New Voices. New Truths. New Discoveries.
Next Narrative™ Monologue Competition
PROGRAM OVERVIEW:
True Colors’ Artistic Director Jamil Jude conceived of the Next Narrative Monologue CompetitionTM (NNMC) in the context of his desire to center the Black artist in an environment that understands the context of their work. As part of the Next Narrative program, Jamil has reached into his professional network to commission work from fifty Black playwrights that reflect the rich diversity of the Black community, thereby providing an inclusive portal to new worlds and the truths therein.
NNMC serves high school students, grades 9-12. In each participating region, students progress through three rounds of competition: preliminaries, semi-finals, and a regional final. The top two winners from each regional competition participate in the National Finals, receiving an all-expense paid trip to New York City that includes:
- Workshops with theatre professionals
- Performance at the Apollo Theater
- Ticket to a Broadway show
- Cash prizes for the top three winners
Program Objectives
1. Introduce students to today’s leading contemporary Black writers
2. Expose students to acting techniques that enhance their knowledge of the art and skill of performance
3. Utilize the arts to support students in making cocurricular connections
4. Investigate how history and culture influence personal perspective through artful exploration
5. Embolden students to use their voices to inspire social action
Diverse stories that reflect our diverse world
Monologue Themes
- Class
- Gender
- Ableism/lnclusivity
- Relationship to technology
- Family/Community
- Cultural celebration/competency
- Global warming/environmental
- Immigration/international relationships
- Social/emotional/physical health
- Abstract/non-thematic
Monologue Themes
- Class
- Gender
- Ableism/lnclusivity
- Relationship to technology
- Family/Community
- Cultural celebration/competency
- Global warming/environmental
- Immigration/international relationships
- Social/emotional/physical health
- Abstract/non-thematic
The Regions We Serve
Contributing Playwrights
click images for professional biographies
France-Luce Benson
Next Narrative Monologue Competition: Contributing Playwright
France-Luce Benson
France-Luce Benson is a Haitian-American playwright and TV writer currently based on LA. Honors include The Lily’s Lorraine Hansberry Award, two time Bay Area Playwright’s Festival finalist, NYSCA’s Individual Artist Award, Sony Pictures Television Diverse Writers Fellow, Zoetrope’s Grand Prize for original screenplay, Alfred P. Sloan New Play Commission, Princess Grace Award runner up, Dramatists Guild Fellow, and Sam French OOB Festival Winner. Her plays have had productions and development workshops at The Fountain Theatre, Atlantic Theatre Company, Billy Holiday Theatre, New Black Fest, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Crossroads Theatre, The Playwrights Center, Juggernaut Theatre, and Ensemble Studio Theatre NYC where she is a company member. She was a staff writer for Paramount Plus on the series Bass Reeves, and is currently an adjunct professor at the Juilliard School. Publications: DPS, Samuel French, Routledge.
Francisca Da Silveira
Next Narrative Monologue Competition: Contributing Playwright
Francisca Da Silveira
Francisca is a Cape Verdean-American playwright. Her plays have been developed with Theatre503 (London), The Traverse Theatre (Edinburgh), TC Squared Theatre Company (Boston), Company One Theatre (Boston), Flat Earth Theatre (Boston), Fresh Ink Theatre Company (Boston), The Fire This Time Festival (New York), and Horse Trade Theater Group (New York). She has been a finalist for SpeakEasy Stage’s 2018 and 2019 Boston Project Residency, Space of Ryder Farm’s 2020 Creative Residency and has been a semi-finalist for the Dennis & Victoria Ross Playwrights Program, the 2019 Papatango New Play Prize and the 2019 Theatre503 International Playwriting Award. Fran’s play Can I Touch It? was featured NNPN’s 2020 National Showcase of New Plays in November 2020.
