Under Construction 6 Playwrights!
Introducing the Playwrights of Under Construction 6.
After reading and evaluating 250 wonderful submissions by playwrights from all over the country, we are proud to announce the Playwrights of UC6.
We are excited to be a part of creating more new plays to be released into the theatrical world.
ABOUT UNDER CONSTRUCTION
In 2019 Carlyle King and Jessica Broutt brought together a group of eleven playwrights, both emerging and established writers, to meet with the sole purpose of creating new work. Each playwright entered the group with the beginnings of a new play. The work would be developed collaboratively. First in the room with the playwrights and then bringing in actors, then a director as we build towards our final staged readings. This program is modeled for playwrights who would benefit from a structured space to receive feedback from peers, all in the supportive environment of The Road. This group furthers The Road’s mission to develop socially and politically relevant voices and thoughts to the American stage, as well as continues to establish The Road as a leader and champion of new work in Los Angeles.
We are lucky to have the talents of Mackenna Goodrich who facilitates our virtual group and William Francis Hoffman facilitates our live group. Carlyle King heads the program. We look forward to reading your plays and beginning the next journey of UNDER CONSTRUCTION!
FACILITATORS
Mackenna Goodrich (she/they) loves Big Girl Explosion Fests and plays of and about the body. She’s been running the virtual Under Construction group since 2021. Selected directing credits: Gross! by Emma Schillage (Ten Toes), The Station by Maggie Cregan (SheNYC), biome by Dom Martello (Theatre Write Now), Straight Icons by SMJ and Anne-Marie Pietersma (Ars Nova/Second City NYC), American Girl Doll Horror Play by Jasmine Sharma (The Brick), An Axemas Story (The Players Theatre/54 Below), WO[MAN] by Alyssa Haddad-Chin (The Brick), Radio Man by Sarah Groustra (SheNYC), Bogeyman by Allison Merkel (The Road), ars moriendi by Jessica Durdock Moreno (The Road), Jin and Julie and the Jersey Devil by Kenjiro Lee (Paper Kraine). Mackenna is also an associate producer for SciShow. BA: Kenyon College // mackennagoodrich.com
William Francis Hoffman was born and raised in Oakville, Missouri. He was a one time member of the Rivendell Theatre Ensemble in Chicago Illinois and is a current member of the Actor’s Gym in Los Angeles, California. His play ‘Cal in Camo’ received its world premiere Off Broadway at the Rattlestick Playwrights Theater in May of 2016, as a co-production between Colt Coeur and Rattlestick. It was Directed by Adrienne Campbell-Holt and featured David Harbour, Paul Wesley, and Katya Campbell. ‘Cal in Camo’ received its Midwest premiere in 2018 at the Rivendell Theatre Ensemble in Chicago IL. The production was a Critic’s Pick in Time Out NY and garnered a Joseph Jefferson Award win in the supporting role category for actor Keith Kupferer. ‘Cal in Camo’ received subsequent productions and readings in Los Angeles, New Paltz, New York and Brisbane, Australia. His play ‘Drift’ was developed at the Actor’s Gym in Los Angeles. It was subsequently workshopped as part of the New Plays/New Year Festival at Palm Beach Dramaworks in Palm Beach, Florida in 2019. ‘Drift’ was set to receive its world premiere Off-Broadway at The New World Stages, but was closed three nights before its opening due to the Covid – 19 Pandemic. William co-moderates the Playwright’s Development Unit at the Actor’s Studio Los Angeles, and works frequently as a dramaturg.
IN-PERSON
Michael P. Adams is an award-winning queer writer from the greater Los Angeles area. His plays have been produced in New York (Atlantic Theater Company), Los Angeles, Albuquerque (Fusion Theatre Company), Memphis, Spokane, and Orlando, among others. Since 2019, Michael has been a member of Playground-LA, where his short play “Love Language of Origin” was selected as the best of the 2023-24 season and is currently under commission to be developed into a full-length play. Michael’s play “MLES2GO” recently received a developmental workshop at the Renaissance Theatre in Ohio as part of their Emerging Artists Festival. He is a graduate of the MFA program at San Jose State University.
