Victor Lesniewski‘s plays include Couriers and Contrabands (World Premiere at TBG Theatre in NYC, Critic Howard Miller’s 2015 Best of Off & Off-Off Broadway List, Developmental Workshop at New York Theatre Workshop), Cloven Tongues (World Premiere at The Wild Project in NYC), Where Bison Run (Ars Nova Out Loud Reading Series, NY Times Profile), Amid Purpleheart (Geva Theatre Center Concert Reading), Pipistrellus (
Dipika Guha’s plays have been seen/ developed by Old Vic New Voices, Playwrights Horizons/Clubbed Thumb, OSF, Cutting Ball Theatre, Playwrights Foundation, Naked Angels, One Coast Collaboration, the Lark and the Tobacco Factory (UK) amongst others. She’s the inaugural recipient of the Shakespeare’s Sister Fellowship, a Dramatists Guild Fellow, a Time Warner Fellow at the Women’s Project Lab, Ars Nova Playgroup alum & alum of Young Writers Program at the Royal Court Theatre. Memberships include Ma Yi, the Claque writers group, New Georges Affiliated artist and the Soho Rep W/D Lab. BA Eng Lit. (UCL) MFA Playwriting (Yale) under Paula Vogel.
I Enter The Valley
The Rules
Blown Youth (Published By Playscripts)
Passing
The Betrothed
Herculine And Lola
Lifted
The Art Of Gaman
Mechanics Of Love
A Brief History Of America (One Act)
Meridith was born in Madison, Wisconsin, and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii. She received her BA from Connecticut College, and her MFA in Writing for the Stage & Screen from Northwestern University.
Her play THE FIRESTORM is a current National New Play Network (NNPN) Rolling World Premiere, receiving productions in Chicago, Dallas, and Boulder. Her work has been developed and workshopped at The Kennedy Center, Chicago Dramatists, The Greenhouse Theatre Center, Curious Theatre Company, the NNPN National New Play Showcase, New Repertory Theatre, The Lark, Actor’s Express, Interlochen Center for the Arts, Kitchen Dog Theater, Stage Left Theatre, LOCAL Theatre Company, The Samuel French OOB Short Play Festival, The American Southwest Theatre Company at NMSU, The Johnny Mercer Writers Colony at Goodspeed Musicals, Florida Repertory Theatre, The Ashland New Play Festival, Orlando Shakespeare Theater, and Actor’s Theatre of Charlotte.
She was the NNPN Playwright-in-Residence at Curious Theatre Company for their 2010-2011 season, a 2012-2013 Dramatist Guild Fellow, and the recipient of a 2013-2014 Downstage Left Playwriting Residency at Stage Left Theatre. She was awarded the 2014 NNPN Annual Commission to write and develop a new play with Curious Theatre Company. The commissioned play, THE LUCKIEST PEOPLE will premiere at Curious Theatre Company in the 2016-2017 season. Curious has also commissioned Meridith to write a trilogy of plays to premiere over the next three seasons at Curious.
Meridith was a Visiting Assistant Professor of Drama at Kenyon College during the 2011-2012 academic year, and taught two sections of screenwriting to undergraduates while completing her graduate work at Northwestern University. She has also taught playwriting to talented high school and middle school dramatists at Interlochen Center for the Arts and Curious Theatre Company.
She recently completed the book for a new musical with composer/lyricist Ryan Langer, and is currently working on a new musical with composer/lyricist Madeline Myers and director Emily Maltby.
The Firestorm at Local Theatre Company
The Luckiest People at Curious Theatre Company
The Luckiest People at Actor’s Theatre of Charlotte
The Luckiest People
full-length play; 3m/1f
What is our responsibility to our parents? In the days following his mother’s funeral, a son is forced to grapple with that question. When his elderly father proposes moving in with him unspoken hostilities are unleashed, spiraling the men into a vicious game of finger pointing. The father’s growing suspicions over the circumstances of his wife’s death lead him to make a startling accusation against his son.
The Firestorm
full-length play; 2f/2m
When a racially charged prank from a gubernatorial candidate’s past emerges in the media, his African-American wife is thrust to the forefront of his campaign. Charged with defending her white husband against accusations of racism and saving the campaign from collapse, she begins to have serious questions about the very foundation of her marriage.
West Highland Way
full-length play; 2m/1f
A young woman, reeling from a broken engagement, sets forth on a 95-mile walking trail in Scotland with her father. When a chance encounter with a charming Irishman re-opens her heart, she must navigate the uneven terrain that lies between the life you planned for and the life you can’t plan.
Blue Monday
full-length play; 2m/1f
An aspiring oil painter is devastated when her husband, a talented poet and her former professor, develops Semantic Dementia. As he begins to lose the semantic meanings of words and objects, painting becomes a way for him to recall mental pictures without the mediation of language. A silent rivalry soon develops as his paintings start to garner attention.
Clarence Coo received the 2012 Yale Drama Series Prize for Emerging Playwrights, which was judged by John Guare, forBeautiful Province (Belle Province). The play was developed at the Bay Area Playwrights Festival and the Inkwell. His other plays include People Sitting in Darkness, Bahala Na, Braids, Proof Through the Night, and Removing the Glove. His work has been produced or developed at Second Generation, the New York International Fringe Festival, Mu Performing Arts, the Great Plains Theatre Conference, Round House Theatre, East West Players, the Mark Taper Forum, the Young Playwrights Festival, and the Kennedy Center. His work has also been published by Temple University Press, the New Press, and Samuel French. Honors include an Arena Stage Allen Lee Hughes Fellowship, an NEA Access to Artistic Excellence Grant, a Kennedy Center commission, and a Larry Neal Writers’ Award. He has been a dramaturg at Young Playwrights Inc., a visiting artist at Georgetown University, and a social media writer for the 2010 and 2011 Tony Awards. He received his MFA in Playwriting at Columbia University where he studied under Charles Mee. He is a resident playwright at New Dramatists, a member of the Ma-Yi Writers Lab, a 2012-2013 Dramatists Guild fellow, and the program administrator of Columbia’s MFA Writing Program.