Antonio Duke
Next Narrative Monologue Competition: Contributing Playwright
Antonio Duke
Antonio Duke is a Twin Cities based theater maker. Theater allows him to examine human behavior communally. Writing and embodying a character gives him the opportunity to evoke empathy publicly. Through writing and live audience interactions with a character he gains more insight into the human condition. He strives through storytelling to evoke a cathartic healing experience. His artistic mission is to provide conjuration spells for black folk. By offering black magic he hopes to illuminate a communal healing space. He conjures most of his muse from black spiritualities; specifically the deities from the Yoruba, Santeria and Voodoo traditions. He’s found through his solo work that some stories in the black experience need divine inspiration to tell fully. In doing so he follows in the tradition of a long lineage of African oral solo storytellers called Griots. He’s an alumnus of the University of Minnesota/Guthrie B.F.A Actor Training Program.
Sxr OM Dxtchxss-Davis
Next Narrative Monologue Competition: Contributing Playwright
Sxr OM Dxtchxss-Davis
Sxr OM is a disabled black griot from Minneapolis, MN. Sxr’s work has been seen across the country. In 2016, Sxr was awarded the Many Voices mentorship at the Playwrights’ Center in Minneapolis, MN. They were also the recipient of the 2019 I AM SOUL fellowship at the National Black Theatre, and in 2020 was awarded the Lark and Apothetae Fellowship. Sxr is a multisouled playwright. “I wouldn’t be who I am if it wasn’t for my nightmare Tino.”
Lady Dane Figueroa Edidi
Next Narrative Monologue Competition: Contributing Playwright
Lady Dane Figueroa Edidi
Dubbed “the ancient jazz priestess of Mother Africa”, Lady Dane Figueroa Edidi is a Black African, Cuban, Indigenous, American Trans performance artist, author (Yaya’s Daughters, Brew, Wither, Baltimore: A Love Letter, Keeper, Remains: a Gathering of Bones, Incarnate, For Black Trans Girls … , Solace, Infrastructure Of A Nation). A Helen Hayes Award winning Playwright (K!ytmnestra: An Epic Slam Poem (2020), For Black Trans Girls … , Ghost/Writer, The Diaz Family Talent Show, Quest of The Reed Marsh Daughter, The Dance of Memories), Advocate, Dramaturg a 2x Helen Hayes Award Nominated choreographer (2016, 2018) and co-editor of the Black Trans Prayer Book. She is the founder of The lnanna D Initiatives, which curates, produces and cultivates events and initiatives designed to center and celebrate the work of TGNC Artist of Color.
Star Finch
Next Narrative Monologue Competition: Contributing Playwright
Star Finch
Star Finch is a 2nd generation San Franciscan trying her best to hold ground for her children amidst the Black-erasure of gentrification. She is currently the Mellon Foundation Playwright in Residence at Campo Santo and Crowded Fire Theater. She’s also a resident playwright in the RPI program at Playwrights Foundation. Finch’s plays include H.O.M.E. [Hookers on Mars Eventually] and BONDAGE (Relentless Award honorable mention). Find out more about her work at starfinchplays.com.
Inda Craig-Galván
Next Narrative Monologue Competition: Contributing Playwright
Inda Craig-Galván
Inda Craig-Galván is a playwright and screenwriter. lnda’s currently developing new works of theatre on commission with Primary Stages, Company One, and The Old Globe. Produced plays include Black Super Hero, Magic Mama and I Go Somewhere Else. Awards: Kesselring Prize, Jeffry Melnick New Playwright Award, Blue Ink Playwriting Prize, Jane Chambers Student Award for Feminist Playwriting and Stage Raw Best Playwright Award. Her work has been seen at the Ojai Playwrights Conference, Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s Black Swan Lab, The Old Globe Powers New Voices Festival, Black & Latino Playwrights Conference, WomenWorks, Humanitas, Skylight Theatre, San Francisco Playhouse, Trustus Theatre Playwrights Festival, Lorraine Hansberry Theatre, lntiman, and others.