Casey J. Adler is an actor, writer, and comedian, who has performed on Netflix, Paramount +, Hulu, ABC, Showtime, and Freeform. He holds a BFA in Theater and a minor in World Religions from Chapman University. Recent theater credits include: Mix-Mix: Filipino Adventures of a German Jewish Boy (LATC), Dracula: Comedy of Terrors (ETC), and Survivors (Arts for Change). Casey is also a member of The Actors Studio Play Development Unit, Dramatist Guild, SAG, and Actors Equity. He is the recipient of the Bruce Geller Memorial Prize for creative writing and a finalist for the Screencraft StagePlay Contest and Vitruvian Award. For media and additional information, please visit www.CaseyJAdler.com
Julianne Jigour’s plays have been produced by or developed with PlayGround, Moving Arts’ MADlab, the Antaeus Playwrights Lab, Santa Clara University, Bombay Theatre Company, Theater Masters, and the HBMG National Winter Playwrights Retreat. She has received two commissions from PlayGround and Planet Earth Arts, one of which—BRIGHT SHINING SEA—received its premiere production with PlayGround in San Francisco, where it was a Theatre Bay Area Awards Recommended Production. Her short plays BEECH. OAK. IRIS. and DOMESTIC HELP were finalists in the 2020 and 2022 Samuel French Off-Off Broadway Festival. Julianne has twice received grants from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation for science-themed TV pilots and has been a finalist for the Steeltown Film Factory competition. She earned her MFA from Carnegie Mellon University, where she received the West Coast Drama Alumni Clan award for Dramatic Writing, and she’s a proud member of the Playwrights Union, Playwrights Think Tank, and the Dramatists Guild.
Kate Mickere is a writer based in Los Angeles. Her play, Nurse Cadden, was the inaugural winner of the A is For Playwriting Contest. The script, chosen by a panel led by Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Lynn Nottage, received a virtual reading that starred Ann Dowd. Nurse Cadden is published by Next Stage Press and is available at The Drama Bookshop in NYC, where it was a staff pick. Her play, Vampire Panic!, was selected for the 2024 Great Plains Theatre Conference and will be produced in 2025 by Wild Imaginings in Waco, TX. Her most recent play, A Christmas Coven, was developed with Moving Arts Theatre as a part of their 2024 MADLab cohort.
Her screenplay, CAPTURING THE STARS, won a $20,000 grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and received an Honorable Mention for the Sloan/Tribeca Grand Jury Prize.
As an essayist, Kate has been published by The Los Angeles Times, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, The Belladonna Comedy, XO Jane and The Awl. She’s also written monologues for the collection “Teen Girls’ Comedic Monologues That Are Actually Funny,” published by Applause Books.
Kate holds an MFA in Dramatic Writing from Carnegie Mellon University, where she was the recipient of the Steven Bochco Fellowship.
Gabrielle Poisson is a Los Angeles-based playwright and television writer whose work blends dark absurdity with hyper-realism to tell stories that grapple with ideas of womanhood defined by its proximity to mental illness, generational trauma, and dysfunctional family structures. She is a Yale College graduate with B.A.s in Theater and Performance Studies and Psychology. She was the 2022 recipient of the Marina Keegan Award for Excellence in Playwriting as well as a semi-finalist for the Eugene O’Neill Playwright’s Conference in 2021. She is a two-time winner of a Governor’s Award in Arts and Education for her short plays. Her work has been recognized by the Blank Theatre Company, the Writer’s Theatre of New Jersey, and the Yale Playwright’s Festival. She currently works as the showrunner’s assistant on the upcoming Netflix limited series I WILL FIND YOU. When not writing or agonizing, she enjoys long, Lizzie-Bennett-esque walks.
Chandra Thomas is a writer-actor-producer originally from New York, currently residing in Los Angeles. As a playwright, her work has been presented at Primary Stages, Barrow Group, Naked Angels, Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre, Downtown Urban Theatre Festival, HERE Arts Center, Vivid Stage, Passage Theatre, among others. chandra’s most recent plays, rom-com-drama THE BUZZER and family circus play …OF CHAMPIONS, were named Finalists in the Blue Ink Playwriting Award. Previously, she was an Echo Theater Young Playwrights Fellow. On the television side, chandra has staffed on multi-cam, single-cam and animated comedy shows, including the Emmy Award-winning MOM. Additionally, she’s developed several TV series for studios and production companies. As an actor, her credits include roles in theatre (New York Theatre Workshop, Guthrie), television (LAW & ORDER: SVU, TACOMA FD), film (LABOR DAY, SWEET LORRAINE) and digital. She earned BA degrees in Theatre and Sociology from Vanderbilt University, and holds an MFA from Columbia University. chandra’s the proud child of immigrants, has gleefully lived all over the country and around the world, and absolutely loves baseball.
