Art House Productions Announces 2023-2024 INKubator Playwrights

Published by New Jersey Stage
10/04/2023

(JERSEY CITY, NJ) -- Art House Productions has announced the 2023-2024 cohort of its INKubator Program. INKubator is a year-long generative process for a select group of 6 playwrights in residence at Art House Productions. This year's playwrights are Upasna Barath, Amanda Sage Comerford, Leo Layla Díaz, Neil Levi, Dave Osmundsen, and Marcus Scott.

Playwrights will meet monthly alongside program director Alex Tobey to share new work, receive feedback, and develop a first draft of a new play. In the spring, each writer will team up with a director and actors to present a public reading as a part of Art House Productions' INKubator New Play Festival scheduled for May 2024. Audiences who attend the festival will have the opportunity to participate in conversations with the writers, directors, and actors following each performance.

INKubator playwrights will be the first cohort to meet full-time in Art House Productions’ new theater inside the Hendrix, at 345 Marin Boulevard between Bay Street and Morgan Street. In addition to official INKubator programming, playwrights will also have the ability to utilize the space for meetings, rehearsals, and readings.

Submissions were evaluated through a process coordinated by INKubator Program Director, Alex Tobey, in partnership with INKubator alum playwrights Iraisa Ann Reilly and Micharne Cloughley, and Art House Productions’ Associate Executive Director, Anna Gundersen.

The following finalists were also honored in this year’s submission process: Phillip Gregory Burke, Lauren D'Errico, Kevin T. Durfee, Joseph Gallo, Lizz Mangan, Kyle Mazer, Frank Murdocco, and M. D. Schaffer.

Anna Gundersen, Associate Executive Director of Art House Productions, says, “This year’s INKubator cohort is an exciting group of talented playwrights who pitched unique and thoughtful plays to develop. INKubator is a program that began at Art House in 2018, and under the leadership of Alex Tobey, it continues to grow. We look forward to supporting these artists during their play development residency and in the future.”

Art House Productions is currently in rehearsal for the New Jersey premiere of Tracy Jones by INKubator alum Stephen Kaplan, which received early development during INKubator and was first presented at the 2019 INKubator New Play Festival. Tracy Jones is the first full production to be presented in Art House Productions’ new state-of-the-art theater and the first play developed in INKubator to receive a full production at Art House. Tracy Jones is a touching comedy that runs at Art House Productions from October 19 - November 5, 2023. Alex Tobey directs. Tickets are currently on sale at arthouseproductions.org.

2023-2024 INKubator Writers

Upasna Barath (she/they) is a queer South Asian writer, actress, and producer based in Brooklyn, New York, but originally from Naperville, Illinois. She began her writing career as an essayist, publishing work for Rookie Mag. In college, Upasna wrote her first play, "The Choice is Yours," which was runner-up for the 2019 Judith Barlow Prize. Her acting credits include Natalie in Lucy Kirkwood’s "Mosquitoes" (Steep Theatre) and Sarita in Sharyn Rothstein’s "Right to Be Forgotten" (West Virginia Public Theatre). She was awarded the 2020/21 Steppenwolf Theatre Literary Apprenticeship and Fellowship. Recently, she co-wrote, co-produced, and was a lead actress in her comedic coming-of-age short film "Little Sl*t," which is currently in post-production. She received a B.A. in Economics and a B.A. in Theatre from North Central College. She also has an MS in Leadership for Creative Enterprises from Northwestern University.

Amanda Sage Comerford (she/her) is a New Jersey playwright who wrote her first play about an elderly woman’s rabid dog when she was seven. Since then, her plays have had productions and readings at Premiere Stages, Luna Stage, Chester Theatre Group, Chatham Players, The Actors Studio of Newburyport, The Red Room, and Under St. Mark’s Theatre. She has also participated in CODE Red: An Evening of Monologues with TSquared Production Co. and Voting Writes with Luna Stage. Amanda received her BFA in Dramatic Writing from Purchase College.

Leo Layla Díaz (they/them) is a Jersey playwright, dramaturg, and teaching artist, a recent graduate of The New School’s BFA Drama program, and completing their MA in arts management. Their recent plays include Orbiting Something at The 24 Hour Plays: Nationals 2023 (off-Broadway, NYC), Trophy Boys at The New School and The Tank (NYC), and Roleplay in 2023 at The Chain Theatre (NYC). Díaz’s writing has also been performed at Rebel Verses (Vineyard Theater, NYC), The 24 Hour Plays: Viral Monologues (NYC), Brave New Voices (Houston & Las Vegas), Louder Than a Bomb (NJ), Performance Anxiety Inc (WI), and Berg Originals (PA). They’ve been a Dramatists Guild member since 2022. Díaz’s work focuses on identity, myth, and legend, being mediocre at Spanish, queer people who never left their emo phase, and glitter.

