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Free play readings of bold new work in association with six theatres across Philadelphia July 5 - 20.

July 6
I'll Eat You Whole
Co-Produced by
Philadelphia Theatre Company
Chaz T. Martin

July 6
Talking to Og
Co-Produced by
Philadelphia Theatre Company
Zahra Patterson

July 7
The Company
Co-Produced by
Philadelphia Theatre Company
Lex Thammavong

July 12
July 19
hand foot hand
Co-Produced by
The Wilma Theater
L M Feldman

July 12
July 18
Ama. Egg. Oyá.
Co-Produced by
Power Street Theatre
Lori Felipe-Barkin

July 13
July 20
Harlem Canary
/Tokyo Crow
Co-Produced by
Theatre in the X
Andrew Saito

Seven Playwrights.
Ten Readings.
Five Theatres.
Readings In Four Districts Across the City.
The City of Philadelphia
Plays & Playwrights
For nearly two decades, PlayPenn has been a cornerstone of new play development, providing a vital platform for playwrights to create, collaborate and connect.
Our conference brings bold, boundary pushing new plays to life through public staged readings featuring some of the region’s most exciting playwrights, directors, dramaturgs, actors, stage managers, artists, and producing partners.
Each conference offers audiences a rare behind-the-scenes glimpse into the development journey of new plays in progress. In 2025, that journey features the work of playwrights Lori Felipe-Barkin, L M Feldman, Bee Kanofsky, our first-ever young playwright, Chaz T. Martin, Zahra Patterson, Andrew Saito, and Lex Thammavong as their plays take shape before a live audience.
Our 2025 conference will also extend its reach beyond a single location to bring new plays into communities across four Philadelphia County districts, thanks to a groundbreaking collaboration with InterAct Theatre Company, Philadelphia Theatre Company, Philadelphia Young Playwrights, PlayPenn, Power Street Theatre, Theatre in the X, and the Wilma Theater. The collaborative aims to foster greater sustainability in the arts by sharing resources and expanding audiences.
Our conference will feature one Young Playwright reading, three Foundry First Spark readings, and three Resident Playwright readings.

Ama. Egg. Oyá.
by Lori Felipe-Barkin
Directed by Erlina Ortiz
Dramaturg: Aly Gonzalez
Resident Playwright Reading presented in partnership with Power Street Theatre
Ama. Egg. Oyá. follows Ama, a determined woman in Hialeah, Florida, on her relentless journey to motherhood. Weaving together Santería, the pulse of modern-day Miami, and the rich rhythms of Cuban culture, this powerful story explores infertility, faith, and the deep longing for creation.
Lori Felipe-Barkin is a playwright, performer and voiceover artist based out of NYC and Miami who works in English and Spanish. She is the Page 73 Fellow for 2025 and is part of their 2025 Writers Group. Flor Underwater, her three-act play, received a developmental reading at The Flea. It was also selected for the 2020 Play Penn New Play Conference, received an Honorable Mention for the 2021 Terrence McNally Award, and was a finalist for the 2023 Risk Theatre Award, the 2023 Austin Film Festival Playwriting Competition, and the 2024 Royer Award. She has had play readings at Playwrights Horizons for Out There in the West, and at INTAR Theatre and Iati Theater for Ama. Egg. Oy Her short play, The Peepholeman, premiered at BAM as part of the 2024 Weasel Festival. She holds an MFA in playwriting from Brooklyn College.

