Introducing the 2022 Short Play Lab Members!

Please help support the 2022 Short Play Festival

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!

Gena Bardwell

GENA BARDWELL is an award-winning playwright and actor. Her plays have been developed regionally and locally, most recently for the Billy Holiday Theater's “50in50: Love in the Time of Corona” and “Writing Ourselves Into Existence” programs. Bardwell previously performed and wrote for Hattitudes at Tribeca Performing Arts Center and her play Inside Outside was a finalist for MultiStages' New Works Contest. She is also co-writer of the docudrama, Hannah Elias, which was a finalist in the New Harmony Playwright’s Workshop. A native of Kansas City, Bardwell was named “Best Actress” for her portrayal of Amanda in an all African-American production there of The Glass Menagerie, and received the prestigious “Women in the Arts Award” from Delta Sigma Theta Sorority for her work as an actor and arts educator in the Midwest. She’s performed Off Broadway in Our Place in Time and appeared in the film Gimme Shelter opposite James Earl Jones and Rosario Dawson among other acting credits. Bardwell was previously co-director of Growing Up Performed, which helps at-risk and other children create performances out of real life situations. She received an MFA from Rutgers University, and teaches voice and speech for New York University and Touro College, where she is Chair of the Department of Speech and Communication.

Sonya hayden

SONYA HAYDEN is a playwright, composer, and lyricist based in New York. Her work includes the plays There’s Always Tomorrow (Finalist, Tennessee Williams Festival 2020-2021 Play Contest), Just Like Magic (virtual production, Little Fish Theatre), and Baubles, Bangles, And Bankruptcy (development/reading, ATHE New Play Development Workshop 2021); musicals Wanda Does The Water Cycle (performance, Lincoln Center GREEN), The Luckiest Girl (workshop production, Princeton University), and Taking Off! (lyricist, reading, Bruno Walter Auditorium at Lincoln Center); songs “If I Didn’t Know Better” (Winner, Lotte Lenya Competition Songbook 2021, $1,500 award) and “Snow One Else for Me” (composer, Playdate Theatre Holiday EP 2020). She is a member of the BMI Advanced Musical Theatre Workshop and was previously a member of Maestra’s Mentorship Program; Workshop Theatre’s writers’ intensive; Princeton Triangle Club Writers Workshop (Milton Lyon Award for Outstanding Writing); and Traverse Theatre Young Writers in Scotland. Master’s in Playwriting with Distinction, University of Edinburgh; A.B. Music, Princeton University. sonyahayden.com

molly horan

MOLLY HORAN is a lyricist, librettist, playwright, and novelist. Her play, The Patron Saint of Other Women, won Georgia College Arts and Letters’ 2021 Drama Prize. She was selected as a 2021 Bethany Arts Center artist in residence and a Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Governors Island resident. She is a member of the BMI Musical Theatre Advanced Workshop and Librettist Workshop. She co-wrote an adaptation of Little Women for Brooklyn’s Hedgepig Ensemble in 2019, and earlier that year wrote and directed the short play Not a Protected Veteran as a part of Rising Sun Performance Company Laboratorium Residency. Her debut novel, Epically Earnest, a queer YA retelling of The Importance of Being Earnest, will be published in 2022 by HMH, and her first picture book, I Have Seven Dogs, will be published in 2023 by Penguin/Random House. She currently works as an adjunct professor teaching creative writing at NYU, Fordham, and The School of Visual Arts.

allison merkel

ALLISON MERKEL is a writer, performer, and researcher based in Brooklyn, NY. In her work, she is particularly interested in using dark humor, tragic comedy, body gore, and hyper-theatricality to explore adolescence, shame, resistance to change, and grief. Most recently, her work has been seen at the StageFemmes One Acts Festival in Ohio. Beyond writing for the stage, Allison’s comedic writing has been featured in Points in Case and Edutopia, her political research has been published by The Yale Review of International Studies and the Brookings Institution, and she has written and produced episodes of the podcast Many Roads to Here. Last summer, she fact-checked a novel about the oil industry. Allison also acts (favorite credits include #7 in The Wolves and Amina in Dance Nation) and has performed comedy with various improv and sketch groups in Ohio, New York, D.C., and Oregon. Allison graduated from Kenyon College in 2020 with a degree in Political Science.

