Meet the 2017-18 Jerome Fellows

Please help us welcome the 2017-18 Jerome Fellows: Mia Chung, Jessica Huang, Tim J. Lord, and Tori Sampson.

Jerome Fellows receive an $18,000 award and $2,000 in play development funds. They spend a year-long residency in Minnesota. Past recipients of the Jerome Fellowship include Lee Blessing, Lisa D’Amour, Kristoffer Diaz, Dan Dietz, Sarah Gubbins, Naomi Iizuka, Melanie Marnich, Anna Moench, Joe Waechter, Rhiana Yazzie, Martín Zimmerman and August Wilson. The Playwrights’ Center’s 2017-18 Jerome Fellows are:

• Mia Chung, a Brown University M.F.A. graduate whose play You For Me For You has had productions with Mu Performing Arts/Guthrie Theater, Royal Court Theatre, Woolly Mammoth Theatre, Company One, Portland Playhouse, Crowded Fire Theatre, and InterAct Theatre Company.
• Jessica Huang, a Twin Cities-based playwright, 2016-17 Jerome Fellow, and 2011-12 Many Voices Fellow whose play The Paper Dreams of Harry Chin recently premiered with History Theatre.
• Tim J. Lord, a New York-based playwright and graduate of UC San Diego’s M.F.A. playwriting program and whose plays include We declare you a terrorist… and 11 Hills of San Francisco.
• Tori Sampson, a Boston native who graduates this spring from the Yale School of Drama, is under commission from Berkeley Repertory Theater, and is the Kennedy Center’s 2017 Paula Vogel Playwright.

(See also: 2016-17 Many Voices Fellows and Mentee announcement)

MIA CHUNG

Mia Chung is the author of You For Me For You, Catch as Catch Can, and This Exquisite Corpse. You For Me For You had a UK premiere at The Royal Court Theatre, a world premiere at Woolly Mammoth Theatre, and multiple productions around the country; it is published by Bloomsbury Methuen Drama. In addition to the 2016 Stavis Playwright Award, Mia has received much support: BAPF, Berkeley Rep, Blue Mountain Center, The Civilians, Hedgebrook, Huntington Theatre, Icicle Creek, Inkwell, LAByrinth, Ma-Yi Writers Lab, NEA, NYTW, Playwrights Realm, RISCA, South Coast Rep, Southern Rep, Stella Adler Studio, and TCG. She is a New Dramatist.

JESSICA HUANG

Jessica Huang is a Twin Cities-based playwright whose work includes The Paper Dreams of Harry Chin (“striking” –Star Tribune; “Kaleidoscopic and timely” –Broadway World; “Superb storytelling” –City Pages) and the Susan Smith Blackburn nominated Purple Cloud (“a thoroughly entertaining and moving work” –City Pages). Jessica's work has been developed and/or produced by Mu Performing Arts (Minneapolis), History Theatre (Saint Paul), Mixed Blood Theatre (Minneapolis), Timeline Theatre Company (Chicago), A-Squared Theatre Workshop (Chicago), 2nd Generation (NYC), the John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts (D.C.), the Source Festival (D.C.), and Yellow Earth's Typhoon Festival (London). She co-founded and co-directs Other Tiger Productions, which pursues multidisciplinary collaborations, intentional inclusivity and a re-examination of traditional theater practices. Jessica has received a MSAB Cultural Community Partnership grant, a MRAC/McKnight Next Step grant, and the Playwrights’ Center’s Jerome and Many Voices Fellowships. Jessica-Huang.com

TIM J. LORD

Tim J. Lord is a native of St. Louis who has spent the last ten years in New York—five of them with his wife, the director Nicole A. Watson. His plays include We declare you a terrorist…, 11 Hills of San Francisco, Peloponnesus, Down in the face of a God, and Fault & Fold. These and others have been seen at the Public Theater, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Working Theater, the New Harmony Project, the Summer Play Festival, NNPN/Kennedy Center University Playwrights Workshop, Circle Rep, the Cutout Theatre, the Vagrancy, and most recently at the Barn Arts Collective. He has been a volunteer at the 52nd Street Project since 2012 and on staff there since 2014. Tim studied with Paula Vogel while living in Providence, RI, and is a graduate of UC San Diego's M.F.A. playwriting program. timjlord.wordpress.com

TORI SAMPSON

Tori is a third year playwriting candidate at Yale School of Drama, where her credits include THIS LAND WAS MADE and Some Bodies Travel. Her plays have been developed at Great Plains National Theater Conference and Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s Ground Floor residency program. She holds an Honorable Mention from the 2016 Relentless Award, is the Kennedy Center’s 2017 Paula Vogel Playwright and second-place Lorraine Hansberry recipient. She is a 2017 finalist for the Alliance Theater’s Kendeda Prize. Tori’s other plays include: Cadillac Crew, If Pretty Hurts Ugly Must be a Muhfucka, Black Girl Nerd, Cottoned Like Candy. Her short play She’s our President will be produced by Baltimore Center Stage as part of the My America: She commission. Tori is currently working on a commission from Berkeley Repertory Theatre. A native of Boston, Massachusetts, she holds a B.S. in sociology from Ball State University in Muncie, IN.