Field of Flowers
by Bee Kanofsky
Directed by James Kern
Dramaturg: Madeline Charne
Young Playwright Reading presented in Partnership with Philadelphia Young Playwrights
An artist, two friends, and a dream. In Arles, France, Vincent van Gogh seeks connection through his art, while Paul Gauguin hopes a creative revival will lead him to Tahiti. When Vincent’s brother Theo brings them together, sparks fly, forging a new connection as their art is tested and possibly shattered.
Bee Kanofsky is a Jewish, Transfeminine, and Queer literary artist. She makes work that expresses her lifelong searching for community, connection, and an understanding of the past. She has been a multi-award nominated and winning experimental poet, librettist, filmmaker, and playwright. She has had her plays presented at the O’Neill Theatre Center in Connecticut for two consecutive years, the TADA! Theatre in New York City for her play Being Seen, the Randall Theatre in Philadelphia for her play Painted Peppers, and now the Drake Theatre in Philadelphia for Fields of Flowers.
She has also collaborated on musical theatre songs for her friend’s musical animated series, Der Schwarzwald in addition to a musical adaptation of Painted Peppers, a Harriet Tubman musical, among other musical projects.
She has also been featured in multiple collections of poetry including RUCKUS magazine, Echoes Down the Stairwell, and The Performer Charter Arts newspaper, international and local film festivals, musical-writing competitions for the National American Musical Theatre Alliance, and as her class’s graduation speaker for 2025. When she’s not writing she loves to take walks with her dad and collects walking sticks along the way. Bee lives with her family and her two cats Horchata and Mochi.
She graduated Lehigh Valley Charter Arts this school year and she is going to attend Bard College in the fall.

Hand Foot Hand
by L M Feldman
Directed by MK Tuomanen
Dramaturg: Kellie Mecleary
Resident Playwright Reading presented in Partnership with Wilma Theater
An intimate and raw portrait of three aging aerialists navigating love, loss, and the uncertainty of mid-career artistry when their bodies and futures are no longer defined by their past feats.
L Feldman is a queer, feminist, GNC playwright, professor, and circus artist. They make work that is brave, kinetic, epic, and intimate. L has been nominated for the Herb Alpert Award, Wasserstein Prize, Steinberg Award, Blackburn Prize, and New York Innovative Theatre Award. They’re ongoingly grateful to have been an alum of the Yale School of Drama, an Orbiter 3 member, a New Georges Affiliated Artist, a Shakespeare’s New Contemporaries winner, a Playwrights’ Center Core Writer, and currently a Venturous Playwright Fellow. Their body of work can be found at www.laurenfeldman.com or www.newplayexchange.org

Harlem Canary/Tokyo Crow
by Andrew Saito
Directed by Cat Ramirez
Dramaturg: Autumn Storm Blalock
Resident Playwright Reading presented in Partnership with Theatre in the X
A satirical comedy about WWII’s “Negro Propaganda Operations,” in which captured African American POWs were forced to record radio plays contrasting Japan’s supposed racial freedoms with the brutal realities of racism in the U.S.
Andrew Saito was Mellon Resident Playwright at Cutting Ball Theater, has had multiple productions, and is commissioned by Asian Arts Initiative and Montalvo Arts Center to write and develop Harlem Canary/Tokyo Crow, with support from NPN, MAP Fund, the NEA, Playwrights Foundation, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, and PlayPenn. He has developed plays with Crowded Fire, the Playwrights Center, East West Players, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, etc. He graduated from the Paramount Writers Mentoring Program, and staffed on The Lost Symbol. He received his MFA from The Iowa Playwrights Workshop.

I'll Eat You Whole
by Chaz T. Martin
Directed by Jessica Holt
Dramaturg: L M Feldman
Foundry First Spark Reading presented in Partnership with Philadelphia Theater Company
Bestselling author Caro X. Wilson returns to her alma mater to discuss her hit debut novel—only to face the woman who inspired it, furious and uninvited. As tensions rise in Caro’s hotel room, the two confront the past they share and the reckoning it demands.
Chaz T. Martin is a playwright, screenwriter, and dramaturg. They graduated from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts with a BFA in Drama, where they were first exposed to the sheer terror of having their scripts not only read aloud, but performed in front of people. It went well. Their short script, Melissa, was one of five projects selected for Tribeca Film Institutes’s Through Her Lens program in 2019, and is currently in development as a feature. They are currently based in Philadelphia, where they’re the Literary Manager for InterAct Theatre Company and a member of The Foundry at PlayPenn in the 2022-25 cohort.