Keli Goff
Next Narrative Monologue Competition: Contributing Playwright
Keli Goff
Keli Goff is a multi-platform storyteller whose work spans journalism, theater, film and television. As a journalist and essayist her work has appeared in the publications Time, The Washington Post, The Root and Vogue, among others. In 2019 she was nominated for two News and Documentary Emmy Awards for her work as a producer on the Netflix documentary Reversing Roe, which chronicled America’s legal battles over reproductive policy. She most recently served as Co-Executive Producer on Mayor of Kingstown. Before that she served as a writer and producer on Sex and the City’s newest chapter, And Just Like That. Keli’s other writing credits include Joe v. Carole, Twenties, Black Lightning and Being Mary Jane, for which she was awarded a 2016 NAACP Image Award. Last year her play, The Glorious World of Crowns, Kinks and Curls, featuring black women’s hair stories, became Baltimore Center Stage’s first-ever streaming production. Photo credit: Robert Calderone.
Idris Goodwin
Next Narrative Monologue Competition: Contributing Playwright
Idris Goodwin
Across two decades Idris Goodwin has forged an impactful career as a multiple award-winning playwright, breakbeat poet, director, educator, and organizer. Passionate about cultivating new audiences in the arts, Idris is The Director of The Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center at Colorado College, the first Black man to hold the position in its 1 00 year history. Prior to this, he served two seasons as Producing Artistic Director at StageOne Family Theatre in Louisville, Kentucky. He actively serves on both the advisory boards of 1YA USA and Children’s Theatre Foundation Association. Idris is the author of over 50 original plays ranging from his Hip Hop inspired breakbeat series to historical dramas to works for young audiences, including works like And In This Corner Cassius Clay, How We Got On, Hype Man: A Break Beat Play and the ground breaking Free Play: open source scripts for an antiracist tomorrow.
Donnetta Lavinia Grays
Next Narrative Monologue Competition: Contributing Playwright
Donnetta Lavinia Grays
Donnetta Lavinia Grays is a playwright and actor from Columbia, SC. Works include Where We Stand, Warriors Don’t Cry, Last Night And The Night Before, Laid To Rest, The Review Or How To Eat Your Opposition, The New Normal, and The Cowboy is Dying. Donnetta is a recipient of the Whiting Award for Drama, the Helen Merrill Playwright Award, Lilly Award, National Theater Conference Barrie and Bernice Stavis Playwright Award, and is the inaugural recipient of the Doric Wilson Independent Playwright Award. In 2018, she founded Gap Toothed Griot, LLC as a home for her particular brand of storytelling. Donnetta- as GTG- is currently under commission with True Love Productions, Steppenwolf, The Denver Center for the Performing Arts, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, and WP Theater.
K. W. Jackson
Next Narrative Monologue Competition: Contributing Playwright
K. W. Jackson
K. W. Jackson is a writer, dancer and musician. Jackson has written several plays, one of which (Water) was produced in 2009 at Ink and Pulp Theatre in Chicago. In 2020/21 Jackson co-composed a MNiatures commission with MN Opera. As a hip hop/street dancer Jackson was fortunate to create and perform work at the 2018 and 2021 Choreographers’ Evening at Walker Art Center. Jackson has been a recipient of several generous grants, including the 2019 Jerome Artist Fellowship and the 2022 and 2016 McKnight Artist Fellowships in Writing. Jackson is an alum of Cave Canem, the esteemed writing fellowship for Black writers.
Alayna Jacqueline
Next Narrative Monologue Competition: Contributing Playwright
Alayna Jacqueline
Alayna Jacqueline is a playwright, dramaturg, and educator. She’s an instigator for new plays with the Twin Cities Playwright Cabal. Her macabre writing weaves between themes of identity, mental health, religious hurt, colorism, and the corruption of power. Alayna’s work has been performed and/or developed at Theater Mu (MN), Phoenix Theater (MN), Market Garden Theatre (MN), Renaissance Theaterworks (WI), Playwrights’ Center (MN), Athena Project (CO), MadLab Theater (OH), Lincoln Theater (OH), Pythian Theater (OH). Her play ALL OF THE EVERYTHING was produced at the 2019 Samuel French Off-Off Broadway Short Play Festival. Her play with music, THE RETELLING, was performed in the Twin Cities’ Horrorfest. Lakeshore Players Theatre commissioned Alayna to write AN EVENING WITH ELLA AND HAROLD. Daleko Arts’ commissioned her to write FOSTERING RESENTMENT, for their first Cesta Festival. She earned her BA in theater from Otterbein University and her MFA in creative writing from Goddard College.
