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PlayPenn 2022

Ken Kaissar’s plays have been performed or developed by the Philadelphia Theatre Company, Delaware Theatre Company, Phoenix Theatre Company, Fusion Theatre Company, Jewish Repertory Theatre, Urban Stages and Passage Theatre.  His play THE VICTIMS OR WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO DO ABOUT IT (published by McFarland & Company, Inc.) was developed by Golden Thread Productions and Silk Road Rising. His adaptation of Geoffrey Chaucer’s THE CANTERBURY TALES was commissioned by Columbia University. His other plays include A MODEST SUGGESTION (available on Amazon), WEEKEND AT BETTY’S and A LEG UP, which will receive a world premiere at the Bristol Riverside Theatre in September of 2022. Ken holds a BFA in directing from Carnegie Mellon University and an MFA in playwriting from Columbia University. Ken is a co-producing director at the Bristol Riverside Theatre (brtstage.org), and the host of the podcast The Audition Helper available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Wildflower (PlayPenn, 2009)

Lila Rose Kaplan’s play shine light on the stories we don’t tell about women. She writes heartfelt comedies, bittersweet dramas, and musicals for young people. Her plays include Home of the Brave, Jesus Girls, The Magician’s Daughter, 1 2 3 – a play about abandonment and ballroom dancing, We All Fall Down, Wildflower, Bureau of Missing Persons, and Biography of a Constellation. Her musicals for young people include: The Light Princess, The Pirate Princess, and The Magic Fish. Productions include: A.R.T., South Coast Rep, Merrimack Repertory Theatre, New Victory Theatre, Second Stage, San Francisco Playhouse, Neighborhood Productions, Know Theatre, and Perishable Theatre. Development includes: Huntington Theatre, Arena Stage, Kennedy Center, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Center Theatre Group, Theatreworks, PlayPenn, and The Lark. Awards: M.R.T. Artistic Achievement Award, National Science Award in Playwriting and The International Women’s Playwriting Award. Fellowships include: Huntington Playwriting Fellowship, Playwrights’ Realm Writing Fellow, Old Vic/New Voices Exchange, and the Shank Fellowship. Residencies include: New Rep Next Voices, Harvard Business School, and the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics. BA with Honors: Brown University. MFA in Playwriting: UC San Diego. www.lilarose.org

Appetite (PlayPenn, 2009)

Arden Kass is the recipient of two playwriting Fellowships from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. Since the 1990s, her work, ranging from full-length dramas and dance theatre to musical theatre has been seen in Philadelphia, Minneapolis and New York productions and developmental workshops. In 2013 her play Appetite, was developed at Philadelphia’s PlayPenn Conference, and was presented in an industry showcase at the Royal Academy of Arts in London, featuring Tamsin Grieg, Miriam Margolyes and Jason Isaacs. Her short play Guts was a Humana Finalist, Appetite was an O’Neill Center Semi-Finalist, Because was a Red Bull Finalist. She is the author of several full-length screenplays, and with her writing partner Mark Gallini, co-author of numerous television pilots, now in circulation.

Arden’s most recent large-scale artistic venture merges her marketing/communications and theatre backgrounds. School Play, a live documentary theatre play she created with two other theatre artists, focused public attention on the inequity in public school funding and the precarious state of our public education system using a combination of theatrical techniques and promotional strategies. Crafted from over 100 interviews with students, parents, teachers and politicians across Pennsylvania, School Play premiered at the National Constitution Center (April 2015) and toured Pennsylvania in October 2015, garnering extensive media attention and sparking statewide conversations. (www.schoolplaypa.org)

Heavenly Cosmic (PlayPenn, 2015)
Too Much, Too Much, Too Many (PlayPenn, 2012)

Meghan Kennedy’s Napoli, Brooklyn will have its world premiere at the Roundabout Theatre in New York City in 2017 and is the recipient of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation Grant.  Meghan’s play Too Much, Too Much, Too Many (PlayPenn ‘12) premiered at the Roundabout  Underground in 2014 and was published by Dramatists’ Play Service. Meghan is currently under  commission from The Roundabout Theatre Company, Williamstown Theater Festival and The New York State Council of the Arts/New Georges Theater. Her play Light is the winner of the David Calicchio Emerging American Playwright Prize. Meghan’s plays have been produced around the U.S., Ireland and Sweden. She is an alum of Page 73 and Ars Nova Play Group. She is currently a writer for the upcoming TV show, Falling Water (USA). She lives in Brooklyn.