Talking to Og
by Zahra Patterson
Directed by C. Ryanne Domingues
Dramaturg: Kimmika Williams-Witherspoon
Foundry First Spark Reading presented in Partnership with Philadelphia Theater Company
Talking to Og is a political farce about activists fighting to shut down an anti-empathy factory. When protester Dora Mack is arrested, they strike a deal with the resistance and become key to the movement—all with help from their pet iguana and two trusty thumbs.
Zahra Patterson is the author of Chronology (Ugly Duckling Presse), winner of a Lambda Literary Award. Their work can be found in The Yale Review, Wasafiri, Belladonna’s chaplet series, and elsewhere. Her work has been supported by the Community of Literary Magazines and Presses, Mount Tremper Arts, Brooklyn Arts Council, The Pratt Center, and many individuals.

The Company
by Lex Thammavong
Directed by Brett Robinson
Dramaturg: Walter Bilderback
Foundry First Spark Reading presented in Partnership with Philadelphia Theater Company
In City X, a biotech giant threatens to consume homes, businesses, and lives. When it targets the last indie bookstore, activist Ash must rally their neighbors to fight back before it’s too late.
Lex Thammavong (they/she) is a playwright and singing actor with a BFA in Musical Theatre with a minor in Creative Writing from the University of the Arts. They're so excited to graduate from The Foundry! They're also a graduate and co-facilitator of PAPA Playwrights Project, a member of Delaware Shakespeare’s Artistic Squad, and have performed at various theaters in Philly and Delco. As a multidisciplinary artist, Lex loves telling provocative, cerebral, and darkly funny stories that push conventions of form.
Tickets
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The Process
In a groundbreaking expansion of our traditional format, this year’s conference will stretch across four Philadelphia County districts, thanks to an unprecedented collaboration between PlayPenn and InterAct Theatre Company, Philadelphia Theatre Company, Philadelphia Young Playwrights, Power Street Theatre, Theatre in the X, and The Wilma Theater.
Together, our cohort aims to foster greater sustainability in the arts by sharing resources, expanding audiences and taking bold new work directly into communities.
Saturday, July 5, 2025 — 7:00 PM
Field of Flowers by Bee Kanofsky
The Proscenium Theatre at The Drake
Sunday, July 6, 2025 — 1:00 PM
I'll Eat You Whole by Chaz T. Martin
Second Floor Studio at The Suzanne Roberts Theatre
Sunday, July 6, 2025 — 7:00 PM
Talking to Og, or How Dora Mack Staved Off The Apocalypse With A Poem by Zahra Patterson
Second Floor Studio at The Suzanne Roberts Theatre
Monday, July 7, 2025 — 7:00 PM
The Company by Lex Thammavong
Second Floor Studio at The Suzanne Roberts Theatre
Saturday July 12, 2025 — 2:00 PM
hand foot hand by L M Feldman
The Wilma Theater
Saturday, July 12, 2025 — 7:00 PM
Ama. Egg. Oyá. by Lori Felipe-Barkin
Esperanza Health Center's CORE Building
Sunday, July 13, 2025 — 7:00 PM
Harlem Canary/Tokyo Crow by Andrew Saito
Painted Bride Art Center
Friday, July 18, 2025 — 7:00 PM
Ama. Egg. Oyá. by Lori Felipe-Barkin
The Proscenium Theatre at The Drake
Saturday, July 19, 2025 — 7:00 PM
hand foot hand by L M Feldman