Candrice Jones
Next Narrative Monologue Competition: Contributing Playwright
Candrice Jones
Playwright, poet, and educator Candrice Jones is from Dermott, Arkansas. Candrice has been honored to have been a fellow at Callaloo for poetry at Brown University and in London. She has also been a VONA Playwriting Fellow and a CalArts MFA Critical Studies recipient. She is the author of the full-length plays Crackbaby (2010 Wasserstein Prize Nomination) and FLEX. She has been a resident fellow at Ground Floor housed by the Berkeley Rep, the Bay Area Playwrights’ Festival, and MacDowell’s Colony of the Arts. Candrice, who was a 2019-20 Many Voices Fellows, is amazed and grateful to have been chosen for a 2nd year fellow at the Playwrights’ Center, this time as a Jerome Fellow. She believes that in these times of peril “story and art matter more than ever.”
Deneen Reynolds-Knott
Next Narrative Monologue Competition: Contributing Playwright
Deneen Reynolds-Knott
Deneen Reynolds-Knott’s outdoor play, SHOEBOX PICNIC ROAD SIDE: ROUTE ONE, had its World Premiere at Alabama Shakespeare Festival in Fall 2021. Her play, BABES IN HO-LLAND, was featured at Playwrights Foundation’s 2020 Bay Area Playwrights Festival and will have a workshop production at Shotgun Players in Winter 2022. Other plays include FLASHES & FLOATERS (2020 Playfest at Orlando Shakespeare Theater), BATON (2018 Premiere Play Festival and workshop reading at Premiere Stages, San Diego Rep’s 2021 Black Voices Reading Series, Orlando Shakes’ 2017 Playfest, finalist for the 2017 PlayPenn and Bay Area Playwrights conferences) and ANTEPARTUM (2020 Fire This Time Festival ‘s signature ten-minute play program). Deneen was a member of Clubbed Thumb’s 2019-2020 Early-Career Writers’ Group and received the 2021 Clubbed Thumb Constitution Commission. She also received a finalist grant from Clubbed Thumb’s 2018 Open-Application Commission. She has developed work with Liberation Theatre Company’s Writing Residency, Project Y’s Playwrights Group, Rising Circle’s INKtank Development Lab and Frank Silvera Workshop’s 3in3 Playwright Residency. She received her MFA in film from Columbia University.
Rachel Lynett
Next Narrative Monologue Competition: Contributing Playwright
Rachel Lynett
Rachel Lynett (she/they) is a queer Afro-Latine playwright, producer, and teaching artist. Their plays have been featured at San Diego Rep, Magic Theatre, Mirrorbox Theatre, Laboratory Theatre of Florida, Barrington Stage Company, Theatre Lab, Theatre Prometheus, Florida Studio Theatre, Laughing Pig Theatre Company, Capital Repertory Theatre, Teatro Espejo, the Kennedy Center Page to Stage festival, Theatresquared, Equity Library Theatre, Chicago, Talk Back Theatre, American Stage Theatre Company, Indiana University at Bloomington, Edgewood College, and Orlando Shakespeare Theatre. Their plays Last Night and HE DID IT made the 2020 Kilroy’s List. Rachel Lynett is also the 2021 recipient of the Yale Drama Prize for their play, Apologies to Lorraine Hansberry (You Too August Wilson), and the 2021 recipient of the National Latinx Playwriting award for their play, Black Mexican.