Emily Yuko Walborn is a Japanese American playwright and screenwriter from Montana. She received her MA in Playwriting from the University of Manchester (UK) and her BA in Writing for Film & Television from Emerson College. Her obsession with comedy and satire dictates her work and collaborations. Her plays have been developed and produced at IATI, Stomping Grounds Art House, The Experimental Theatre Coop, Box of Tricks Theatre, The Old Library Theatre, Manchester Drama Society, The Fled Collective and universities across the US. Emily’s play Logical Conspiracies won Old Library Theatre’s One Act Play Festival. Her play Clown Memo won the “Audience Favorite” award at the Last Chance New Play Festival.
VIRTUAL:
Katherine Alberta (she/her/hers) is a playwright based in New York City. She most recently self-produced a 29-hour reading of her original play A Brand, A Lifestyle at Pearl Studios. A graduate of Pace University’s International Performance Ensemble, she is trained in devised theatre and has a passion for collaboration. Katherine is thrilled to be a part of UC6 and thankful to The Road for this opportunity!
A.J. Ditty is an actor/playwright/slash-mark enthusiast currently living in Brooklyn. His plays include The Bøyg (theatre KAPOW workshop, dir. Matt Cahoon), B.B.’s Inferno (The PIT, dir. Tom Costello and Felicia Lobo), Eloise Parker Goes to the Moon (Crashbox Theater’s Read. Play. Write. series, dir. Kristin McCarthy Parker), Heart of Duckness (Pipeline Theater Company’s Bonfire series, dir. Kevin Hourigan), and “Rubiella: A Ghost Story” (Pipeline’s Matchstick series, dir. Felicia Lobo). His Zoom play, “All Things Considered It Was Probably the Most Productive Meeting The Escondido Unified School District PTA Ever Had”, won The 46th Annual Samuel French OOB Short Play Festival and had its premiere at Virtual Rule of 7×7 in July of 2020 through The Tank. He is a proud alumnus of Pipeline Theater Company’s PlayLab. He co-hosts The Worst of All Possible Worlds, a podcast about case studies in the pop culture of a dying empire. BFA: NYU. Go to ajditty.com for all your ajditty.com needs!
NPX Profile: https://newplayexchange.org/users/13596/aj-ditty
Ashlyn Frank is a writer and director specializing in theatre, film, and casting. A graduate from the Fordham University Lincoln Center Theatre Program, Ashlyn has mounted stage productions ranging from classical to contemporary. She currently serves as the Creative Director of Chamber Theatre Productions where she produces and directs various live action films and animated projects as well as national staged tours. No matter the medium, Ashlyn always strives to make work that is philosophical and civic while still spiritually and aesthetically engaging.
Talisa Friedman is a writer, actor, and producer. Her play WHO BY FIRE won the 2021 National Jewish Playwriting Competition, the Tel Aviv Jewish Playwriting Competition, and was one of three finalists for Monumental Theater’s New Work Series at the Kennedy Center. WHO BY FIRE had a workshop production at The Road Theatre spring 2023, directed by 4-time Emmy winner John Frank Levey. Her latest play, SO BABY, is premiering at the Hollywood Fringe Fest this summer, directed by Josie Andrews and Sierra Nutkevitch.
Originally from Washington, DC, Talisa spent formative years of her childhood in Pretoria, South Africa. She majored in English at Harvard, where she was awarded the Jonathan Levy Prize for Acting, the David McCord Prize for the Arts, and was a member of the Hasty Pudding Theatricals and the Signet Society of Arts & Letters. As an actor, her theater credits include Alex Timbers’ THE LAST GOODBYE (Juliet) and HAMLET (Ophelia) at The Old Globe, CABARET (Sally Bowles) at Celebration, THE DODGERS (Patti) at the Hudson, plus Arena Stage, A.R.T., Studio Theatre, etc. She has also been seen on “Shameless” and “American Woman,” as well as in several feature films. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two sons.
Nate Hollander is a writer, musician, and educator based in Brooklyn, New York. His recent plays include JÄRNÄGGLUNGA (The Tank, 2024) and Martha & Stephen (CalArts, 2022; BoHo Theatre, 2020).
Nate has worked as a director at the California Institute of the Arts, as a dramaturg with Lipstick Theatre, and as a sound designer with the American Music Theatre Project. As an educator, Nate has taught creative writing, English, and American History. As a musician, he is a founding member of the band Surf Party, USA. Nate is a graduate of Northwestern University, where he studied Radio/TV/Film, Theatre, and Russian Literature.