The Proscenium Theatre at The Drake
Sunday, July 20, 2025 — 2:00 PM
Harlem Canary/Tokyo Crow by Andrew Saito
The Proscenium Theatre at The DrakeVenue Address:
The Proscenium Theatre at The Drake
302 S. Hicks Street, Philadelphia, PA 19102
Saturday, July 5, 2025 — 7:00 PM:
Field of Flowers by Bee Kanofsky
Directed by James Kern
Dramaturg: Madeline Charne
Co-Produced with: Philadelphia Young Playwrights
Transit:
Broad Street Line (Subway):
Exit at Walnut–Locust Station.
Walk west on Spruce Street, then turn left on Hicks Street.
Bus Routes:
9, 12, 21, 42, 45. Exit near Broad and Spruce or Locust.
Regional Rail:
Exit at Suburban Station.
Walk approximately 12 minutes or transfer to the Broad Street Line at City Hall.
Trolley:
Exit at 15th Street. Transfer to Broad Street Line or walk south on Broad Street to Spruce, then west to Hicks.
Venue Address:
Second Floor Studio at The Suzanne Roberts Theatre
480 S Broad St, Philadelphia, PA 19146
Sunday, July 6, 2025 — 1:00 PM
I'll Eat You Whole by Chaz T. Martin
Directed by Jessica Holt
Dramaturg: L M Feldman
Co-Produced with: Philadelphia Theatre Company
Sunday, July 6, 2025 — 7:00 PM
Talking to Og, or How Dora Mack Staved Off The Apocalypse With A Poem by Zahra Patterson
Directed by C. Ryanne Domingues
Dramaturg: Kimmika Williams-Witherspoon
Co-Produced with: Philadelphia Theatre Company
Monday, July 7, 2025 — 7:00 PM
The Company by Lex Thammavong
Directed by Brett Robinson
Dramaturg: Walter Bilderback
Co-Produced with: Philadelphia Theatre Company
Transit:
Broad Street Line (Subway):
Exit at Lombard–South Station. Walk two minutes north on Broad Street.
Bus Routes:
4 and 27 on Broad Street, 40 on South Street.
Regional Rail:
Exit at Suburban Station. Walk approximately 15 minutes or transfer to the Broad Street Line.
Trolley:
Exit at 15th Street. Transfer to Broad Street Line at City Hall.
July 12, 2025 — 2:00 PM
hand foot hand by L M Feldman
Directed by MK TuomanenDramaturg: Kellie Mecleary
Co-Produced with: The Wilma TheaterThe Wilma Theater
265 S Broad St, Philadelphia, PA 19107
Esperanza Health Center's CORE Building
4417 N. 6th Street, Philadelphia, PA 19140
July 12, 2025 — 7:00 PM
Ama. Egg. Oyá. by Lori Felipe-Barkin
Directed by Erlina Ortiz
Dramaturg: Aly Gonzalez
Co-Produced with: Power Street Theatre
Painted Bride Art Center
5212 Market Street, Philadelphia, PA 19139
July 13, 2025 — 7:00 PM
Harlem Canary/Tokyo Crow by Andrew Saito
Directed by Cat Ramirez
Dramaturg: Autumn Storm Blalock
Co-Produced with: Theatre in the X
The Proscenium Theatre at The Drake
302 S. Hicks Street, Philadelphia, PA 19102
July 5, 2025 — 7:00 PM
Field of Flowers by Bee Kanofsky
Directed by James Kern
Dramaturg: Madeline Charne
Co-Produced with: Philadelphia Young Playwrights
July 18, 2025 — 7:00 PM
Ama. Egg. Oyá. by Lori Felipe-Barkin
Directed by Erlina Ortiz
Dramaturg: Aly Gonzalez
Co-Produced with: Power Street Theatre
July 19, 2025 — 7:00 PM
hand foot hand by L M Feldman
Directed by MK Tuomanen
Dramaturg: Kellie Mecleary
Co-Produced with: The Wilma Theater
July 20, 2025 — 2:00 PM
Harlem Canary/Tokyo Crow by Andrew Saito
Directed by Cat Ramirez
Dramaturg: Autumn Storm Blalock
Co-Produced with: Theatre in the X
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