Meet the 2017-2020 Core Writers

We're excited to announce the incoming Playwrights' Center Core Writers, who will begin their three-year terms in July 2017: Kim Euell, Allison Gregory, Dipika Guha, C. A. Johnson, Carson Kreitzer, Andrea Stolowitz, and Stefanie Zadravec.

The Core Writer Program at the Playwrights’ Center provides play development workshops and professional support to 25 to 30 playwrights from across the country over a three-year term. Work by Core Writers composes the Center’s public season (the PlayLabs new play festival in October and the Ruth Easton New Play Series December through April). Past recipients include Christina Anderson, Trista Baldwin, George Brant, Carlyle Brown, Connie Congdon, Marcus Gardley, Sarah Gubbins, Melanie Marnich, Winter Miller, Greg Moss, and Qui Nguyen.

Joining the 19 continuing Core Writers are these seven playwrights, whose Core Writer terms will run through June 2020:

• Kim Euell (Amherst, MA), current Playwright in Residence at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and Penumbra Theatre company member, whose work has been developed and performed at Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Center Theater Group’s Mark Taper Forum, Hartford Stage Company, and others.
• Allison Gregory (Austin, TX and Seattle, WA), whose play Not Medea received a 2016 National New Play Network (NNPN) Rolling World Premiere, and whose Wild Horses will receive an NNPN Rolling World Premiere in 2017-18.
• Dipika Guha (Berkeley, CA), whose plays include Yoga Play, The Art of Gaman, Mechanics of Love, I Enter the Valley, and Blown Youth. Guha is currently translating Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor for Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s Play on! project.
• C. A. Johnson (New York, N.Y.), a Louisiana native whose plays include Mother Tongue, The Climb, and Waitin’ on the Moon. In addition to her Core Writer workshop, Johnson will develop Mother Tongue at the Playwrights’ Center in August as part of a partnership with the Dramatists Guild, where she is a fellow.
• Carson Kreitzer (Minneapolis, MN), a previous Playwrights’ Center Core Writer, Jerome Fellow and McKnight Fellow in Playwriting. Kreitzer is a 2017 Guggenheim Fellow and MacDowell Fellow, and she received a 2016 Jonathan Larson Grant for Lempicka, a new musical about art deco artist Tamara de Lempicka, written with composer Matt Gould.
• Andrea Stolowitz (Portland, OR), who is the Lacroute Playwright-in-Residence at Artists Repertory Theater. Stolowitz’s Berlin Diary was presented recently at both English Theater Berlin and Portland’s Coho Theatre, and she is a collaborating writer with devised theater company Hand2Mouth Theater.
• Stefanie Zadravec (Brooklyn, N.Y.), whose plays include Colony Collapse (Kilroys list, Theatre@Boston Court), The Electric Baby (Two River Theater, Quantum Theatre), Honey Brown Eyes (Theater J, Working Theater), and The Boat (The Working Theater Commission).

These seven new Core Writers join the current cohort: Lee Blessing, Carlyle Brown, Larissa FastHorse, Barbara Field, Christina Ham, Jeffrey Hatcher, Sherry Kramer, Martyna Majok, Marion McClinton, Meg Miroshnik, Kira Obolensky, John Olive, Jason Gray Platt, Gabrielle Reisman, Harrison David Rivers, Jen Silverman, Mat Smart, Kate Tarker and Alice Tuan.

KIM EUELL

Kim Euell’s plays have been developed and performed at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Center Theater Group’s Mark Taper Forum, Hartford Stage Company, Plowshares Theater Company, Manhattan’s New Perspectives Theater, and Penumbra Theatre Company where she’s a Company Member. Euell has worked as a dramaturg at the Sundance Theater Lab and has headed play development programs at the Mark Taper Forum, Hartford Stage, San Jose Repertory Theatre, and The Robey Theatre where she was the California Arts Council’s Playwright in Residence. Euell teaches playwriting for the VONA/Voices Workshop and at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, where she is currently the Playwright in Residence. She is an alumna of Stanford University and the University of Iowa’s Playwrights Workshop.

