Fellows Spotlight is our blog series that invites you to take a behind-the-scenes look at our Fellows program.

We’ll be hearing from all our 2018-2019 Fellows: Jay Adana, Rae Binstock, Zeniba Britt, Erika Dickerson-Despenza, Mathilde Dratwa, Aryanna Garber, Charles Gershman, Nambi E. Kelley, Melissa Li, Benjamin Velez, Kit Yan, and Zack Zadek.

Each of the Fellows/teams were asked the same 5 questions, exploring where these writers have been, are now, and are journeying towards. Our Fellows took this gentle structure and ran, each submitting responses as unique and creative as they are.

This week, meet Erika Dickerson-Despenza!

What was your first experience with theater?

I cannot remember exactly, if we’re talking about theater in the traditional sense. The most accurate answer, however, is my Black Baptist church on the westside of Chicago, five blocks from Fred Hampton’s home (where he was murdered by CPD). This was the sociopolitical backdrop of the folk sermons emphatically delivered behind the sacred pulpit-turned-stage. I was enthralled by the deeply rooted Black liturgies, the stained-glass windows, holy ghost choreography and pentecostal breathing–the theatricality of that which was holy ground. 

The first time I remember seeing Black people in a professional production was sophomore year of high school at Goodman Theater’s production of Radio Gold by August Wilson. My American Literature class took a field trip to see the production after reading the play. I remember being amazed and wanting more of Mame Wilks, because Black women’s stories were more complex and under-explored, even then. 

When did you decide to become a writer? Is there a writer, show, or piece of writing that was particularly influential on your path?

I was always a writer. Language was the most natural and challenging way to undermine systems of oppression. I was trying to understand the world I was in and write my way into something else, something freer. In middle school, I encountered Nikki Giovanni’s poem “Ego Tripping (there may be a reason why)” and was enthralled by the speaker’s brash celebration of herself. I went to the library and checked out every book Giovanni had published at the time. I read them from cover to cover, but found myself most drawn to Black Feeling, Black Talk/ Black Judgement. Giovanni was unapologetically Black and female, fierce in her language and her critique of our political landscape. If Giovanni could do that just with words, I wanted to wield, wound and revive words like that. Then I was introduced to my literary mother, Ntozake Shange, and I quickly learned the importance of rupturing language and bending it to my will. I was a poet first. I studied Gwendolyn Brooks, Lucille Clifton, June Jordan, Sonia Sanchez, Audre Lorde, Alice Walker, Nikky Finney, Patricia Smith, Elizabeth Alexander, Krista Franklin and way too many white women poets (whom I won’t name because their names are overstated and I want to give deliberate space to the Black women who are the reason I am possible). And when poems proved too small a form for the stories I wanted to tell, I (re)turned to the work of Zora Neale Hurston, Toni Morrison, Octavia Butler, Toni Cade Bambara, Saidiya Hartman and Alexis Pauline Gumbs. But I wanted to create experiences about Black women with audiences in a live environment. So I looked back to Shange, early Suzan-Lori Parks and Katori Hall. Because my people’s work & resistance have never been safely historical, theatre serves as a literary and live documentation of how Blk womyn practice sci-fi living. t’s is intimate, unflinchingly honest (when done right), and real time immediacy calls us to create a moment together; to witness and be witnessed.

How do you describe your work overall? What sets your work apart?

As an interdisciplinary theatremaker, my work converges literary, visual and musical worlds. I investigate, dismantle, critique and reconstruct mass media images of iconic, commonplace and invisibilized figures within the African Diaspora. My thematic obsessions deliberately center Black women’s land legacies, stored body knowledge of ancestral memory, girlhood trauma, maternal bonds, ritual, religion and distinct experiences of environmental racism. These themes point toward my central fixation: Black women’s literal and figurative dismemberment and corporeal restitution as a means of belonging–to ourselves, our families, dominant culture and our world. Afrosurrealism, magic realism, narrative re/memory and emergent strategy are conceptual preoccupations of my work. Through my artistic practice, I aim to resist Black feminine erasure and endeavor to re/imagine a world where a kaleidoscope of Black womanhood is lavishly welcomed and affirmed. Currently, the body of work I’m creating requires casts exclusively Black women and Black women directors. 

Can you tell us a little bit about the work you’ve been developing as a Fellow?