joanna pickering

JOANNA PICKERING is an award-nominated writer, playwright, and actress. Her trilogy Truth, Lies and Deception, played to sold out houses in Paris at Le Pave D'Orsay in 2021, earning national press and strong reviews. The trilogy is published by Next Stage Press alongside a roster of Tony award-winning and debut playwrights, and was first performed as a staged reading with Dan Lauria ("The Wonder Years") and Caroline Aaron ("The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel") in NYC. Joanna has been awarded a full scholarship to adapt her play Beach Break as a mini-series with mentor Kelly Edwards, VP of HBO talent development and programming. It was a top five finalist radio broadcast for HBO's ITV 2018 and aired on British radio. Joanna’s debut film Boardwalk was screened in 2018 at The Anthology Film Archives (NY), and was nominated for best film and best suspense thriller at NYC Web Festival, 2019. Joanna has written for the stage with Primitive Grace Theater ensemble since 2018 and is a current member of Theatre 68, The International Centre of Women Playwrights and The League of Professional Theatre Women. She has also worked as a script doctor and consultant for some of the industry's leading talent and award-winning scripts. An activist and participant speaker for UN Create2030, Joanna is represented by 3 Arts Entertainment.

leela velautham

LEELA VELAUTHAM was born and grew up in the UK. She is currently writing up her Ph.D. in Educational Psychology at UC Berkeley. She was a member of Playground SF’s Playwright Residency Program (2020-21) where she worked on a prequel to Macbeth that focused on Lady Macbeth’s fertility issues (‘Take my Milk for Gall’) and was featured in the Best of Playground SF 24 (‘The Evocation’) and 25 (‘Curry and Crumpets’). She is also a two-time semi-finalist of the Bay Area Playwrights Festival 2021 and 2022 (with The Empty Crusade and Modern Love respectively) and won the 2011 University of Oxford’s New Writing Festival for her play Schroedinger’s Hat.

Meet the Directors!

melody brooks

Learn about Melody here.

Jenny Greeman

JENNY greeman 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.

Chanon Judson

CHANON judson is Co-Artistic Director with the critically acclaimed Urban Bush Women. 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!

dani Ortiz

DANI ORTIZ 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. Dani served as the Women’s Work Short Play LAB Directing Apprentice for two years before direct Foul Line (virtually and live) and Bad Koreans, in two festivals in 2021.

Sydney prince

Sydney Prince (she/her) is a New York City based director and stage manager, and is thrilled to be returning to the New Perspectives Theatre Company’s Short Play Lab as a director! Sydney was the stage manager for last year's festival at NPTC in December. Currently, Sydney is serving as a stage manager at Molloy College’s CAP 21 Program and at AMDA. She is also directing new works for a few upcoming workshops and presentations coming this Spring! Sydney is dedicated to making new, exciting work and is thrilled to be part of this incredible collective. None of this would have been possible without Sydney’s incredibly supportive family and girlfriend. Thank you Supah and Del, I couldn’t have done it without you.

Sydney Kurland (2022 Lab Apprentice)

SYDNEY KURLAND is currently a Junior at NYU earning her BFA in Dramatic Writing. Her plays have recently been produced by Scripps On Stream, Talking It Out - A Virtual Arts Festival, and Broke People Play Festival. In addition to writing, Sydney also loves performing. Her favorite credits include Masha in The Three Sisters and Hope Cladwell in Urinetown. She is so excited to learn about the process of developing new work and to get to meet other artists during her time interning with New Perspectives!