Introducing the 2023 Short Play Lab Members!

Please help support the 2023 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!

Daphne Greaves

Daphne Greaves is a playwright living in New York City. Her play Day of the Kings had its world premiere at the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta, Georgia and was directed by Susan Booth. It is published by Dramatic Publishing. She was a co-author of The Audience which was produced by Transport Group and was a nominee for a Drama Desk Award for best new musical. Other plays include, The Men, Killing Time, Good Lessons from Bad Women, and Crash! From staged readings to workshops and full productions she has worked with such organizations as The Public Theater, Puerto Rican Traveling Theater, The Lark, Women’s Project, StageWorks and others. Her radio drama The African Grove aired on National Public Radio. Daphne has a BFA in acting from New York University and was a Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwriting Fellow at Juilliard where she worked with Christopher Durang and Marsha Norman.

Deniz Khateri

Deniz Khateri is an Iranian American multidisciplinary artist based in New York. Her works experiment with form and they focus on memory, grief, immigration and the concept of home. Holding an MA in Theatre from City University of New York, Deniz’s plays have been performed in several national and international festivals including International Puppet Fringe Festival, Ice Factory 2022, Exponential Festival, Bostonia Bohemia, Our Voices Women Playwrights, Purely Political, The Tank Virtual Festival, CUNY graduate center Performed Knowledge festival and Hunter College. She has written and directed experimental librettos and music-theatre projects that challenge the status quo and current vernacular of the theatre and modern opera scene. In her work  ”The Cellos’ Dialogue”, hand-selected to be performed in the Exponential Festival and NY Fringe Puppetry Festival, she experiments using a Persian musical instrument as a puppet which raises questions about the identity dilemmas of children of immigrants and their relationships with their parents.

Deniz is the recipient of the NYFA award for her documentary animated web series, “Diasporan”, for which she is the writer, director, animator and singer and explores the daily struggles of immigrants. (www.denizkhateri.com)

Emma Lefkowitz

Emma Lefkowitz is a playwright based in New York, NY, whose writing explores what happens when we confront the seductive safety of ideology. Emma has written Each Other (produced by The Open-Door Podcast, 2021), a 10-minute play about privilege, perfectionism and self-loathing and For My Very Own (self-produced at The Chain Theatre’s Winter One-Act Festival, 2022), an absurd comedy about white woman who hatches a plan to erase her whiteness. Emma is a graduate of Bryn Mawr College and Washington University in St. Louis, and is a longtime high school History teacher. Emma is thrilled to be a part of the New Perspectives Theatre family!

uzunma udeh

Uzunma Udeh is a writer/actor/former D1 athlete/almost pageant girl based in Brooklyn, NY. Her work has been presented at Riant Theatre, Manhattan Repertory Theater, Boston Playwrights’ Theatre, and the Corkscrew Festival. More recently, she co-wrote the short film Valid Glitter, which recently debuted at the Greenpoint Film Festival, and was shown at Tallgrass Film Festival and Chicago International Children’s Film Festival. Her latest short film Me, Myself, vs. I will debut as part of the 2023 NYC Indie Theatre Film Festival lineup. Her voice has been described as “strong” and “unique”, and she considers that the highest compliment.

Emily welty

Emily Welty is an artist and activist in Rockaway Beach. She has worked with The Civilians, the Acting Studio, Chelsea Rep, The New Group, the Bechdel Group, the Fail Better Collective and the Einhorn School of Performing Arts. Her plays The Interstitial and Boundary Waters were published, and What Do You Say at the End of the World? was a finalist for Best Play in the Long Island City One Act Play Festival. Her full-length plays include: Petroglyphs, Luminescence, Appalachian Trail and The Prize. When not writing plays, Emily serves as the Director of Peace and Justice Studies at Pace University and was part of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons team that won the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize.

Ledia Xhoga

Ledia Xhoga was born and raised in Tirana, Albania and lives in Brooklyn. Her plays have been produced by the Eclectic Podcast Network, Martha’s Vineyard Playhouse, Downtown Urban Arts Festival in Manhattan, and others. Her monologue The Winner was presented by the PlayGround Experiment, as part of the Faces of America Monologue Festival, and was published in the Festival’s Anthology. She’s a past participant of Kennedy Center’s Playwriting Intensive and a member of the Dramatist Guild. She’s also a fiction writer with stories published in Akashic Books Online, Hobart, KGB Bar journal, Sonora Review, and other journals, and is the author of Misinterpretation, a forthcoming novel.

