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PlayPenn 2022

Santiago Tonauac Castro (he-him) is a Latinx-Indigenous maker of plays and sculpture. Santi’s work uplifts the bilingual voices of his community and decolonizes your expectations. Santi’s favorite achievements include being a 2019 Playwriting finalist with YoungArts Foundation, writing for the Kimmel Center’s “Songs We Left Behind”, and being a published poet with Toho Journal, Tilted House and Queerbook. Currently you can find him working with Mural Arts, and the Philadelphia Art Museum!

We Are Not These Hands (PlayPenn, 2005)

Sheila Callaghan’s plays have been produced and developed with Soho Rep, Playwright’s Horizons, Yale Rep, South Coast Repertory, Clubbed Thumb, The LARK, Actor’s Theatre of Louisville, New Georges, The Flea, Woolly Mammoth, Boston Court, and Rattlestick Playwright’s Theatre, among others. Sheila is the recipient of the Princess Grace Award for emerging artists, a Jerome Fellowship from the Playwright’s Center in Minneapolis, a MacDowell Residency, a Cherry Lane Mentorship Fellowship, the Susan Smith Blackburn Award, and the prestigious Whiting Award. Her plays have been produced internationally in New Zealand, Australia, Norway, Germany, Portugal, and the Czech Republic. These include Scab, Crawl Fade To White, Crumble (Lay Me Down, Justin Timberlake), We Are Not These Hands, Dead City, Lascivious Something, Kate Crackernuts, That Pretty Pretty; Or, The Rape Play, Fever/Dream, Everything You Touch, Roadkill Confidential, Elevada, Bed, and Women Laughing Alone With Salad.  She is published with Playscripts.com and Samuel French, and several of her collected works are published with Counterpoint Press. She has taught playwriting at Columbia University, The University of Rochester, The College of New Jersey, Florida State University, and Spalding University. Sheila is an affiliated artist with Clubbed Thumb and a member of the Obie winning playwright’s organization 13P. Sheila is also an alumni of New Dramatists.

In 2010, Callaghan was profiled by Marie Claire as one of “18 Successful Women Who Are Changing the World.” She was also named one of Variety magazine’s “10 Screenwriters to Watch” of 2010. Sheila is currently a writer/producer on the hit Showtime comedy Shameless and a founder of the feminist activist group The Kilroys. She was nominated for a 2016 Golden Globe for her work on the Hulu comedy series Casual and a 2017 WGA Award for her Shameless episode “I Am A Storm.”

Love and Communication (PlayPenn, 2010)

James Christy’s full length plays include: Never Tell: produced Broken Watch Theatre Company, August 2006, published by Playscripts Inc., April 2007; A Great War: Phoenix New Works Conference, July 2010; finalist, 2012 Julie Harris Playwrighting Award; Put Them Away: finalist, New Jersey Playwrights contest from William Paterson University; Love and Communication,  Playpenn Conference, July 2010, produced by Passage Theatre in October 2010, winner, the Brown Martin Barrymore Award in 2011; Egyptian Song: part of the Premiere Stages Play festival in June 2011, National New Play Network in 2012, Great Plains Theatre Conference May 2014. Dissent: Interact Theatre’s 20/20 Development Grant for 2012, semi-finalist Eugene O’Neill conference 2014; Road Theatre Festival, July 2014. At Liberty Hall: commissioned by Premiere Stages, produced October 2014 at Premiere Stages. Short plays: Creep, winner, Actors Theater of Louisville’s Heideman Award for best short play 2001, published in 10 Minute Plays for Two Actors; five other short plays finalists for Heideman Award.

The Rant (PlayPenn, 2007)

Andrew Case is an award-winning playwright and critically-acclaimed novelist. His plays have been produced by the Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago, New Theatre in Miami, InterAct Theatre in Philadelphia, and many more across the country. His work has been commissioned and developed by the Manhattan Theatre Club, the Atlantic Theatre, Primary Stages, the Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center, and many more. He is a member of the Primary Stages Writers Group and PEN America Center, and a winner of the Samuel Goldwyn Award.

