Meet the Playwrights and Directors of UTNT (UT New Theatre) 2026

Kaia L (they/she) is a Black queer playwright and memoirist from Murfreesboro, Tennessee. They're a current member of Ensemble Studio Theatre's OBIE-winning collective, Youngblood and a former member of Clubbed Thumb's Early-Career Writers' Group (2022-23). Their work has been seen and/or developed with The Fire This Time Festival, Fresh Ground Pepper, and Possibilities Theatre Company.

BIO

Julia Kreutzer is a director, writer and performance artist who makes campy plays about women and the people who love them. She's currently pursuing her M.F.A. in Theatre with a specialization in performance as public practice at the University of Texas at Austin, where she studies lesbian performance aesthetics, communal ritual, and gendered caricature. As an actor and director, her work spans from musical theatre to immersive, experimental experiences including credits with Pittsburgh Musical Theater, the University of Pittsburgh, the Cohen New Works Festival, and the University of Texas at Austin. She marries queer avant-garde aesthetics with naturalistic performance methodologies. Julia is a co-founder of Incline Theater Collective, an initiative aimed at nurturing new work by Pittsburgh-based artists. Her current works-in-progress use communal devising techniques to investigate structures of queer community and belonging from secluded convents to the American Girl Doll Hospital.

Matt Thekkethala is a playwright and performer based in Austin, Texas. He writes absurdist comedies that are cheekily curious about our capacity to forgive one another. He has developed work with Pittsburgh New Works Festival, the Sewanee Writers Conference, and The NOLA Project. In 2020, he released Now More Than Ever, an episodic radio play / comedy album hybrid, on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Matt holds a B.A. in Political Science from Yale University and is currently pursuing a M.F.A. in Theatre (Playwriting) from The University of Texas at Austin's Michener Center for Writers.

bio

Sunghyun Lim is an award-winning theatre director and playwright based in Seoul, South Korea. He creates plays to tear apart myths and fantasies, confront nasty realities and curse the distorted world we live in. He is the founder of the theatre group “Kkungjjak Project” and was a 7th-season member of “Hyehwadong 1”, a collective of young directors based at the small theatre “TheatreLab Hyehwadong 1” in Seoul. In 2023, he received the Best New Director Award at the 59th Dong-A Theatre Awards, the oldest and most prestigious theatre award in Korea. Selected credits include: Where is Jesus's Dick? (2017), Outspoken (2018), Samil-ro Changgo Theatre Consecration Service (2018), The Great Revival Service at the Namsan Arts Center (2020), Mother & Son (2021), Who the Hell Ate the Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge? (2021), Muffin and Chihuahua (2022), Blooming (2022), The Rich Theatre (2022), Sogapalag (2023), Times Square (2024) and Macbeth (2024).

BIO

Nick Hart (he/him) is an alumni company member of Playmakers Laboratory, a non-profit theater and education organization serving Chicago Public School students. He performed regularly in their flagship show That's Weird Grandma for over a decade. He is also an alumni company member with The Neo-Futurists.  He has written and performed over 350 short plays for The Neo-Futurists for their flagship show The Infinite Wrench from 2015-2023.  He is the creator of The Neo-Futurists productions of Remember The Alamo, 60 Songs in 60 Minutes, and the co-writer of the Jeff nominated production of Wildcats with Ida Cuttler. Nick graduated from Columbia College Chicago with a BA in theater in 2010. He is an MFA playwriting candidate at University of Texas at Austin. Nick once challenged Charles Manson to a game of correspondence chess, but that terrible coward never even bothered to respond.

bio

Rodolfo Robles Cruz (he/him) is a director, playwright and play-maker from Morelia, Michoacán Mexico with strong roots in Fresno, California. He is a Latinx Theatre Specialist holding knowledge and experience of Teatro Campesino, Theatre of the Oppressed and Devised Theatre. His work is visceral and highly physical; he has a keen interest in how bodies react on stage in both ensemble based work, or intimate small cast plays. Select credits include Oedipus el Rey (2022) with the Selma Arts Center; Anna in the Tropics (2023) with Madera Theatre Company; Sanctuary City (2024) with Texas Theatre and Dance. His original play, La Norteña, was the 2020 winner of Region 8's National Playwriting Program's One Act Category, and was most recently produced with Teatro Espejo in Sacramento, California. He graduated CSU, Fresno in 2020 and is currently a graduate student at The University of Texas at Austin pursuing a M.F.A. in Theatre (Directing).

bio

Chih-Ching Chester Tsai is a playwright/director from Taipei, Taiwan. He is currently pursuing a M.F.A. in Theatre (Playwriting) at The University of Texas at Austin. From 2019 to 2023, he served as the resident director at Tainaner Ensemble. Chih-Ching's writing mainly investigates the essence of individual and family identities under Taiwanese culture and intercultural contexts. His directing approach foregrounds the literary texts and incorporates multimedia and cross-disciplinary materials. His mission in theatre is to examine/explore specific cultural contexts and, in this specificity reveal the possibility of what it means to be human. Chih-Ching’s works have been produced by Tainaner Ensemble (Taiwan), The Funny Old Tree Theatre Ensemble (Macau) and Performosa Theater (Taiwan). His latest work, Dancing through Formosa (2023), a musical for which he wrote the book and lyrics, was produced by Tainaner Ensemble and National Theater and Concert Hall and has just finished a national tour in Taiwan.