Meet the Playwrights and Directors of UTNT (UT New Theatre) 2025

Hal Cosentino is a playwright, actor, and teacher. Plays: Oh, Buddy will be published in the upcoming Methuen Anthology of Trans Plays, Volume 2. Once In A Hundred Years and Marathon were developed at Powerhouse Theater (Poughkeepsie, NY). Awards: O’Neill New Play Conference Finalist 2023 and 2024. Hal has roots in Chicago, Atlanta, and Asheville, and did his undergraduate studies at Skidmore College and the Moscow Art Theatre School. He will receive his M.F.A. in Playwriting from The University of Texas at Austin in May 2025, and often collaborates with his art/life partner Ellenor Riley-Condit.

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Ellenor Riley-Condit is a theatre maker working at the intersection of performance creation and liberatory praxis. Her favorite works with Texas Theatre and Dance include A Beautiful Day in November on the Banks of the Greatest of the Great Lakes (2024), as well as Oh, Buddy and Then We’ll Rest (The Cohen New Works Festival, 2023). She serves as faculty and curriculum coordinator at Powerhouse Theater at Vassar College, where she directed Trojan Women and Marathon. double-text.com (she/her)

Michael Mobley writes about the intimate and private lives of Black Americans throughout America’s past, present, and future.  He sometimes uses different genres to tell these stories. Writing about the inner lives of Black Americans allows him to shatter stereotypes and reveal a part of America that has been historically ignored and cast aside. His full-length play, Monsters, had a reading/workshop at Quick Silver Theater Company and Prologue Theatre’s Foreword New Works Series. It was placed 2nd in the Echo Theater Company’s New Play Competition and was a Featured Finalist for The Risk Theatre Modern Tragedy Competition. It was also a Finalist for the Seven Devils Playwrights Conference and The Playwrights Realm’s Scratchpad Series. His full-length, Feel Alive, was developed at Echo Theater Company and was a Semifinalist for the O’Neill’s National Playwrights Conference. He was also a Finalist for the Greenhouse Residency at SPACE on Ryder Farm and the Many Voices Fellowship at the Playwrights’ Center. His work has been supported by the Atlantic Center for the Arts and Echo Theater Company (National Young Playwrights in Residence Program 21-22). 

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Mikala Gibson is a M.F.A. in Theatre candidate with a specialization in directing. Her recent theatre directing credits include A Maroon’s Guide to Time and Space (The Catastrophic Theatre) and Blood at the Root (Texas Theatre and Dance Studio Series 2024). Gibson’s theatre acting credits include Flyin’ West (African American Repertory Theatre), Gem of the Ocean (Jubilee Theatre) and The Piano Lesson (The Ensemble Theatre). Gibson’s TV acting credits include recurring roles in Fear the Walking Dead and Netflix's First Kill. (she/her)

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Avery Deutsch is a playwright and actor from New York. She is the winner of Clubbed Thumb's 2022 Biennial commission, The Hearths 2024 Virtual Retreat and a recipient of a 2023-2024 EST/ Sloan commission. She is currently pursuing a M.F.A. in Theatre (Playwriting) at The University of Texas at Austin. 

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Caley Chase (she/her) directs theater and live performance. She has directed, developed, and assisted work at the The Huntington, Powerhouse Theater, ART, Trinity Rep, Shakespeare & Co, Actors Shakespeare Project, Speakeasy Stage and Breaking & Entering Theatre, among others. Recent credits: The Taming of the Shrew and Macbeth (Powerhouse Theater at Vassar College), A Beautiful Day in November on the Banks of the Greatest of the Great Lakes (Texas Theatre and Dance, 2024), The Mikvah Project (Texas Theatre and Dance Studio Series), Then Well Rest by Eliya Smith (Cohen New Works Festival), and Choreomaniac 1518 by Malena Pennycook (Texas Theatre and Dance, 2024). Caley holds a B.A. from Brandeis University and is currently pursuing an M.F.A. in Theatre (Directing) at The University of Texas at Austin. 

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Yuga Ma is a performance maker and writer from Northeast China. Her research and practice broadly engage with the everyday manifestation of the abstracted and the absent to disrupt the imagination of the world as given or guaranteed. Yuge is currently pursuing an M.F.A. in Theatre degree with a specialization in performance as public practice at The University of Texas at Austin. B.A. Philosophy, New York University.

Rodolfo Robles Cruz  is a M.F.A. in Theatre candidate with a specialization in directing at The University of Texas at Austin. He is a theatre artist from Morelia, Michoacan with strong roots in Fresno, California. He is a graduate from California State University, Fresno (CSU Fresno) where he earned his B.A. in Theatre Arts - Acting. As an artist, his work emphasizes the Latinx/Mexican family unit and the complexities of immigration and identity. Select directing credits: Oedipus el Rey by Luis Alfaro (Selma Arts Center); Anna in the Tropics by Nilo Cruz (Madera Theatre Project); Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead by Bert V. Royal (Experimental Theatre Company). As a playwright, Robles Cruz has had his work performed at the Selma Arts Center, CSU Fresno's Experimental Theatre Company, Teatro Espejo and California State University, Fullerton's One Act Play Festival. His play La Norteña is the regional winner of the 2020 Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival's National Playwriting Program's One Act Play Category.

Eliya Smith  is a writer from Ohio. Plays: Ice Factory Festival, HERE Arts Center, the American Repertory Theater, the Tank, ISLE Theater Company. Support: Foundation for Contemporary Arts and the Phyllis Anderson Foundation. M.F.A. candidate, The University of Texas at Austin.