Neil Levi’s first play, Kin, won the 2015 Patrick White Playwright’s Award in Australia and was presented in a staged reading at the Sydney Theater Company. He has since written plays on such topics as ultra-leftist political violence in the 1970s, doping in competitive swimming, the Jewish community in apartheid South Africa, and inherited family trauma. He received a BA in English and Philosophy from the University of Western Australia, an MA, MPhil, and PhD in English and Comparative Literature from Columbia University. For many years he was a Professor of English at Drew University in Madison, NJ. Playwriting courses at ESPA Primary Stages and Pataphysics at the Flea. A long-time resident of Jersey City, he is thrilled and honored to be part of this year’s INKubator cohort.

Dave Osmundsen (He/Him/His) is an Autistic playwright and dramaturg whose work has been seen and developed at KCACTF Region 8, the Kennedy Center/NNPN MFA Playwrights Workshop, the Great Plains Theatre Conference, Purple Crayon Players, B Street Theatre, the William Inge Theatre Festival, the Midwest Dramatists Conference, Phoenix Theatre Company, Clamour Theatre Company, Premiere Stages, the Valdez Theatre Conference, and more. A two-time O’Neill semifinalist, he was a recipient of the Blank Theatre and Ucross Foundation’s inaugural Future of Playwriting Prize. His play Light Switch was the 2021 Distinguished Achievement recipient of the Jean Kennedy Smith Playwriting Award, an Honorable Mention finalist for BAPF 2021, longlisted for the Theatre503 International Playwriting Award, and a finalist for the 2020 Carlo Annoni Playwriting Prize. Light Switch received its world premiere at Spectrum Theatre Ensemble in 2022. His play More of a Heart will receive its world premiere at BLUEBARN Theatre in March 2024. His plays have been published by The Dionysian, Canyon Voices, Exposition Review, Fresh Words: Contemporary One Act Plays Volume 5, and Broadway Play Publishing. MFA: Arizona State University.

Marcus Scott is a playwright, musical theatre writer & journalist. Full-length works: Tumbleweed (finalist: 2017 BAPF & the 2017 Festival of New American Plays at Austin Playhouse; semifinalist: 2022 O’Neill NPC, 2022 Blue Ink Playwriting Award & 2017 New Dramatists Princess Grace Award in Playwriting Fellowship), Sibling Rivalries (finalist: Normal Ave’s NAPseries, 2021 Seven Devils Playwrights Conference & 2021 ATHE-KCACTF Judith Royer Excellence In Playwriting Award; semifinalist: 2022 Lanford Wilson New American Play Festival, 2021 Blue Ink Playwriting Award & 2021 New Dramatists Princess Grace Award in Playwriting Fellowship; long-listed: 2020 Theatre503 International Playwriting Award), There Goes The Neighborhood (finalist: 2023 New Dramatists Princess Grace Award in Playwriting Fellowship, 2023 Blue Ink Playwriting Award, the 2019 Bushwick Starr Reading Series; semifinalist: 2023 BAPF) & Cherry Bomb (recipient: 2017 Drama League First Stage Artist-In-Residence, 2017 New York Theatre Barn's New Works Series; 2017 finalist for the Yale Institute for Music Theatre). Heartbeat Opera commissioned Scott to adapt Beethoven’s “Fidelio” (Co-writer; Met Live Arts at the MET Museum, Mondavi Center at UC Davis, Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts, The Broad Stage, Rutgers Presbyterian Church, Baruch Performing Arts Center; NYTimes Critics’ Pick! ★★★★). Scott is the recipient of the WTP Rosalind Ayres-Williams Memorial Scholarship (2022-2024). His one-act Sundown Town is published in Obsidian: Literature and Arts of the African Diaspora: Issue: 48.1.

His work has developed or presented at Concord Theatricals/Sam French OOB Short Play Festival, Queens Theatre (New American Voices series), The Fire This Time Festival, Zoetic Stage (Finstrom Festival Of New Work), Dixon Place, Feinstein's/54 Below, Abingdon Theatre Company, Downtown Urban Arts Festival, Classical Theatre of Harlem, Across A Crowded Room at Lincoln Center Performing Arts Library (NYPL), Musical Theater Factory's 4x15 Series, Space on Ryder Farm, Theatre West, New Circle Theatre Company, MicroTheater Miami, Columbia College Chicago, among others. Scott is a 2021 NYSAF Founders’ Award finalist, a 2021 Doric Wilson Independent Playwright Award semifinalist, a four-time National Black Theatre I AM SOUL Playwrights Residency finalist, and a four-time top finalist for The Civilians R&D Group. His articles appeared in Architectural Digest, Time Out New York, American Theatre Magazine, Playbill, Elle, Out, Essence, and The Brooklyn Rail, among others. BFA: State University College at Buffalo, MFA: NYU Tisch.

Art House Productions is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization committed to the development and presentation of the performing and visual arts in Jersey City, NJ. Art House Productions presents theater, performing and visual arts festivals, arts events, visual art exhibitions, and adult and youth art classes.

Art House Productions is generously supported by The New Jersey State Council on the Arts, SILVERMAN, The Princeton Foundation, The New Jersey Theatre Alliance, The Hudson County Office of Cultural Affairs, and the Alliance of Resident Theatres / New York.