During my time as DGF Fellow, I’ve been working on shadow/land and [hieroglyph]. These plays are the first two works in my 10-play Katrina Cycle, focused on the effects of Hurricane Katrina & its state-sanctioned man-made disaster. Taking up epic space, these plays traverse the Black Katrina diaspora in an examination of the ongoing effects of displacement rippling in & beyond New Orleans. Together, the ten works underscore colonialism, environmental racism & the erasure of Black land legacies through the distress of disaster, evacuation, displacement & urban renewal.

What do you find most rewarding about your work as a writer?

I am most grateful for how my writing operates as cultural work. I get to practice the notion of sci-fi living: using my radical imagination to do what has never been done before in theatre as a means of advancing a more just and compassionate world and write toward a future in which Black people exist and are free. 

Fellows Spotlight is our blog series that invites you to take a behind-the-scenes look at our Fellows program.

In recent weeks, we’ve introduced you to Rae Binstock, Kit Yan and Melissa Li, Mathilde Dratwa, Zeniba Britt, Jay Adana, and Nambi E Kelley.

We’ll be hearing from all our 2018-2019 Fellows: Jay Adana, Rae Binstock, Zeniba Britt, Erika Dickerson-Despenza, Mathilde Dratwa, Aryanna Garber, Charles Gershman, Nambi E. Kelley, Melissa Li, Benjamin Velez, Kit Yan, and Zack Zadek.

Each of the Fellows/teams were asked the same 5 questions, exploring where these writers have been, are now, and are journeying towards. Our Fellows took this gentle structure and ran, each submitting responses as unique and creative as they are.

This week we are proud to introduce Benjamin Velez.

What was your first experience with theater?

My mother forced me to audition for a local community theater production of Oliver when I was six years old. The director was only seeing kids aged nine and up, but my mom lied to get me in and I eventually got cast as Oliver! It was a magical experience where I caught the theater bug and it’s never let up since.

When did you decide to become a writer? Is there a writer, show, or piece of writing that was particularly influential on your path?

The first CD I ever bought was John Williams’ movie score for Spielberg’s Hook. It was a transcendent moment that led me down the path of a film score obsession and a love affair with musical storytelling. 

How do you describe your work overall? What sets your work apart?

I’ve always found it hard to describe my work, mostly because the music I write is a fusion of a lot of different styles, similar to my influences. I don’t believe any of us are singular in how we exist; every character is a mixture of experiences, upbringings, flaws, and passions, and the music I write reflects that. Pop, funk, folk, rock, blues, blended together with a cinematic scope of world building to make the audience feel like they aren’t just hearing a collection of songs, but that they are entering another world. This cinematic approach to genre and musical storytelling is drives my work.

Can you tell us a little bit about the work you’ve been developing as a Fellow?

[Aryanna Garber and I are] working on a musical called Borderline about Anna, a girl who gets diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder and struggles to understand what that diagnosis means for every aspect of her life. [We] are trying to navigate both the light and dark side of mental illness in a way that both challenges and invites our audience to understand a full nuanced picture of something often portrayed in the extreme. The fellows program has helped us hone in on the story we want to tell in terms of stakes and character so that we can create the most compelling story possible.

What do you find most rewarding about your work as a writer

I love the ability to connect with stories and experiences other than my own through the language of music. In my mind, the human experience is all about empathy and understanding, and as a writer I try to find the most creative and effective ways to help others do just that. If something I write can help humanize a person usually seen as “other”, or add shades to how someone thinks about previously immutable beliefs, that is the most rewarding feeling. It means I get to use my very specific toolbox to bring empathy to our ever increasingly polarized world.  

The inner critic can emerge at any stage of the writing process, questioning our writing’s worth, its execution, and our own artistic abilities. Unfettered judgment combines with physical discomfort to form a lethal combination that can hamper the creative process, or worse, convince us not to write at all.

Many of us are aware that in order to thrive in our writing, we have to be able to silence our sharpest judgments. We think “Why can’t I be freer, why can’t the words flow from me, I hate my inner critic!” But is that really true? Do we really think we don’t need the inner voice that calls upon our work to be better? Perhaps, one of the many reasons why the critic’s input is so hard to ignore is that we agree with it and value its input. The inner critic plays an important role in tightening and thoroughly examining how to improve our work. It is the inner critic that dichotomizes the trite idea from the original, identifies and erases repetitiveness, lifelessness, and ambiguity. Without it, we’d do ourselves a disservice by producing work that doesn’t reflect our true potential.