Roger Q. Mason
Next Narrative Monologue Competition: Contributing Playwright
Roger Q. Mason
Roger Q. Mason (they/them) is an award-winning writer, performer and educator known for using history’s lens to highlight the biases that separate rather than unite us. Mason was recently dubbed by The Brooklyn Rail as “quickly becoming one of the most significant playwrights of the decade.” Their playwriting has been seen on Broadway at Circle in the Square (Circle Reading Series); Off and Off-Off-Broadway at New York Theatre Workshop, New Group, The Fire This Time Festival, Dixon Place, American Theatre of Actors, Flea Theatre, and Access Theater; and regionally at McCarter Theatre, Center Theatre Group, Victory Gardens, Chicago Dramatists, Steep Theatre, Serenbe Playhouse, Theatre Rhinoceros, Open Fist Theatre Company, EST/LA, Coeurage Theatre, Rogue Artists Ensemble, Son of Semele, and Skylight Theatre. They are an honoree of the Kilroys List; the Chuck Rowland Pioneer Award; the Fire This Time Festival Alumni Spotlight, and the Hollywood Fringe Festival Encore Producers Award. Mason’s films have been recognized by the SCAD Film Festival, AT&T Film Award and Atlanta International Film Festival. They’ve screened at Hollyshorts, Outfest, Bentonville Film Festival, Outshine Film Festival, and the Pan African Film Festival. Mason holds degrees from Princeton University, Middlebury College, and Northwestern University. They are a member of Page 73’s Interstate 73 Writers Group, Primary Stages Writing Cohort, the co-host of Sister Roger’s Gayborhood podcast, and the co-founder/lead mentor of the New Visions Fellowship for Black Trans and Gender non-conforming playwrights.
Nubia Monks
Next Narrative Monologue Competition: Contributing Playwright
Nubia Monks
Nubia Monks is an actor, playwright, and educator. She has performed at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, The La Jolla Playhouse, The Old Globe, The Women’s Theatre Festival, Ten Thousand Things, The Folger Theater, and The Guthrie Theater. Nubia has also performed in various virtual workshops, readings, and performances. She wrote Hands of Color which premiered at the Synchronicity Theater in Atlanta and then went on to receive the Suzi Bass Award for ‘Outstanding World Premiere.’ She is a ’21-’22 recipient of the Jerome’s Fellowship at the Playwrights’ Center as well as a recent Scratch Pad Series Playwright at the Playwright’s Realm. Please follow her journey via Instagram: _onlynubia.
Nick Hadikwa Mwaluko
Next Narrative Monologue Competition: Contributing Playwright
Nick Hadikwa Mwaluko
NICK HADIKWA MWALUKO is a third-culture, non-binary, trans queer American raised in East and central Africa currently living in the United States. Nick was recently awarded the New Visions Fellowship for Black Gender Non-Conforming and Trans Playwrights by the Dramatist Guild of America and National Queer Theater. Nick is a nominated member of the nationally-accredited Playwright Foundations’ RPI, Resident Playwright Initiative. Nick was a member of The Public Theater’s (New York City) Emerging Writers’ Group (EWG), Crowded Fire Writers’ Lab (San Francisco), and countless other residencies. Nick was a dramaturg for the National Conservatory Theater Center (San Francisco). Nick received a B.A. from Columbia University in New York City, graduating Magna Cum Laude (high honors) and was a Point Scholar (largest global LGBTQIA+ scholarship foundation) during Nick’s entire MFA also at Columbia University in New York City. Some of Nick’s award-winning plays include Waafrika 1-2-3, They/Them/Theirs, Silence Is A Sound, Asymmetrical We, Blueprint for a Lesbian Planet, Bluest, Brotherly Love, Good Grief, Trailer Park Tundra, Once A Man Always A Man, Mama Afrika, Life Is About the Kill, Homeless in the Afterlife, Ata, 37, S.T.A.R: Marsha P. Johnson, Jizz, Pence At the Border and others. Nick’s plays have been produced in New York City, New Jersey, Florida, Berkeley, San Francisco, Wisconsin, Paris, South Africa, Italy, Germany and other countries.
