WORKS IN PROGRESS 2026

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

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Ro is the 2025 – 2026 recipient of the Paula Vogel Playwriting Award and an artist-in-residence at the Vineyard Theatre. Her play Cold War Choir Practice (2026 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize) premiered in Clubbed Thumb’s Summerworks 2025 (NYT Critic’s Pick, dir. Knud Adams), co-produced by Page 73, and is currently being remounted at MCC Theater in a co-production with all three organizations. Cold War Choir Practice was also produced in September 2025 at Trinity Repertory Company (dir. Aileen Wen McGroddy).

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Ro is a 2026 Audrey Resident at New Georges and an alum of the Page 73 Writers Group, the PWC Core Apprentice Program, and the DGF Playwriting Fellowship, and People’s Light QPA. Her plays have been developed by The Ground Floor (Berkeley Rep), Bushwick Starr Reading Series, Williamstown Theatre Festival (NYC Reading, dir. Jamario Stills), Clubbed Thumb, Page 73, and Trinity Rep. Ro has an MFA in Playwriting from Brown University and an MBA from NYU, which she has no intention of using.

Leigh Silverman has directed over 60 world premiere new plays and musicals. She received Tony nominations for her direction of the musicals Suffs and Violet and received a 2011 Obie Award and 2019 Obie for Sustained Excellence. With the Vineyard: Sandra; Harry Clarke (with Audible). Broadway credits: Yellow Face (Roundabout), Suffs (Tony nomination), Grand Horizons, The Lifespan of a Fact, Violet (Tony nomination), Chinglish, Well. Select Off-Broadway: The Unknown (Studio Seaview); The Seat of Our Pants (Public Theater), The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe (Shed, Taper), Soft Power (Public Theater; Ahmanson Theater/Curran Theater; Drama Desk nomination), Sweet Charity (New Group). Encores: Violet, The Wild Party and Audible projects include Harry Clarke and Dykes to Watch Out For, which was named Best of Year for Audible and Slate.

Marissa Joyce Stamps is a Black, Haitian-American NYC-born and based writer, director, choreographer, dramaturg, performer, and educator who creates vortexes through a Afrosurrealist lens, often in dialogue with landscape dramaturgy. She’s been honored as a Princess Grace Playwriting Award Winner, Yale Drama Series Prize Shortlister, MacDowell Fellow, Caldera Artist-in-Residence, and three-time O’Neill NPC Finalist. She’s currently a member of EST/Youngblood, Breaking & Entering Theatre Collective, The Kilroys, Lucille Lortel’s Alcove, and The New Georges Jam; she’s previously been a member of Clubbed Thumb’s ECWG and Roundabout’s Directing Group. As a playwright, Marissa’s been supported by The Vineyard, The National Black Theatre, New Dramatists, Clubbed Thumb, Bushwick Starr, Ars Nova, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Mercury Store, Lucille Lortel, Exponential Festival, The Brick, Conch Shell Productions, Chautauqua Theater Company, CATCH Performance Series, Orchard Project, + more. MFA Playwriting: Brooklyn College. marissajoycestamps.com

Josiah Davis (he/him) is a multi-disciplinary storyteller. A director, choreographer, designer, and performer asking: how do we create space for maximum expression, possibility, and liberation in the face of oppressive systems? He is a graduate from the UCLA School of Theater, Film, Television and Brown MFA Directing. He is a Princess Grace Honoraria, NYTW 2050 fellow, National Black Theatre Soul Directing Resident, Susan Stroman Directing Award Recipient, Clubbed Thumb Directing Fellow, and Associate Artistic Director of On The Verge Theatre Festival in Santa Barbara. Selected credits: Mary Gets Hers (Playwrights Realm/MCC) Omar Offrendum’s Little Syria (BAM), Lessons in Survival (Vineyard Theatre), Amani (National Black Theatre/Rattlestick), Clyde’s (Alabama Shakespeare Festival/Arkansas Rep/St.Louis Rep), Importance of Being Earnest (Portland Center Stage), El Mentiroso (Arts On Site), Mr. Saturday Night (Broadway (Assoc.)). Josiahdavis.net