When not writing, Nate can be found digging through used record bins, having a laugh with friends, or rereading Calvin and Hobbes.
William O’neal II is a queer playwright/poet from the American South. They write plays that aim to re-name the American God, & understand the intricate roles that gender, money, chronic illness, & sex play in our lives using existential and absurd methods (talking pigs & kink dungeons).
Full-length plays include: “For All the Strange Boys who Didn’t get to Grow Up,” (recipient of the 2021 Artistine Mann Award in Playwriting at Emory University, the 2022 Lorraine Hansberry Playwriting Award [second place], & the Kennedy Center Darrell Ayers National Playwriting Award [distinguished achievement]), & “CAMP,” (developed at Entry Level). One-act plays include “$$$ PIG,” (Premiered Off-Broadway in New York on July 22nd, 2024 at the Lynn F.
Angelson Theater with 24 Hour Plays: Nationals), & “Play Party,” a Samuel Beckett reimagining.
They hold a BA in Playwriting from Emory University & reside in Brooklyn, NY with their cat, Baby Boy.
Phanésia Pharel is a Haitian-American playwright from a dragon fruit farm in Miami. The daughter of an immigrant teacher and farmer, she writes to honor people. Her full-length plays include DEAD GIRL’S QUINCEÑERA, THE WATERFALL, R&B , LUCKY, and BLACK GIRL JOY.
She received her BA in Urban Studies from Barnard College of Columbia Universisty, which created her interest in the themes of housing insecurity, public education and safety.
She has received commissions from the Atlantic Theater, La Jolla Playhouse, Lucille Lortel Alcove, Miranda Family Fund, Hero Theatre, City Theatre Miami, and the Latinx Playwrights Circle.
Her work has been developed by the Playwrights’ Center, New York Stage and Film, SolFest, Thrown Stone, Shattered Globe, and Echo Theater Company.
Her honors include Kilroys List, five awards from the Kennedy Center, two time Bay Area Playwrights Festival Finalist/Honorable Mention, Jane Chambers Finalist, A is For Playwriting award recipient, and the Frank Moffett Mosier Fellowship for Works in Heightened Finalist Prize.
Phanésia is a member of the Obie-winning EST/Youngblood group and The Wish Collective, whose play the wish has been performed in several states since the fall of Roe v. Wade.
She is currently pursuing an MFA in Playwriting at UC San Diego, mentored by Naomi Iizuka and Deborah Stein.
Ian Reid is a NYC-based, Massachusetts-raised playwright and artistic director of theatre collective Trove. His work has been performed at The Tank, The Magnet, Paradise Factory, NYU, and Classic Stage Company. He was the recipient of the 2022 John Golden Playwriting Prize. ian.alastair.reid@gmail.com
UNDER CONSTRUCTION HISTORY
PRODUCTION TEAM:
Dramaturge – Jessica Broutt
Producer – Carlyle King
2019-2020 UNDER CONSTRUCTION PLAYWRIGHTS GROUP:
Steve Apostolina
Jami Brandli
Bernardo Cubría
Lisa Kenner Grissom
Cory Hinkle
Aja Houston
Velina Hasu Houston
Carlos Lacámara
Jennifer Maisel
Elizabeth Sampson
Jennie Webb
PRODUCTION TEAM:
Dramaturge – Jessica Broutt
Assistant Dramaturge – Mackenna Goodrich
Producer – Carlyle King
2020-2021 UNDER CONSTRUCTION PLAYWRIGHTS GROUP:
Cris Eli Blak
Sandra A. Daley
Ron Fromstein
India Kotis
Jennifer Lane
Kyle J. McCloskey
Matthew Paul Olmos
Joshua Rebell
Jasmine Sharma
PRODUCTION TEAM:
LA Workshop Facilitator – Jessica Broutt
Virtual Workshop Facilitator – Mackenna Goodrich
Producer – Carlyle King
2021-2022 UNDER CONSTRUCTION PLAYWRIGHTS GROUP:
Adam Hunter Howard
Alison Minami
Allison Merkel
Alyssa Haddad
Bonnie Antosh
Charlie O’Leary
Hannah Manikowski
Jason Gray Platt
Jessica Durdock Moreno
Kaela Mei-Shing Garvin
Kenjiro Lee
Laura Stribling
Lia Romeo
Mak Shealy
Marcus Scott
Marjorie Muller
Rafael Yglesias
Ryan Elliot Wilson
Shannon TL Kearns
Shayne Eastin
Tira Palmquist