No one who hopes to make a life as a writer needs to kill the inner critic, and punishing oneself for this inner voice is not going to make the problem better. One instead needs to develop the skills necessary to be able to temporarily put the voice aside and invite a second internal voice — let’s call it, the inner creator. The inner creator just wants to get words on the page; to create; to play. And once the inner creator tires out, then we can welcome the inner critic to mine the work for the most valuable material. The two voices work beautifully in tandem, one adding clay to the wheel and one shaping it. 

This is a difficult task; the critic will think the creator is stupid, silly, unhelpful, and wasteful (and who, in today’s world, wants to create something that doesn’t provide value.) But that is okay; it’s crucial to give yourself permission to write badly. Expecting excellence from the start and letting our inner critic dominate the conversation is a writing practice that only leads to a strained, energy-draining creative process. 

Ignoring the critic for just a little while won’t suddenly destroy your capacity to critique and improve your work. Nor do we think you have to diminish your goals about how good your work can be. The critic doesn’t have to lower its standards, but it needs to know when it’s time for input and when it’s not. Plus, your inner critic will actually do a much better job working with existing material than it will editing every word as it reaches the page. How can we expect our critic to shape the totality of our work if we haven’t even allowed the creator to get all of the basic ideas onto the page? Letting our “bad writing” onto the page essentially provides us with the brain space to process the specific aspects of our ideas and opinions that desperately need communicating. 

That said, it’s important to remember that the inner critic’s red pen is directed solely at the words on the page, and not our own artistic abilities. The critic can be quick to dismiss our entire artistic personhood when what’s on the page doesn’t add up to our loftiest hopes. Maybe this is because it’s easier to dismiss ourselves as artists outright than it is to imagine that what we have the ability to create to our highest potential. Dare to imagine that you have the ability to create the work you actually want seen in the world. Improvement is difficult, scary, and rarely resembles our preconceptions – but it is real.

We don’t need to try and become mythic free spirits with no opinions on the quality of what we make. Allowing space for our playful inner creator won’t make us bad writers, either. The best answer is to learn how to make the appropriate space for both. We can remember our artistic ambition without forgetting that the vulnerability of sharing our inner truths and stories is what likely attracted us to writing for the theater in the first place.

Every show you have seen, read, listened to, shared, and loved all began with a blank piece of paper. The struggle of filling that paper is something we can all relate to. Thankfully, the thousands of writers every year that interact with the Dramatists Guild Foundation have found ways to push through that doubt. They have inspired me and our whole team to take bold steps to better serve our community across the United States.

Personally, I faced the blank page, paper after paper while pursuing my Masters in Nonprofit Management at Columbia. I am proud to share with all of you that I graduated this year, and could not be more excited to be putting my new skills to use for DGF.

The last year and a half has been full of new beginnings. We have welcomed new staff and Board members, ushered in a new program, and expanded our outreach to writers in exciting ways. First, our Traveling Masters, supported by Roe Green and the Roe Green Foundation, has now reached writers and students in nearly all 50 states – we will reach this goal by the end of 2019!

We launched the New Voices program last year and have now expanded into a new school, doubling the number of 4th grade students we have helped find their unique voices. The program is already receiving generous support to help it grow, including a grant from the Maurer Family Foundation that supports formal evaluation of our curriculum to improve our efficacy and ensure that young students are receiving the best playwriting education possible.

In December 2018, we received an incredibly generous gift from the Seller-Lehrer Family Foundation for $2 million in support of our Fellows program and Emergency Grants. The Fellows program continues to be a leading entity in identifying and elevating the most promising voices of the future, with former Fellows like Benj Pasek, Justin Paul, Michael R. Jackson, Antoinette Nwandu, Lauren Yee, Kristen Anderson-Lopez, and others making tremendous waves in the community with their groundbreaking work. We also awarded the inaugural Stephen Schwartz Award to former Fellow Oliver Houser. Thank you, Stephen!

We have worked to grow our community, reaching out to several luminaries of the stage who have become wonderful allies of DGF and our mission. In March, we were joined by legends Judith Light and Tony Kushner, who we awarded the Madge Evans and Sidney Kingsley Awards for Excellence in Theater. We also had the distinct honor of being joined by Hadestown composer, lyricist, and bookwriter Anaïs Mitchell for a Salon in June, just days before she and the production won eight Tony Awards. As these individuals inspired us with their commitment to the preservation and continuation of the craft, so did many of you by joining DGF’s new The Write Stuff Society. Thanks to our newly hired Development Director Mady Schuman and our Development Manager Jamie Balsai, The Write Stuff Society brings together our most dedicated supporters from all backgrounds.