ALLISON GREGORY

Allison Gregory is an award-winning playwright and theater collaborator. Her plays have been produced all over the country and she has received commissions, grants, and development from Oregon Shakespeare Festival, South Coast Repertory, The Kennedy Center, Indiana Repertory Theatre, the Skirball-Kenis Foundation, ACT Theatre, Seattle Repertory Theatre, Orlando Shakespeare, The New Harmony Project, and Hedgebrook. She’s the recipient of the Julie Harris Award, South Coast Repertory’s Playwright’s Award, AATE Distinguished Play Award, and Garland & Dramalogue Awards. Her play Not Medea received a 2016 National New Play Network (NNPN) Rolling World Premiere, and Wild Horses will receive an NNPN Rolling World Premiere in 2017-18. Her plays are published by Playscripts, Smith & Krauss, Dramatic Publishing, and Rain City Press. She splits her time between Austin and Seattle.
allisongregoryplays.com

DIPIKA GUHA

Dipika Guha writes plays that are funny, lyrical and formally ambitious. Her plays include Yoga Play, The Art of Gaman, Mechanics of Love, I Enter the Valley and Blown Youth. She is currently translating Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor for OSF’s Play on! project and is writing plays for Manhattan Theatre Club/Sloan, Barrington Stage, McCarter Theatre Center’s Princeton and Slavery Project, Oregon Symphony, ACT & Z Space and Playwrights Horizons Theatre School. She was the inaugural recipient of the Shakespeare’s Sister Fellowship from the Lark, AROHO and Hedgebrook and is a Hodder Fellow at Princeton’s Lewis Center for the Arts for 2017-2018. Dipika received her M.F.A. in Playwriting from the Yale School of Drama under Paula Vogel.
www.dipikaguha.com

C. A. JOHNSON

C. A. Johnson is a Louisiana native currently living in NYC. Her plays include Mother Tongue, The Climb, Waitin’ on the Moon, Elroy Learn his Name, and Thirst. She is The Lark's 2016-17 Van Lier Playwriting Fellow, a 2016-2017 Dramatists Guild Fellow, and a member of the 2017 Working Farm Series. Her work has been developed with The Lark, Open Bar Theatricals, UC San Diego, The Civilians R & D Group, The Dennis and Victoria Ross Foundation, and The Fire This Time Festival. Most recently, Johnson’s play Thirst was selected for the 2017 PlayPenn Conference. B.A.: Smith College; M.F.A.: NYU
www.cajohnson.info

CARSON KREITZER

Carson Kreitzer is a 2017 Guggenheim Fellow and MacDowell Fellow; she received a 2016 Jonathan Larson Grant for Lempicka, a new musical about art deco artist Tamara de Lempicka, written with composer Matt Gould. Current projects include Capital Crime!, a play with songs set in Gilded Age New York, and a new play about climate change for the American Repertory Theatre. She is a Core Writer with the Playwrights’ Center, an alumna of New Dramatists, and was the first Playwrights of New York (PoNY) Fellow at the Lark. Her collection SELF DEFENSE and other plays is available from No Passport Press.

ANDREA STOLOWITZ

Andrea Stolowitz is a playwright living and working in Portland, Oregon. Stolowitz’s latest play Berlin Diary was presented at English Theater Berlin/International Performing Arts Center (Berlin, Germany) in October 2016 and Portland’s Coho Theatre in April 2017. Stolowitz is a collaborating writer with the award-winning devised theater company Hand2Mouth Theatre. Their current collaboration Pep Talk is touring nationally. The San Francisco Chronicle says “The genius of ‘Pep Talk’ is that it is at once a collective unburdening…while also being very funny and self-aware.” Stolowitz is the Lacroute Playwright-in-Residence at Artists Repertory Theater. An M.F.A. playwriting alumna of UC-San Diego, Stolowitz has served on the faculties at Willamette University, The University of Portland, Duke University and UC-San Diego.
www.andreastolowitz.com

STEFANIE ZADRAVEC

Stefanie Zadravec is a New Dramatists resident and member of the Keen Company’s Playwright’s Lab. Her plays include: Colony Collapse (Kilroys list, Theatre@Boston Court); The Electric Baby (Two River Theater, Quantum Theatre); Honey Brown Eyes (Theater J, Working Theater); The Boat (The Working Theater Commission). Honors include the Helen Merrill Award, Francesca Primus Prize, Helen Hayes Award, Sustainable Arts Foundation Award; as well as fellowships from the The Lark, NYFA, Playwrights Realm, Edgerton Foundation, and Dramatists Guild. Development support from NYSCA, The Ford Foundation, Mellon Foundation, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, PlayPenn, The Women’s Project, JAWfest, NY Stage & Film and Theatreworks.
www.szadravec.com