Emerging Artists Celebration 2025

Ro Reddick is a queer Black playwright and songwriter. She writes off-kilter comedies (mostly); the theme songs to your late capitalist nightmares.

Her play Cold War Choir Practice (NYT Critic’s Pick, dir. Knud Adams), premiered in Clubbed Thumb’s Summerworks 2025, co-produced by Page 73; It will be produced at MCC Theater in a co-production with Clubbed Thumb and Page 73 in March of 2026. Cold War Choir Practice was also produced in September 2025 at Trinity Repertory Company (dir. Aileen Wen McGroddy).

Ro is a member of the Page 73 Writers Group and a ‘24-’25 DGF Playwriting Fellow. She is also under commission at People’s Light Theatre for their Queerways PA commissioning and residency program. Her plays have been developed with Clubbed Thumb, Page 73, Trinity Rep, The Ground Floor (Berkeley Rep), Bushwick Starr Reading Series, and Williamstown Theatre Festival (NYC Reading, dir. Jamario Stills). Other fellowships, residencies, and honors include: Susan Smith Blackburn Prize nomination 2025 (Cold War Choir Practice), Venturous Fellowship Nomination (Throwback Island), Lambda Literary Fellow in Playwriting, Playwrights’ Center Core Apprentice, Adele Kellenberg Seaver Fellow in Creative Writing at Brown University, La Mama Umbria International Playwright Retreat, Miranda Theatre Company Playwright Grant, and 3x O’Neill Finalist.

In a past life, Ro performed in shows at the Hartford Stage, McCarter Theatre Center, Long Wharf, KC Rep, and more; Off-Broadway in “Silence! The Musical”, and on screen in The Americans, Louie, and SATC 2. Ro holds an MFA in Playwriting from Brown and an MBA from NYU (which she has no intention of using).

Keenan Tyler Oliphant is a Theatre-maker and Director from Cape Town, South Africa. Keenan’s work is in the lineage of the theatre-making and storytelling traditions of Southern Africa. Selected directing credits include Nazareth Hassan’s Practice (Playwrights Horizons) Heather Christian’s Animal Wisdom (Signature Theatre) and TERCE: A Practical Breviary (HERE Arts/Prototype Festival), Will You Come With Me? (PlayCo 2022), Jeesun Choi’s To the Ends of the Earth (JACK), Jay Stull’s The Singularity Play (Harvard TDM; Alliance Theatre Reading) Sam Grabiner’s People on Earth (Lenfest Centre), Vivian Barnes’ Intro To (Ensemble Stage Theatre), Live from Mount Olympus Podcast (The Team), Kyk Hoe Skyn Die Son [Look at How the Sun Shines] (Clubbed Thumb Winterworks) and Self-Combustion of a 30 Something Year Old... (New Ohio Producers Club). Keenan is the Associate Director for Hadestown (Broadway and has developed work with Ars Nova, Second Stage, New York Theatre Workshop, Playwrights Horizon and more. Keenan is an alumnus of the Clubbed Thumb Directing Fellowship (2020-2021), the Drama League Directing Fellowship (2021-2022).

Ato Blankson-Wood (he/him) is a multidisciplinary performance artist and theater maker. As a writer/composer Ato is developing original works with the support of The Team’s Petri Projects and Berkeley Rep’s Ground Floor Residency. As an actor, Ato most recently starred in the world premiere of Jeremy O. Harris’ Spirit of the People and Camino Real at The Williamstown Theatre Festival after starring in the off-Broadway premiere of Wole Soyinka’s The Swamp Dwellers at TFANA. Prior to this, he played Clifford Bradshaw in Cabaret on Broadway. He is best known for his starring role in  Harris’ critically acclaimed Slave Play, for which he was nominated for a 2021 Tony Award. He also earned nominations for the Drama League Awards for  playing ‘Gary,’ a role he originated for the New York Theatre Workshop production, where his performance earned him a Lortel Nomination. Ato played the titular role of Hamlet in Shakespeare in the Park’s production directed by Kenny Leon. Ato also starred opposite Bill Camp and Elizabeth Marvel in Long Day’s Journey Into Night for Audible, which reunited him with Slave Play director Robert O’Hara. Ato had his breakout performance in the Public Theatre musical The Total Bent (Drama League and Lucille Lortel Award nomination) Ato has also been seen on Broadway in Hair and Lysistrata Jones. Films include Kathryn Bigelow’s Detroit, Spike Lee’s BlacKKKlansman, Worth, opposite Michael Keaton, and Peter Hedge’s The Same Storm. Television includes “The Good Fight,” “She’s Gotta Have It,” and Ava DuVernay’s “When They See Us.” Ato is a graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and the Yale School of Drama.