Playwriting and Directing Cohort

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). 

Plays

Monsters

Three haunted house performers become the monsters they portray, which asks the question: are monsters made or are they born? When their supervisor unexpectedly resigns and needs a replacement, one of the performers sees the promotion as a way to get out of his terrible living situation, but for the other two performers the promotion becomes more deadly than the haunted house itself.

Pregaming for the End of the World

A group of recently graduated college friends get together to “pregame” before going out to a bar that is secretly re-opening during shutdown. With every shot they take, making it out to the bar together becomes unlikely as the friends realize how much they’re growing apart. This is a play about realizing whether you’re living the life you’re supposed to live and trying to find connection when you’re supposed to be keeping your distance. It’s the quarter-life crisis with a splash of existentialism.

These. Are. The. Keystrokes.

A high school typing teacher, who prides himself on never failing a student, has a new student who threatens to end that streak. While trying to keep the new student from failing, the teacher learns to confront the past harm of focusing on this self-imposed competition and not on the students. On top of learning how to use proper typing techniques, the other students in class deal with all the end-of-year obligations as seniors: prom, graduation, and the inevitability of adulthood. It's a play about dealing with the past, and present, so a better future won't be out of reach. 

Avery Deutsch is a playwright and actor from New York. She is the winner of Clubbed Thumb's 2022 Biennial commission, The Hearth’s 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. 

Plays

The Age of Mary 

Mary, a beloved actress in her seventies, is playing a teenager using motion capture technology. She's having a hard time. She hasn't been a teenager in a while. Russell, a dedicated actor on the rise, is playing a monster using motion capture technology. He's having a hard time. He spends all day feeling like a monster. And both Mary and Russell are scared of and attracted to their aloof director. A play about the parts of ourselves we put away, and the joy and pain of bringing them into the light. 

Paint Me Like A Person

Rebecca shows Kyle her painting. He doesn't get it. He wants to get it, more than he's ever wanted anything. But, these days, the world doesn't much care what Kyle wants. Rebecca leaves his house crying. When was the last time something went right? Kyle is going to make Rebecca love her paintings, even if she'll never love him. A love story about surviving a lonely era. 

Three Exorcisms

A group of outcasts inside a medieval convent obsess over a young girl famous for theatrical exorcisms. But as the exorcisms turn more and more violent, their obsession becomes a new kind of devil, haunting them all. A play about envy, longing, loneliness, and what being trapped does to the soul. 

https://www.averydeutsch.com/

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. 

Plays

Godfriend 

Trying to decide whether or not to have a baby, a queer couple becomes possessed/obsessed with the Public Universal Friend, a colonial Quaker preacher who claimed God renounced them of their gender. It's the feeling when you love someone so much that you start to feel like the same person, whether that person is your partner, your child, your god, or your friend. Co-written with Ellenor Riley-Condit.

OH, BUDDY

New Guy's not actually new, he's just new to being a guy. Tell that to his longtime coworkers, who scramble to treat him differently now that he's One Of The Guys. New Guy should be up for Promotion, but Buddy the boss doesn't recognize him. Oh, and Buddy's a giant furry monster, but no one seems to notice... About how the bizarre demands of binary gender affect the way we take on roles in the workplace and beyond.

Kitty

A fraught breakup, a late-in-life discovery of queerness, a lesbian's murder weaponized by the press, all contend for space in the foyer of a Queens apartment building. A chorus of rats in the LIRR station brings us back to 60s gay bar raids, white flight, and the New York Times fucking everything up. About how systems of power weaponize our identities against each other, and what it would take to heal.

You can contact Hal at halcosentino@gmail.com.

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.

Plays

Then We’ll Rest

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 We’ll 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. caleychase.com

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.

Plays

ROM.COM

Malak, an estranged son, returns home to his dysfunctional parents with his new wife, Ai, a sex robot. His mother, Trishna, relishes having Malak home, but his father, Victor, remains suspicious of his new android daughter-in-law. Ai's uncanny presence unearths long-held family secrets, as all three fall under her cybernetic spell.

Adrien vs. Predator

Single mom Adrien falls hard for the gallant Fred when he saves her son from certain death. There's only one thing holding her back: Fred is a registered sex offender. A dicey rom-com about breaking all the rules, and forgiving the unforgivable.