Directors

Melody Brooks

MELODY BROOKS is the founder and Artistic Director of NPTC. She is an award-winning producer, director and dramaturg who has been working in the professional theatre and various educational institutions for 40 years. She has developed and directed a number of notable and award-winning original scripts and innovative classical productions with NPTC since its founding. Brooks is currently the dramaturg for How to Melt ICE, premiering in February 2023. She was dramaturg for She Calls Me Firefly by Teresa Lotz, which won the 2019 NY Innovative Theatre Award for Best Short Play, co-produced by NPTC and Parity Productions, and for NPTC's OOBR-winning production of The Taming of the Shrew. Brooks leads NPTC's Women's Work Project which develops new plays by 10-15 writers per year and reclaims historical women who have written plays through the ON HER SHOULDERS program. Brooks received the 2018 "Trailblazing Women and Arts Institutions Award" from Rhythm Color Associates and the "Spirit of Hope Award" in 2015 from Speranza Theatre Company for her career-long support of women theatre artists. She is a member of Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas (LMDA) and a Board Member with the League of Professional Theatre Women. She has Co-chaired the triennial LPTW Gilder/Coigney International Theatre Award since 2014. Brooks is a co-founder of 50/50 in 2020: Parity for Women Theatre Artists.

Kaelani Burja

Kaelani Burja is excited to be back at New Perspectives after assistant directing How to Melt ICE! Chicana from Guam and Bakersfield, California. Assistant Director: Spindle Shuttle Needle (Clubbed Thumb), La Paloma Prisoner workshop (Chelsea Factory), Papilucho reading (Ensemble Studio Theatre), upcoming: bull-jean/we wake (Pillsbury House + Theatre), Daniel Alexander Jones residency (McCarter). Dramaturg: SolFest 2020-2022 (Sol Project), O.K.! reading (The Artist Co-Op), Papilucho. Other: El Corrido de California reading (PA, Roundabout), Harlem Hellfighters on a Latin Beat reading (PA, Pregones/PRTT), This Beautiful Future (Wardrobe Sub, Cherry Lane), Expand the Canon Research + Reading Committees (Hedgepig Ensemble Theatre), Fornés in Context editorial assistant and contributor (Cambridge University Press, 2024). Education: Princeton University 2023. Directing and performing in her senior thesis, an immersive piece about cumbia and community, April 21st-28th.

Jenny GREEMAN

JENNY GREEMAN is an artist and educator and a long-time Resident Director with the Women’s Work Short Play LAB. She was formerly the Administrator of Youth & Community Development at NPTC and a resident director for the 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, Jenny and her writing partner, Elliot Lanes, won “Best Staged Reading” for their original children’s piece, The Raggedy Ann and Andy Musical. Jenny was 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 and recently earned her Masters of Public Administration at Baruch/CUNY.

Kubbi

Kubbi received her certification in directing from Yale University in 2021; however her first directing job was with Theatre for the New City in the children’s summer program in 2009. Soon after that, she spent two summers with the Castillo Theatre’s Allstars Summer program, directing For Colored Girls and Two Trains Running. Kubbi continued directing children's theatre productions; some of the most memorable were with Albany Talent in their first NYC Off- Broadway Children’s show Middle School Madness at the Producers Club and Tada’s Wide-Awake Jake. Kubbi has also directed several staged readings and was recently a part of the #ENOUGH project for Columbine to end gun violence with Southside Summer, and Allegiance. Kubbi is proud to continue working with New Perspectives Theatre, where she has directed two short plays Brett and Ashley and Just Before Sunrise and is  looking forward to working with this year's Lab. She is also a working actress/singer, & proud member of AEA and SAG-AFTRA.

Dani ortiz

DANI 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. Through New Perspectives Women’s Work Short Play LAB she had the pleasure of directing Bad Koreans,  Foul Line, and Cassie Goes to Congress. Dani is thrilled to support the Short Play Lab and the community of playwrights NPTC has cultivated. 

Director’s Apprentice

Amina Khaitova

AMINA KHAITOVA is a junior at Barnard College of Columbia University, double majoring in Psychology and Theatre with concentration in Directing. Born and raised in Uzbekistan, Amina took directing classes at Ilkhom Theatre in Tashkent and participated in International School Theatre Association workshops in London. Her recent credits include being an Assistant Stage Manager at Barnard production of By the Way, Meet Vera Stark, and an Assistant Director for a devised piece Pirandello Project. She is excited to continue learning about theatre and working on inspiring projects as a part of NPTC’s Women’s Work Lab.