Jonathan Norton
Next Narrative Monologue Competition: Contributing Playwright
Jonathan Norton
Jonathan’s work has been produced or developed by Actors Theatre of Louisville/Humana Festival, Dallas Theater Center, PlayPenn, InterAct Theatre Company, Pyramid Theatre Company, Black and Latino Playwrights Conference, Bishop Arts Theatre Center, African American Repertory Theatre, Soul Rep Theatre, the National Performance Network, and NNPN, among others. His play Mississippi G**d*** was a Finalist for the Harold and Mimi Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award and won the 2016 M. Elizabeth Osborn Award given by the American Theatre Critics Association. Other awards include Artistic Innovations Grant from the Mid-America Arts Alliance, SDCC Diaspora Performing Arts Commission, the TACA Family New Works Fund, the TACA Bowdon Family Fdn. Artist Residency Fund, and Jubilee Theatre’s 2019 Eastman Visionary Award.
Kayla Parker
Next Narrative Monologue Competition: Contributing Playwright
Kayla Parker
Kayla Parker (she/her) is a director, writer, and actor. After receiving a B.F.A in acting from Howard University, Parker began her Atlanta career as a directing and acting dual apprentice at Actor’s Express during the 2019-2020 season. Ignited by the pandemic, Parker began creating original narrative projects in 2020, starting with a commissioned work from Theatre Alliance in Washington, D.C. This piece, Either You Got It Or You Don’t, shines a light on the injustices of America’s cash bail system. Parker has also written for two serialized podcast dramas, Crossroads and Tucker’s Cove, both produced by Actor’s Express. In 2021, Parker produced her short film piece, On Being Born as a DK Fellow with Kenny Leon’s True Colors Theatre Company. Most recently, Parker served as a directing observer under Kenny Leon for the world premiere musical, Trading Places at the Alliance.
Psalmayene 24
Next Narrative Monologue Competition: Contributing Playwright
Psalmayene 24
Psalmayene 24 (a.ka. Gregory Morrison) is an award winning playwright, director, and actor. He is currently The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Playwright in Residence at Mosaic Theater and The Doris Duke Artist in-Residence at Studio Theatre. His plays include Les Deux Noirs (2020 Charles MacArthur Award Nomination for Outstanding Original New Play or Musical and Venturous Capital Grant recipient), and The Frederick Douglass Project (six 2019 Helen Hayes Award nominations). He has received commissions from the African Continuum Theater Company, Arena Stage, Imagination Stage, The Kennedy Center, Solas Nua, Mosaic Theater Company, and Theatrical Outfit. Among other awards, the plays of his Hip-Hop Children’s trilogy have earned two development grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, a Walt Disney Corporation grant, and two Helen Hayes Award nominations for Outstanding Production, Theatre for Young Audiences.
Atlese Robinson
Next Narrative Monologue Competition: Contributing Playwright
Atlese Robinson
Atlese Robinson is a writer, performer, director, producer, and the founding artistic director of Ambiance Theatre Company. Hailing from Saint Paul, MN by way of Chicago, IL, Atlese grew up to become a storyteller because of the stories of her elders. Atlese’s most recent works include Queen Mother (Red Eye Theater), Conflicted Hearts (Theatre 45), and Black Wall Street: The Burning of Dreamland Theater (MN Fringe). Atlese is currently earning her MSc in Strategic Marketing at the University of Sussex in Brighton, UK.
Stacey Rose
Next Narrative Monologue Competition: Contributing Playwright
Stacey Rose
Stacey’s work celebrates and explores Blackness, Black identity, Black history, body politics, and the dilemma of life as the “other.” She is a 2019-20 McKnight Fellow, 20-22 Playwrights’ Center Core Writer, 18-19 Goodman Theatre’s Playwrights Unit writer, and member of The Civilians R&D Group. Her play America v. 2.1 won the inaugural Burman New Play Prize and premiered in 2019. America v 2.1 and As Is were featured on the 2019 Kilroys list (Legacy Land, Honorable Mention). She received a 2019 Virginia B. Toulmin Fdn. Womens Commissioning Grant with Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre. Her work has been presented at UNC Charlotte, On Q Productions, NYU Tisch School of the Arts, The Fire This Time Festival, The Brooklyn Generator, The Bushwick Starr Reading Series, Mosaic Theatre, The Amoralists Theatre Company, National Black Theatre, and Pillsbury House Theater.