Please click here and take at the Donor Impact Report to learn more about our programs and see first hand how your support is creating exponential benefit to the lives of writers across the country. Educational programs, free space, and awards, grants and stipends that you help fund are having a huge impact on writers at all stages of their careers. Those programs, and all of the wonderful milestones we have hit this year, are all because of you. Just as writers inspire us to challenge ourselves and reach toward a more beautiful future, you too inspire us to thrive in our mission every day.

Thank you!

Fellows Spotlight is our blog series that invites you to take a behind-the-scenes look at our Fellows program.

In recent weeks, we’ve introduced you to Rae Binstock, Kit Yan and Melissa Li, Mathilde Dratwa, Zeniba Britt, and Nambi E Kelley.

We’ll be hearing from all our 2018-2019 Fellows: Jay Adana, Rae Binstock, Zeniba Britt, Erika Dickerson-Despenza, Mathilde Dratwa, Aryanna Garber, Charles Gershman, Nambi E. Kelley, Melissa Li, Benjamin Velez, Kit Yan, and Zack Zadek.

Each of the Fellows/teams were asked the same 5 questions, exploring where these writers have been, are now, and are journeying towards. Our Fellows took this gentle structure and ran, each submitting responses as unique and creative as they are.

This week we invite you to this conversation with Jay Adana.

What was your first experience with theater?

I played Becky in a production of “Gold Dust or Bust” (I’m sure you’ve heard of it) in 4th grade. I was the comic relief and it was the easiest audience I’ll ever get. I got hooked.

When did you decide to become a writer? Is there a writer, show, or piece of writing that was particularly influential on your path?

I set out to be an actor. My mom showed me a copy of “Into The Woods” (of course bow down to the mighty Sondheim) on VHS and when Bernadette Peters followed an imaginary bug on the floor, stomped it, twisted her foot and said “squooosh” I said that’s what I’m doing. I became a writer by accident. I was doing a show with a couple of friends from acting school where the story was told with movement and puppets. We were having trouble communicating what was happening in a more complicated section of the plot so I ducked into the bathroom (we were rehearsing in my living room) and wrote a song to explain what was happening. I loved that process and just kept doing it. That show was called “The Woodsman”.

How do you describe your work overall? What sets your work apart?

I like to blend old sounds with new. I’m most interested when you can take a little bit of both. For example I made a trap beat out of pieces of “The Battlecry of Freedom” or I’ll use rap rhythms on a folk song. 

Can you tell us a little bit about the work you’ve been developing as a Fellow?

My writing partner Zeniba Britt and I have been developing a musical alternative history of the American Civil War with a dash of magic. Our protagonist is Polly, a brilliant black biracial mapmaker hiding just outside Atlanta.

What do you find most rewarding about your work as a writer?

There’s the moment when something clicks and it’s just exactly right and I’m not sure how I got there and it feels like I have a line dialed straight into the cosmos. That’s magic. 

Fellows Spotlight is our summer blog series that invites you to take a behind-the-scenes look at our Fellows program.

In recent weeks, we’ve introduced you to Rae Binstock, Kit Yan and Melissa Li, and Mathilde Dratwa.

Over the coming weeks, we’ll be hearing from all our 2018-2019 Fellows: Jay Adana, Rae Binstock, Zeniba Britt, Erika Dickerson-Despenza, Mathilde Dratwa, Aryanna Garber, Charles Gershman, Nambi E. Kelley, Melissa Li, Benjamin Velez, Kit Yan, and Zack Zadek.

Each of the Fellows/teams were asked the same 5 questions, exploring where these writers have been, are now, and are journeying towards. Our Fellows took this gentle structure and ran, each submitting responses as unique and creative as they are.

Allow us to introduce you to Zeniba Britt:

What was your first experience with theater?

We did theatre in preschool at The YMCA in Culver City. I recall immigrants, turkeys, and indigenous peoples, it was alternate history called The First Thanksgiving. 

When did you decide to become a writer? 

I don’t recall ever making a decision, it is something I just do, cyclically. Suddenly a character or situation is talking to me and I can’t hear the person I’m with anymore. 

Is there a writer, show, or piece of writing that was particularly influential on your path?

Passing Strange was one of those shows that said don’t give up, there is space for you here. 

How do you describe your work overall? 

Absurd, esoteric, and funny. 

What sets your work apart?

I think it’s me, my experiences and my unique place in society. 

Can you tell us a little bit about the work you’ve been developing as a Fellow?