Vultures Awakening

Draino, a corpse bearer, refuses to accept that his elderly cat Zara is dying. In his beloved feline's last days, Draino is forced to grieve her, his buried past, and his decaying world.

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.

Plays

Best Way to Eat a Cow

Three nameless women are imprisoned in a basement of a mansion and are asked to do nothing but chop cabbage. One evening, one of them sneaks out and brings back a cow. In an attempt to find out what is the best way to eat this cow that could effectively “maximize” their enjoyment, they imitate the pre-meal rituals of their imprisoners, Monsieur He and Madam She. However, it gets more and more dangerous as the “real” and the “performative” becomes intangible….

The Reunion Dinner

On New Year’s Eve, a homecoming of the youngest son stirs the traumatic memories of the Wei family. As the mother, daughter and son prepare for the coming reunion dinner, they engage in a story-telling race, competing for who has suffered the most from the absent father. During the performance, the actors cook at the same time. As the smell of New Year’s Eve fills the theater, The Reunion Dinner takes the audience to trip down the familiar memory lane.

Slipping through Fingers

This is a story about father and son of a Bodehi family troupe. Bodehi is a form of traditional glove puppet theatre in Taiwan, and its art relies mainly on the artist’s puppeteering crafts and improvisation skills. When an aging Bodehi puppeteer is faced with Dementia and imminent death, an artist who has devoted his entire life to the pursuit of this art form, how can he bear to say goodbye?

More info: https://www.chihchingtsai.com

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.

Plays

On Either Side of All the Late Unpleasantness

Clay County, Missouri, 1860. Civil war is brewing in the United States, and the nation’s turmoil has spread to the Pearson household. Eddie, an abolitionist, is firmly on the side of the Union; his brother Charlie sympathizes with the position of the southern states. As pressures mount inside and outside the home, the brothers feel they have no choice but to join the fight—on opposite sides. Their decision to go to war permanently alters the fabric of the family, and everyone--including the family's two slaves--has to face the consequences.

Killing Gloria

A woman named Gloria commits suicide. Her mother, father, boyfriend, priest-friend (a friend who's a priest), and psychiatrist are blindsided. They try to figure out what went wrong--where they went wrong. How someone they cared about could be gone.

A woman named Gloria is on life support, and the people she's left behind sit by her hospital bedside, alone and together, and try to sort out their grief. They try to figure out if they killed her--if they killed Gloria.

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). 

Director Reel: Directing Reel / Rodolfo Robles Cruz

Website for Production Photos: www.rodolforoblescruz.com

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.

Plays

Wildcats

In 1960, Lucille Ball took to the stage in her very first Broadway musical. Despite having been on television for over a decade, she found herself extremely unprepared for the demands of live theater. In WILDCATS, power house duo Nick Hart and Ida Cuttler bring this moment in Ball’s career back to life, infusing into it their own personal stories of bursting out of isolation. WILDCATS is a multimedia drag spectacle with a mix of  live moments, audience interaction and bizarre-o filmed I Love Lucy episode recreations.

Remember the Alamo

In this world premiere production, an ensemble will take over The Neo-Futurist Theater, refuse to leave, and obstruct all production in the theater until the audience, actors and management work to recreate the Battle of the Alamo in its entirety, leading to its sad bloody conclusion. Created by Neo-Futurist Ensemble Member Nick Hart, Remember the Alamo is Neo-Lab’s 2017-18 commission.

60 Songs in 60 Minutes

Created by a team of experimental musicians and led by Ensemble Member Nick Hart. In a race against the clock, the cast attempts to perform all 60 original songs in under 60 minutes, using instruments, technology and found objects. Audiences are invited to stay for the post-show “Wrench Karaoke” which incorporates the Neo-Futurist tenets of chaos, randomness and chance into the act of singing your favorite song.

