Playwright Bios
June 14 & 15
Nathan Johnson – The Dummies Guide to Murdering Your Husband
Nathan Johnson is a queer performer/playwright/artist. He was a finalist for the Dramatists Guild Fellowship and the Primary Stages Echoes Writing Group, a recipient of the National Queer Theatre-WIO Fellowship, winner of the Meanwhile Park Playwriting Prize, and Recipient of the Primary Stages Louise Rockwell Scholarship. His plays have been performed and/or received finalist positions at The SAUK, American Stage, The Artistic Home, Best Medicine Rep, B-Street Theatre, The Chain Theatre, The Magnetic Theatre, and many others. As an actor, he’s worked in off Broadway, television, and film (My Big Gay Italian Wedding, The Party planner with David Tutera, One Life to Live). MFA: Columbia University.
June 28/29
Jason Wang – Play-Off
Jason Wang is a proud Connecticut native who often travels to New York City to catch new shows. Every time he steps into a theatre, he’s inspired by the creativity on stage—stories that make audiences laugh, cry, or feel a mix of both. After each show, Jason finds himself motivated to write something of his own, hoping one day to see his work performed Off-Broadway or on Broadway.
July 12 & 13
Timothy Brown & Daniel Chadwick – Loving Vivian, Musical
Daniel Martin Chadwick (Book, Lyrics, and Music) is an American playwright, novelist, short story writer, lyricist, and composer. His fiction is mostly horror, speculative, urban fantasy, and psychological thrillers that come from the dark catacombs of his mind. He lives in a secret paradise in South America where he fills his days with reading, writing, chocolate, coffee, lots of sunshine, and his two cats, Tadzio and Fausto, who may or may not be reincarnated gods, (but probably are).
Timothy Brown (Music and Arrangements) Composer, arranger, and copyist made his debut in music for the theatre with Curious George which toured nationally in a production by Theatreworks/USA for nearly ten years. Soon after that success his short musical, The Cost of Living – with Broadway veteran, George Gorham – premiered at The West Bank Theatre. Another Gorham/Brown collaboration, Come Dance With Me, was a finalist in the Dramatists Guild showcase. Tim was honored to be included in a concert of “classical” works by “theatre” composers presented by The Other Side of Broadway; hisIncidental Dance Suite for solo piano was premiered alongside pieces by renowned Broadway composers, Galt MacDermot, David Amram, and Charles Strouse at Merkin Concert Hall in New York. He has been a music\ assistant to Broadway legend John Kander and on several major shows for Broadway music directors, David Loud, Patrick Vaccarrielo, and Todd Ellison. Tim is a veteran of the Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Writers Workshop (BMI).
July 26 & 27
Paul Allman – The Goodness Robot
Paul Allman’s plays include Metesky, Appendix, Dog in the Manger, Aloyssius Day, The Puritan, Kill the Vumpire, Otis Furioso, Bombers Row, Dig We Must, and Kenneth – What is the Frequency? Allman served as Playwright-in-Residence at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Screenwriting Fellow at the Sundance Institute, and Playwriting Fellow at the Playwrights Lab at the Sundance Institute. He has published two young adult novels and one literary novel with St. Martin’s Press, and his fiction has appeared in Paris Transcontinental, Harpers’s Magazine, Film Comment, and Witness, where his short story “We Have Time” won a Pushcart Prize. He has appeared sporadically and unpredictably as Captain Croaker, performing his sea-chanty opera “Break of Dawn” with the Mercantillers band at small venues in the city.
August 9 & 10
Stephen Kaplan – Let There Be
Selected awards and productions: NNPN Rolling World Premiere: Tracy Jones (Finalist: ScreenCraft Stage Play Contest, B Street New Comedies Festival, Trustus Playwrights Festival); Long Drive Home (Theatre Aspen Solo Flights); Un Hombre: A Golem Story (Winner: Barbour Award; Finalist: Gulfshore Playhouse New Works Festival, Jewish Plays Project, Chameleon Theatre Circle’s New Play Contest, Wild Imaginings Epiphanies; Development: NJ PlayLab, RTB); Branwell (and other Brontës) (Semi-Finalist: O’Neill); Community (Finalist: Seven Devils; Road Less Traveled National Residency, Semi-Finalist: Premiere Stages, March Forth Productions); Exquisite Potential (Theatre Ariel, Dezart Performs, Project Rushmore; Winner: NJ Playwrights Contest, Across the Generations New Jewish Play Festival, Finalist: Woodward/Newman Award, Semi-Finalist: Seven Devils); A Real Boy (59E59 Theatre, Last Act Theater, This Is Water Theatre and Semi-Finalist: PlayPenn, Ashland New Play Festival, Dayton Playhouse FutureFest and MTWorks’ Newborn Festival). SPACE at Ryder Farm. MFA: Point Park University. www.bystephenkaplan.com
August 23 & 24
Daniel Pink – Julia C
Daniel Pink is the author of seven bestselling nonfiction books on a range of topics, from human motivation to the science of timing to a graphic novel career guide. His books include the New York Times bestsellers The Power of Regret, A Whole New Mind, and When—as well as the #1 New York Times bestsellers Drive and To Sell is Human. His deeply researched works have been translated into 46 languages and have sold more than five million copies around the world. Over the years, he has also hosted a National Geographic television series, worked as a columnist at the Sunday Telegraph and the Washington Post, served as chief speechwriter to Vice President Al Gore, and been a clue on Jeopardy. Writing plays is his next act.