Yes, I’ve been working on an epic adventure musical called The Loophole with Jay Adana, it’s an alternate history of the civil war about revolution and love centered around a Black Regiment of The Union Army and an integrated house in rural Georgia. We use rap, verse, folk, rock, body percussion, and magic to tell the story. 

What do you find most rewarding about your work as a writer?

Employing actors, hands down. 

Fellows Spotlight is our summer blog series that invites you to take a behind-the-scenes look at our Fellows program.

In recent weeks, we’ve introduced you to Rae Binstock, Kit Yan and Melissa Li, and Mathilde Dratwa.

Over the coming weeks, we’ll be hearing from all our 2018-2019 Fellows: Jay Adana, Rae Binstock, Zeniba Britt, Erika Dickerson-Despenza, Mathilde Dratwa, Aryanna Garber, Charles Gershman, Nambi E. Kelley, Melissa Li, Benjamin Velez, Kit Yan, and Zack Zadek.

Each of the Fellows/teams were asked the same 5 questions, exploring where these writers have been, are now, and are journeying towards. Our Fellows took this gentle structure and ran, each submitting responses as unique and creative as they are.

This week, we invite you to get to know Nambi E. Kelley:

What was your first experience with theater?

My first experience in the theatre was being in a production of The Mouse That Roared in high school. I played the secretary. I wanted to play the general. I understood completely why they cast a boy in that part, and I was mad as hell about it. 

When did you decide to become a writer? Is there a writer, show, or piece of writing that was particularly influential on your path?

I became a writer when I was about 8 years old. I spent half my childhood in places where children were not valued. I wrote to understand the world around me because it was never explained to me why things were so hard for some people. 

How do you describe your work overall? What sets your work apart?

My work stages a character’s interior thoughts. Other writers do that through subtext or immediate action. I am fascinated with seeing how someone arrives at a thought and staging that.

Can you tell us a little bit about the work you’ve been developing as a Fellow?

The fellowship play I’m developing is an adaptation of Toni Morrison’s Jazz.  I have chosen to structure the play like Rashomon, so it is structured into 5 different perspectives based on a singular event of a young girl being murdered in 1920s Harlem by her lover. 

What do you find most rewarding about your work as a writer?

I saw a lot of suffering as a young person.  What’s most rewarding for me as a writer is to be able to illuminate those dark spaces for others who may be in similar spaces. If I am not writing to make someone’s world better, or at least for someone to see a piece of their own experience in a character and provide perspective and context on their sufferings, I am not in a space of joy around creating work. My goal is to tell as many truths as I can, it helps me to know the suffering I’ve endured in my life was not in vain, but in service of others. And that gives me great peace. 

Fellows Spotlight is our summer blog series that invites you to take a behind-the-scenes look at our Fellows program.

In recent weeks, we’ve introduced you to Rae Binstock, Kit Yan and Melissa Li.

Over the coming weeks, we’ll be hearing from all our 2018-2019 Fellows: Jay Adana, Rae Binstock, Zeniba Britt, Erika Dickerson-Despenza, Mathilde Dratwa, Aryanna Garber, Charles Gershman, Nambi E. Kelley, Melissa Li, Benjamin Velez, Kit Yan, and Zack Zadek.

Each of the Fellows/teams were asked the same 5 questions, exploring where these writers have been, are now, and are journeying towards. Our Fellows took this gentle structure and ran, each submitting responses as unique and creative as they are.

This week, we are thrilled to introduce you to Mathilde Dratwa.

What was your first experience with theater?

When I was a teenager, I was cast as Juliet in the school play. I had to wear an off-white flapper dress – because obviously Juliet wears white. (I now know that this is a fundamental misunderstanding of the character: she’s a spunky teenager who makes the first move and can’t wait to get laid! She is thirteen and she is unafraid to lust and she dares to disappoint her parents and she would have had so much to teach me if only I had known then how to listen.)

Anyone who menstruates will tell you that there is no other way; if a director makes you wear a light-colored costume you will inevitably be on your period on performance night, this is a given. So I was on stage wearing a sanitary pad and a tampon beneath the off-white flapper dress, just in case. I remember my mother explaining the anatomy of my body through a closed door earlier in the day: push it back, not straight up, and trying her best to convince me that an applicator would make this whole endeavor so much easier. The good news is that at the end of the play I cried real tears — thank you, teenage hormones.