Additionally, he is an expert in civilian oversight of police misconduct. His scholarship on police oversight has been published in the Columbia Human Rights Law Review and he has been quoted on police oversight and reform in the New York Times and many other media outlets. He is married to the extraordinary dramaturg and professor Claudia Case and the father of two spirited children. His first novel, the urban thriller The Big Fear, will be published by Thomas and Mercer in April 2016.

410[GONE] (PlayPenn, 2009)

Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig’s plays have been produced at the Royal Shakespeare Company, the National Theatre of Great Britain, Manhattan Theater Club, the Goodman Theatre, Trafalgar Studios 2 [West End], Crowded Fire, Page 73 Productions, Interact Theatre, Borderlands Theatre and the Contemporary American Theatre Festival. Her work has been awarded the Wasserstein Prize, the Yale Drama Series Award, an Edinburgh Fringe First Award, the David A. Callichio Award and the Keene Prize for Literature.

Frances has received artist residencies from Yaddo, Macdowell, Hedgebrook, Ragdale, the Sundance Playwright Retreats at Ucross and Flying Point, and the Santa Fe Art Institute. She has been Playwright-in-Residence at Manhattan Theater Club and Marin Theater Company and is currently under commission from South Coast Rep, the Goodman Theatre and the National Theatre. Her work has been published by Yale University Press, Glimmer Train, Methuen Drama, Samuel French and Dramatists Play Service.

Frances received an MFA in Writing from the James A. Michener Center for Writers at UT Austin, a BA in Sociology from Brown University, and a certificate in Ensemble-Based Physical Theatre from the Dell’Arte International School of Physical Theatre.  She was born in Philadelphia, and raised in Northern Virginia, Okinawa, Taipei and Beijing. Frances is currently an Assistant Professor of Playwriting at UC Santa Barbara.

Welcome to Fear City (PlayPenn, 2017)
Etched in Skin on a Sunlit Night (PlayPenn, 2010)

Kara Lee Corthron’s plays include AliceGraceAnon (New Georges), Holly Down in Heaven (Forum Theatre, DC), Listen for the Light (Know Theatre, Cincinnati 2017), Etched in Skin on a Sunlit Night (PlayPenn, InterAct, Philadelphia) and Welcome to Fear City (Contemporary American Theater Fesival, Kilroys 2016, PlayPenn,). She’s the author of the young-adult novel, The Truth of Right Now, Simon & Schuster 2017. Awards: proud member of New Dramatists, 2012-2014 Women’s Project Time-Warner Fellowship, Vineyard Theatre’s Paula Vogel Playwriting Award, Princess Grace Award, two NEA grants, Helen Merrill Award, Lincoln Center’s Lecomte du Nouy Prize (three-time recipient), four MacDowell fellowships, residencies at Bogliasco Foundation (Italy), Skriðuklaustur (Iceland), Hawthornden (Scotland), and the Millay Colony. TV: NBC’s Kings (2008-2009). Juilliard alumna.

Photo credit: Jody Christopherson

Bobby James (PlayPenn Additional Reading, 2017)
A Scar (PlayPenn, 2014)
Foundry Lead Artist

Anne Marie Cammarato is a playwright and director, whose plays include Hazel, Bobby James, Milk Pie, A Scar, 10 Months, and The Big Room. Her work has been developed at PlayPenn, Theatre Exile, Temple University, University of the Arts and the Resident Ensemble Players. She has worked throughout the country at theatres including Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, Madison Repertory Theater, Theatre X, Milwaukee Repertory Theatre, Renaissance Theatreworks, and Delaware Theatre Company, where she served as Artistic Director for six seasons. Anne Marie studied at North Carolina School of the Arts, New York University, and holds an MFA in Playwriting from Temple University. She was a finalist for the Leah Ryan Fund prize (2015) and has been nominated for/awarded multiple Barrymore Awards for Excellence in Theatre. In 2012, she was the Established Literary Fellow in Playwriting for the State of Delaware. She is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild and the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society. She currently teaches at the University of Delaware and Temple University, and is Playwright in Residence at the University of Mississippi.