations and awards: outstanding playwright for Blizzard: A Love Story; outstanding direction The Closet by Amy Gray Piper; nominated for direction on both Superstars by Glory Kadigan and Straight-Faced Lies by Mark Jason Williams. In addition to being a director with the WWPL at New Perspectives, she is a  member of New York Madness and Brazen Giants Ensemble. She’s also directed for various NYC companies including Nylon Fusion Theater Co, Urban Stages, Abingdon Theatre, Estrogenius Festival and Planet Connections. www.melissaskirboll.com

Playwright Members on Sabbatical

Teresa Lotz

TERESA LOTZ writes music and words including She Calls Me Firefly (upcoming Soho Playhouse July 2018 Parity Productions and NPTC); Red Emma & the Mad Monk by Alexis Roblan (music, Ars Nova Ant Fest 2017), A Surrealist Sort of View (music, Prospect Theater Company WORLD VIEWS – 2017 Musical Theater Lab) with book-writer/lyricist Sarah Rebell; Mommy’s Little Princess (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.); ThreeTimesFast (book and music) with bookwriter/lyricist Naomi Matlow (Pallas Theater Table Read Series Winner 2017; The Script at Stage 74, 2017; New York Film Academy, Winter New Works Series 2016); Vinegar Tom (original music) by Caryl Churchill, The New School 2016; The Awakening (music) with bookwriter/lyricist Sarah Rebell (Reading, Musical Theatre Factory Developmental Series, Playwright’s Horizons, 2016); Teresa's one-act, The Bowl was developed in the Short Play LAB in 2014 and reprised in THE WORK GOES ON, a WW Short Play Retrospective, Dramatist’s Guild, ASCAP, he League of Professional Theatre Women and a co-founder of LezCab. M.F.A. in Musical Theatre Writing,  NYU.

Michele Miller

MICHELE MILLER’S full-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, Baby was 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.

Cynthia Robinson

CYNTHIA ROBINSON (Playwright) is the 2012 Calvin B. Grimes Scholar (New York University) for her artistic merit. Honors include: Tribeca All-Access Open Stage (2004), Best New Play IRNE nomination (Ascension, 2006), Thomas Barbour Memorial Playwright's Award finalist (2008). Plays include: Nightfall (2013 Fire This Time Festival), Peola's Passing (Finalist, 2012 Samuel French OOB Theatre Festival, created and premiered in the Women's Work 2013 Short Play LAB), Gold Star Mother (EstroGenius 2012), Ascension (Our Place Theatre; 2009 National Black Theatre Festival; 2008 FringeNYC), Thunder: A Musical Memoir (2007 FringeNYC). She is a member of The Dramatists Guild and League of Professional Theatre Women. Her script Dancing on Eggshells, developed in the WW LAB, received an Off Broadway production at the Billie Holiday Theatre in Brooklyn in Spring 2015. Peola's Passing was one of two short plays presented by NPTC at the Alternative Theatre Festival in Bogotá, Colombia, in March 2016.

Alexis Roblan

ALEXIS ROBLAN’s plays have been produced and developed in the US, UK, and Australia, by and at Clubbed Thumb, Ars Nova, Dixon Place, Project Y Theatre Company, FringeNYC, New Perspectives Theatre Company, The Motor Company, The Dirty Blondes, The Blank Theatre, Theatre 503, FRIGID New York, Edinburgh Fringe, World Interplay, and more. Alexis' The Andrew Play, is one of three scripts developed in the WW LAB to be presented as a staged reading for the 2018 Barbour Playwrighting Award. Originally from Coos Bay, Oregon, she is a graduate of the University of Southern California’s MFA in Dramatic Writing program, and she is currently a playwright-in-residence with Exquisite Corpse Company in Brooklyn, NY. Alexis has been a Finalist for the Clubbed Thumb Biennial Commission (Samuel), Seven Devils Playwrights Conference (And It Spins Twice), Nashville Rep's Ingram New Works Lab, and The O’Neill National Playwrights Conference (You Feel So Far Away Right Now). Her work as a screenwriter can be seen on the Go90 series Guidance (2017) and Love Daily (2018). www.alexisroblan.com

Sandra A. Daley-Sharif

SANDRA A. DALEY-SHARIF (Playwright) is pursuing her MFA in Playwriting at Hunter College. She is an OBIE Award winning producer, award winning playwright, director, actress, and dramaturg. Two of her plays made it to the Kilroys List 2017. She is a 2015 recipient of the LPTW Josephine Abady Award and was named a NYFA Fellowship Finalist for Playwriting. Sandra's Straddling the Edge is one of three scripts developed in the WW LAB to be presented as a staged reading for the 2018 Barbour Playwrighting Award. Les Fréres is a 2017 Eugene O’Neill semi-finalist and she received a SPACE on Ryder Farm Creative Residency, to develop her new play The Island Bull’s Wife. Other credits include: honorable mention for Katrina and Sandy, EstroGenius Festival;. Man in the Moon (short play, developed and presented by The Exquisite Corpse Company), Shirley and Iris (Going to the River Festival 2016,EST), Jake NPTC WW Short Play Fest and Silver Spring Stage). Her choreo-poem Genesis was presented May 2017 at 50in50: Writing Women Into Existence, curated by Dominique Morisseau. Los Samaritanos is being reviewed in the semi final round, for a week-long development at Women in Arizona Theatre. Sandra is a member of Beehive Dramaturgy Studio, founded to make skilled dramaturgy accessible to any playwright, director, composer, producer, or other theater practitioner.

Yani Péréz

YANI PÉRÉZ is 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 Brooklyn was 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

Charlotte Ortiz Colavin

CHARLOTTE ORTIZ COLAVIN’s recent credits include: Full lengths Beautiful Fig and annie & betty: 2 Birds have 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 Edna and 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. Her most recent script, Splendid Grace has been completed in the Full-length LAB and will receive an OFF THE PAGE production in the 2019-20 season.

Full-Length LAB Alumnae

Kate Bell (Lions of Babylon)

France-Luce Benson (Boat People)

Christine Toy Johnson (Internal Bleeding)

Donna Kaz (Music From Big Dead),

Andrea Lepcio (Tunnel Vision)

Kim Merrill (Marla's Prayers)

Marisa Petsakos (My Mother Flew B52s)

Holly Eaton (Balance Billing)

Cara Hall (It Started With a Kiss)