After the show I remember the curtain call: holding hands with other students in other grades that I would otherwise not know. I did not know to smile; my mother, watching anxiously from the audience, was worried that something was wrong. But nothing was wrong; this all felt wonderfully Serious and Important. People were clapping! For us! (“For me,” I remember thinking, because I was young and self-centered and also a little bit correct, and because the world hadn’t yet taught me that a woman – a girl! – shouldn’t think that way. In the car, on the way home, horror of horrors, I think I said it aloud, to my mother, with glee: “everyone clapped – for me!” and I think I remember that my mother nodded, because she was, indeed, clapping for me.)

When did you decide to become a writer? Is there a writer, show, or piece of writing that was particularly influential on your path?

I tried really hard not to become a writer. I tried really hard to become an actress. I didn’t write, because I knew, deep down, that I’d be better at writing than I was at acting; I feared that once I started, writing would become my focus. But one day, I met the wonderful Mary Bacon, who invited me to join a group she’d created with Heidi Armbruster: Dorset Theater Festival’s Women Artists Writing group. It consists of female-identifying actresses who also write. That was my gateway drug; I felt like I could write among actresses… Pretty soon, I was hooked, and I haven’t looked back (or auditioned) since. 

How do you describe your work overall? What sets your work apart?

Irreverence and theatricality. 

Can you tell us a little bit about the show you’ve been developing as a Fellow?

A Play about David Mamet Writing a Play about Harvey Weinstein. It’s basically what it sounds like. And also, not at all.

Francesca, a playwright, has several Reasons to be Pretty… Angry. Among them: David Mamet has actually, in real life, written a play about Harvey Weinstein. Francesca thinks that’s bonkers. So this is her play about David Mamet. He’s in it, and so are a bunch of other dudes named David who definitely shouldn’t even think about writing a play about Harvey Weinstein.

It’s really a play about women. About Francesca. About Francine, who can do it all (parent, act, sing, fly, castrate, kill)… until she can’t. About Zoe, who shows up to audition and can’t stop talking.

Turns out there’s a lot to say.

What do you find most rewarding about your work as a writer?

I like writing roles that I think my actor friends would love to play. And making people laugh despite themselves. 

DGF Announces New Fellows and Program Chairs Dramatists Guild Foundation would like to formally announce a new 2019-2020 class of DGF Fellows, as well as new Chairs to the program.

The new Fellows class includes Melis Aker, Nolan Doran and Avi Amon, Kate Douglas, Elliah Heifetz and Jessica Kahkoska, Nikhil Mahapatra, Kyoung H. Park, Andrew Rincón, Andy Roninson, and Paulo Tiról. Each of these writers and writing teams has proven themselves to be of exceptional talent and promise. These writers will spend the year developing full-length shows with the guidance of the Program Chairs. In addition, Fellows receive a stipend, access to guest artists, and an additional opportunity with one of DGF’s partner organizations to further develop their piece. The program will culminate in a presentation of their work at an Off-Broadway theater.

Furthermore, after seven years of service as the Playwriting Chair of the Fellows program, Diana Son (Stop Kiss) will be stepping down from the position, and Migdalia Cruz (El Grito Del Bronx) and Lucy Thurber (The Hill Town Plays) will be the new Playwriting Chairs. Cruz and Thurber will join Musical Theater Chairs Laurence O’Keefe (Heathers) and Michael Korie (Grey Gardens) in stewarding the program. On the announcement of the new chairs, DGF Program Manager Tessa Raden Gregory said, “DGF is grateful to welcome Migdalia and Lucy into the position of Fellows Program Chairs. As artists whose work resonates with audiences across the country, they embody DGF’s commitment to serving the national theater community. We are excited for them to continue Diana’s legacy of education and artistic excellence.”

The Fellows program is a selective, year-long opportunity for playwrights, composers, lyricists, and bookwriters to develop full-length pieces. The Fellows program is highly sought after for its uniquely successful format of partnering playwrights and musical theater writers together in the learning process, with the musical theater writers working particularly closely with the Musical Theater Chairs, and the playwrights working more closely with the Playwriting Chairs. On her enthusiasm with the new crop of Fellows, Cruz added: “I am excited to continue a journey begun by Diana Son with patience and beauty, alongside my fierce colleague Lucy Thurber. We will tell the truth and keep it real. Looking forward to begin working with five brave and talented writers. Mentor, n. Someone who tortures you into becoming who you were always meant to be.”

Former Fellows include Kristen Anderson-Lopez (Frozen), Michael R. Jackson (A Strange Loop), Antoinette Nwandu (Pass Over), Lauren Yee (King of the Yees), Stacey Rose (Legacy Land), Benj Pasek and Justin Paul (Dear Evan Hansen) and many more.