Mikala Gibson (she/her) is an award-winning stage and screen actor,  director, writer and scholar.  Her directing credits include Blood at the Root, A Maroon’s Guide to Time and Space (The Houston Press- Best New Play/ Production Finalist)  and Our Lady of the Sacred Part: Vulva Pope (B. Iden Payne Nominee -Best Digital Theatre Production).  As a 2nd year Theatre Directing MFA candidate at The University of Texas at Austin, Gibson is excited to direct  the upcoming UTNT production of These. Are. The. Keystrokes. Mikala has performed in over 30 stage productions including, The Piano Lesson (Giorgee Award- Best Supporting Actress), Gem of the Ocean (Fort Worth Weekly Magazine - Best Female Actor -Honorable Mention), Twelfth Night (ATAC Globe Nominee) and Picnic (ATAC Globe Winner - Best Supporting Actress). Although she has appeared on major platforms such as HBO, Showtime, BET, PBS, AMC and Netflix, Gibson is most recognized for her portrayal of “Doris” in season five of Fear the Walking Dead. Her film acting work has also been featured at the Cannes International Film Festival, Sundance, SXSW, Austin Film Festival, Urbanworld Film Festival and The American Black Film Festival, to name a few. She is the founder of The Black Artivist Collective, LLC and the host of the platform’s podcast.  Mikala is a member of Women in Film and TV Austin, SAG-AFTRA and Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated.  

Nick Hennessy is a writer from Amherst, MA. His work utilizes dark comedy to approach serious ideas. Productions: The Tank, Phoenix Theatre and Arts Co., Bennington College. Publications: Belfield Literary Review. Nick holds a B.A. in Drama and Literature from Bennington College, and an M.A. (First Class Honours) in Playwriting and Dramaturgy from the University of Galway. He is currently pursuing an M.F.A. from the University of Texas at Austin’s Michener Center for Writers.

Plays

Bid

December, 2015. In a Massachusetts college town during winter break, three young people vie for each other's affection under the looming shadow of gentrification. BID captures a time and place in flux, and the ways that seemingly small acts of betrayal have enormous consequences.

The Lowest Animals

Married couple Mike and Linda undergo an invasive divorce procedure, in a totalitarian state that may be a future America. As the more intimate details of their marriage become entertainment for a sadistic government employee, the two struggle to maintain a sense of complex humanity in the face of base, calculating evil.

Denial of Service

In an underfunded, understaffed office in L.A. County, social workers navigate a possible case of child abuse. Personal vendettas and conflicting senses of morality collide with tragic results.

Gabi Girón-Vives (She/They) is a 26 year old, transfemme nonbinary, and Texas/Los Angeles based multi-hyphenate theater maker and playwright. Her recent work history includes— directing the premiere of “Let Me In” as the debut production of the new SheDFW Theater Festival in 2024, Assistant Stage Managing "Elm Thicket" for Soul Rep Theatre Co./ATTPAC Elevator Project in 2024, writing and performing her one person show“The Last Puerto Rican…" at CalArts Latin Fest 2021, Dramaturgy for “Kubrick’s Aryan Papers,” at the REDCAT NOW Fest in 2021, and music for “Horse Play” at Coaxial Arts LA in 2021. She holds a BFA in Acting from the California Institute of the Arts and is currently a Michener Center for Writers MFA Playwriting Fellow at The University of Texas in Austin.

Plays

Sofia

High school can be a difficult place for any girl. Hormones raging, bodies changing… Indeed, Roxy has changed a lot in the past year. Her transition left her isolated and bullied by an obnoxious group of "Funny Boys," led by Ted Bishop, the star quarterback who used to be her best friend. Instead of living in the gym as your typical Texas cross-country runner like she used to, she now spends her lunches with the only group of Queer (and Queer adjacent) nobodies who go to Aledo High School. Together they form "The Squad," each with the expressed personal goal of helping the only out trans girl on campus. What that "protection" might entail shocks the newly bound Squad when Roxy asks them to give up something the group may not be ready for. Sofia is a play about love, community, and the sacrifices it takes to be true to ourselves.

the discreet charm of CEOs

Bill Gates, Elon Musk, and Jeff Bezos are reunited at a small, dank soundstage in Los Angeles to record a YouTube interview for an unspecified Condé Nast property. Much to the chagrin of Daria, the director, Sunny, the DP, and Lucky, the 1st AD, The rest of the criminally underpaid crew has walked out, seemingly in protest of 'recent actions' made by some in the trio. The interview begins as planned, but the balance of power between the CEOs and the underpaid crew twists when the CEOs realize that they all are mysteriously unable to leave the sound stage. Here is a farce of little consequence. A take on the new genre of "eat the rich" style commentaries, but with just a little more praxis.