TyLie Shider
Next Narrative Monologue Competition: Contributing Playwright
TyLie Shider
TyLie Shider is an American writer and the inaugural playwright in residence at ArtYard. A 2022-23 McKnight Fellow in Playwriting at the Playwrights’ Center (PWC), he is a recipient of Premiere Stages’ Liberty Live commission, two consecutive Jerome Fellowships (PWC), and an I Am Soul playwright in residence at the National Black Theatre (NBT). Recent projects include, the fall 2022 NJ premiere of Certain Aspects of Conflict in the Negro Family at Premiere Stages, The Gospel Woman (NBT), Whittier (PWC), and his filmmaking debut Sign O’ the Times. Screenwriting credits include: Truant. He holds a BA in Journalism from Delaware State University and an MFA in Dramatic Writing from NYU. A proud member of the Dramatist Guild, he is currently a Professor of Playwriting at Augsburg University, and a staff writer for Minnesota Playlist.
Dominic Taylor
Next Narrative Monologue Competition: Contributing Playwright
Dominic Taylor
Dominic Taylor is a Los Angeles based writer and director whose work has been seen all over the country. The Goodman Theatre, Steppenwolf Theatre, Ensemble Studio Theatre and New York Theatre Workshop have all commissioned Taylor as a writer. His play, I Wish You Love, premiered at Penumbra Theatre, and was produced at both The Kennedy Center and at Hartford Stage in 2012. Hype Hero was developed at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center in Waterford, Conn., and was produced at Brown University in Fall 2014. His written work includes Wedding Dance and Personal History, both produced at the Kennedy Center by the African Continuum Theatre and published by Playscripts.com. His play Upcity Service(s) is included in the anthology Seven More Different Plays. His next project will be a commercial musical, Selassie, which he will also direct.
Regina Taylor
Next Narrative Monologue Competition: Contributing Playwright
Regina Taylor
Regina Taylor is an actress and playwright. Her credits as a playwright include Oo-Bla-Dee (American Theatre Critics Association New Play Award), Drowning Crow, The Trinity River Plays (2010 Edgerton Foundation New American Play Award), Magnolia, The Dreams of Sarah Breedlove, A Night in Tunisia, Escape from Paradise, Watermelon Rinds, and Inside the Belly of the Beast. Her musical Crowns was the winner of four Washington, D.C. Helen Hayes awards. Taylor also wrote and directed Post Black for New York’s Ensemble Studio Theatre. She is a member and Artistic Associate of the Goodman Theatre and a resident playwright at New York’s Signature Theatre Company. She received the Hope Abelson Artist-in-Residence Award from Northwestern in 2010. Most recently, Taylor both wrote and directed stop. reset. at Signature Theatre Company.
James Anthony Tyler
Next Narrative Monologue Competition: Contributing Playwright
James Anthony Tyler
James Anthony Tyler’s plays include Some Old Black Man (Berkshire Playwrights Lab at St. James Place) All We Need Is Us (Keen Company, currently streaming on all podcast platforms) hop thA A (currently streaming on Audible), Artney Jackson (Williamstown Theatre Festival, 2018 Edgerton Fdn. New Play Award), and Dolphins and Sharks (LAByrinth Theater, Finborough Theatre, London). He’s a 2021-2018 MacDowell Fellow, 2021 Hermitage Artist Resident, 2018 Djerassi Fellow, 2018-2019 Amoralists Wright Club Playwright, 2017-2018 Nashville Rep Ingram New Works Playwright, 2016-2017 Ars Nova Play Group Resident, 2016 Working Farm Playwrights Group Resident at SPACE on Ryder Farm, 2015-2016 Playwrights’ Center Many Voices Fellow, 2014-2015 Dramatists Guild Fellow, and he was a member of Harlem’s Emerging Black Playwrights Group.