Jake Brasch (he/they) is a writer, performer, composer, and clown, and a graduate of The Juilliard School. His play The Reservoir has been produced by Atlantic Theater Company and Ensemble Studio Theatre, as well as Denver Center for the Performing Arts, Alliance Theatre, Geffen Playhouse, and Berkeley Repertory Theatre. He is the recipient of two national awards named for Paula Vogel—one from the Kennedy Center and one from the Vineyard Theatre—and is an alum of Youngblood at Ensemble Studio Theatre and the Page 73 Writers Group. Jake is currently developing new plays and musicals with Playwrights Horizons, Manhattan Theatre Club, Two River Theatrer, the Terrence McNally Foundation/Recovery Project, and the EST/Sloan Project. He has three brothers, 26 pairs of glasses, a demon wife/forever collaborator in Nadja Leonhard-Hooper, and lives in Brooklyn with his brilliant and hot husband, Tyler Brasch.

AMERICAN SING-SONG is a two-person musical theater factory made up of Jake Brasch and Nadja Leonhard-Hooper. Together, they write and perform filthy, comedic, big cast musicals. Armed with nothing but a keyboard, a foley table, and the power of musical theater, this male alto and female tenor will attempt to give you a musical experience so epic, so sweeping, that the only stage large enough to hold it is the one in your mind. HOMO ERECTUS is their third musical. GERALDINE! premiered at Ars Nova’s ANT Fest in 2024. HOLE! will play in London, Scotland, and New York later this year.

Nadja Leonhard-Hooper is a writer and performer who makes plays, musicals, and movies. Her play Derangements will be produced by Clubbed Thumb in Summerworks 2026. Her screenplay License to Drive is being optioned by Working Barn productions. Her play Funny Bone was an Ojai finalist in 2024. Her work has been seen at Joe’s Pub, Ars Nova, the Edinburgh Fringe, the Ensemble Studio Theatre, The Elysian, The Bell House, The Drama League, and 59E59. She has been produced or commissioned by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Two Headed Rep, One Year Lease Theater Company, and The Tank. She’s 32 years old, she doesn’t have a website, and she won’t be getting one. Mysterious!

AMERICAN SING-SONG is a two-person musical theater factory made up of Jake Brasch and Nadja Leonhard-Hooper. Together, they write and perform filthy, comedic, big cast musicals. Armed with nothing but a keyboard, a foley table, and the power of musical theater, this male alto and female tenor will attempt to give you a musical experience so epic, so sweeping, that the only stage large enough to hold it is the one in your mind. HOMO ERECTUS is their third musical. GERALDINE! premiered at Ars Nova’s ANT Fest in 2024. HOLE! will play in London, Scotland, and New York later this year.

R.J. Tolan has been Program Director for Ensemble Studio Theatre’s OBIE-winning Youngblood incubator for early-career playwrights for more than 20 years.  Productions with EST include MOPE by Paul Cameron Hardy and FIVE TIMES IN ONE NIGHT by Chiara Atik, along with several plays in the EST Marathon of One-Act Plays, and dozens of short plays, readings and workshops with Youngblood.  Other directing includes productions, readings and workshops with Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater, NYTW, Second Stage and the Juilliard School.  With American Sing Song: GERALDINE (EST, Ars Nova ANT Fest), HOLE! (EST, Caveat, Bell House, Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2025, Joe’s Pub), HOMO ERECTUS (Ars Nova Discover Festival, WIP).  RJ is a member artist at Ensemble Studio Theater. 

Carly Mensch writes for theater and TV. Her plays have been produced at Ars Nova, 2nd Stage Theater, Westport Playhouse and the Humana Festival of New Plays among others. She co-created along with Liz Flahive the Emmy-award winning Netflix series GLOW, and the feminist anthology Roar for Apple TV. Previous credits include Weeds, Nurse Jackie, and Orange is the New Black.

LIZ FLAHIVE co-created Roar (AppleTV+) as well as the Emmy winning Netflix series GLOW (Netflix) with Carly Mensch. Additional credits: Nurse Jackie (Showtime) Homeland (Showtime ). Features: Adult Beginners (Neon). Her first play, From Up Here (MTC), received the John Gassner Playwriting Award from the Outer Critics Circle in 2006. Founding member: Ars Nova Playgroup. Recipient of MTC’s Bank of America New Play Commission. Longtime volunteer with The 52nd Street Project. Graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts Department of Dramatic Writing.