hookup, A Fetish Dialectic 

Dave, a young man, meets with George--a married older man who has never had a tryst, for a classic internet hookup. Despite Dave continually disassociating out of the action and out of the 4th wall during sex through desperate soliloquizing of past trauma, things seem to be going well! Disturbed yet intrigued, George desperately tries to unravel the mysteries his new partner holds, at the cost of losing himself. 'hookup' is a tragic, absurdist dream play about the stranger within all of us.

Anthony Anello (he/him) is a graduate of NYU Tisch's Dramatic Writing program and a current MFA Playwriting student at UT Austin. He served as a Writing Advisor for Out of the Box Theatrics’ Off-Broadway and Drama Desk-nominated revival of Baby and has been a member of PlaygroundNY Writer’s Pool for the past three years. His work has been showcased at Playwrights Downtown, Rattlestick, the Cherry Lane, Loading Dock, the Tank, Dixon Place, Weathervane Theatre, and Murmuration Theater Company. Beyond the stage, he is the creator and host of his original reality-competition web-series, Fight or Flight (@fightorflightshow).

Plays

let's talk about anything else 

A group of friends escape to the Berkshires for a week-long getaway, almost a year after one of their member's untimely passing. A play about bugs, strangers in the woods, and the unrelenting grasp of guilt.

WannaBillions

An ambitious executive assistant is whisked off to the most expensive resort in the world by his billionaire mentor, employer, and lover. At the resort, the elite are able to role-play minimum wage jobs in a Wannado City replica (an indoor role-playing amusement center) as a form of humbling. A farcical meditation on wealth, power, and (net)worth, this play examines how we make ourselves larger (or smaller) than we are to succeed in a capitalist world.

A Dog Dies

Jenny and Daryl have a dog. His name is Toby. Toby is dying. But when the Vet says it is time to put the dog to sleep, Jenny decides she isn't ready to lose him.

You can find Anthony's plays on New Play Exchange or contact him directly at anthony.g.anello@gmail.com.

Caitlyn Waltermire is a Kentuckian playwright/songwriter and MFA Playwriting candidate at UT Austin. She writes strange, expansive, pain-filled little things with lots of women and 1960s references. Since 2017, her plays have been developed and produced at the Midtown Theatre Festival (“Outstanding Ensemble Award”, nominated for “Best Music”), Leeds Center for the Arts, Seat of our Pants Theatre (“Judges’ Pick” and “Best in Festival”), WUKY Radio (commissioned alongside new work by NYT best-selling author Silas House), Colorado New Musical Festival, Hickory Community Theatre (“Pamela Livingstone Outstanding Ensemble Script Award”), and Greenbrier Valley Theatre, West Virginia’s state professional theatre. Persephone Palmer Steps Out will premiere in Theater for the New City’s 2025 summer season.  

Plays

Persephone Palmer Steps Out 

A nuclear family in the 90s, raising their son as a teenage boy and their daughter as a housecat. A play with a blizzard and a minotaur, about sexuality, motherhood, and how much of the world we'll sacrifice to protect (control) the ones we love (possess). 

by the beautiful beautiful sea

Laura takes a free art class instead of attending her little sister’s funeral. In the following weeks, silver scales sprout on Laura's legs and she develops a taste for raw fish. She recalls a mermaid book that her poet father read to them as children and confronts the nature of his relationship with his daughters. 

Dreary, Dearie

Adelaide is trapped in a black box theatre (or supermarket), rehearsing her one-woman show on opening night (or dinner with in-laws). After her husband, Tom, corrects a minor detail, he inserts himself into her play. They meet a stranger in the condiments aisle and four Actual Minutes expand into outer space, a British bomb shelter, a 60s variety show, and a superhero comic book. A play about the theatre of abusive marriage, billed as a one-woman show. Tom is a surprise. He always is.

https://newplayexchange.org/users/86180/caitlyn-waltermire.

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’ DICK? (2017), OUTSPOKEN (2018) SAMIL-RO CHANGGO 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) etc.