Imani Vaughn-Jones
Next Narrative Monologue Competition: Contributing Playwright
Imani Vaughn-Jones
Imani Vaughn-Jones is an actress and writer based in Atlanta, GA. Her 10-minute digital play A Single F*cking Retweet was produced by Purdue University and showcased as part of Coalescence Theatre’s 2021 Black Lives Black Words festival. Her play Well-Intentioned White People has been presented by several theatres including Theatre [Untitled], Hear Me Roar Theatre, and Theatrical Outfit as part of the Graham Martin Unexpected Play Festival. Her screenplay Valencia cleaned up on the festival circuit, with awards and placements including quarterfinalist for the 6th Filmmatic Drama Screenplay Awards, Finalist for the May Independent Short awards, and Best Thriller Screenplay at Festigious Los Angeles. She was named part of the inaugural class of Dihvinely Konnecked Fellows with Kenny Leon’s True Colors Theatre. Her work primarily focuses on the themes of race, power, trust, and relationships. She seeks to both write and perform in works that bring honest yet rarely depicted truths to the stage and screen. imanivaughnjones.com | @imanivaughnjones
Cheryl L. West
Next Narrative Monologue Competition: Contributing Playwright
Cheryl L. West
Cheryl L. West’s plays have been seen on Broadway (Play On.0, Off-Broadway and in England as well as numerous regional theaters. Her plays include: Shout Sister, Shout!; The Watsons Go To Birmingham, 1963; Fannie; Last Stop on Market Street; Akeelah and the Bee; Pullman Porter Blues; Motherhood Out Loud; Addie, an American Girl Story, and Jar the Floor. She has written TV and film projects at Disney, Paramount, MTV Films, Showtime, TNT, HBO, CBS and is the Webby-nominated writer for the original web series Diary of a Single Mom. Ms. West is currently working on commissions for Chicago’s Goodman Theatre, Seattle Rep Theatre, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Chicago Children’s Theater, Minneapolis Children’s Theatre, Seattle Children’s Theatre and UC Santa Barbara’s LAUNCH PAD Program.
Josh Wilder
Next Narrative Monologue Competition: Contributing Playwright
Josh Wilder
Josh Wilder is a playwright and producer from Philadelphia. His work has been developed; commissioned; and produced at theaters and festivals across the country including The Fire This Time Festival, Classical Theatre of Harlem, New York Theatre Workshop, True Colors Theatre Company, The Kennedy Center, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, and Yale Rep. Awards include the Holland New Voices Award, The Lorraine Hansberry Award, The Rosa Parks Award, and The ASCAP Cole Porter Prize. Josh is a former Jerome Fellow and the first national recipient of the Jerome Many Voices Fellowship at The Playwrights’ Center. Currently, he’s stationed in Los Angeles leading the next generation of emerging writers at The Playwrights Workshop; and serves as Artistic Associate at Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor, NY.
Nathan Yungerberg
Next Narrative Monologue Competition: Contributing Playwright
Nathan Yungerberg
Nathan Yungerberg’s plays have been developed or featured by The Cherry Lane Theatre, The Playwrights’ Center, LAByrinth Theater, The National Black Theatre, The Lark, The Fire This Time Festival, and Roundabout Theatre. Esai’s Table was featured in The Cherry Lane Theatre’s 2017 Mentor Project (Mentored by Stephen Adly Guirgis). Highlights: 2021-2024 Core Writer-Playwrights’ Center, 2021-22 Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship, The National Black Theatre of Harlem’s I AM SOUL residency, and 2019 Djerassi Resident Artist. Nathan is a writer for Sesame Street and Live From Mount Olympus, a podcast starring Andre Deshields (co-directed by Rachel Chavkin and Zhailon Levingston). www.nathanyungerberg.com.
