Please join us for The Foundry Graduation Showcase of Emerging Philadelphia Playwrights
These writers have spent three years developing plays in close mentorship with Quinn Eli, John Yearley and Michele Volansky, along with Jackie Goldfinger, and Michael Hollinger. At our Showcase, you will see excerpts from their newest plays and celebrate the culminating year of their Foundry membership in a post-Showcase reception.
David Jacobi
David Jacobi’s plays have been performed and developed throughout the U.S. and in China, including Sideshow Theatre, Ojai Playwrights Conference, Portland Center Stage’s JAW Festival, RISK IS THIS, Great Plains Theatre Conference, Kennedy Center MFA Playwright’s Workshop, SLC Playwrights Lab and PlayPenn. He is a winner of the Holland New Voices Award, Kennedy Center Theatre for Young Audiences Award, and Relentless Award semifinalist. David’s play Ready Steady Yeti Go is currently receiving a Rolling World Premiere through NNPN. David was the 2015 Shank Fellow at Pig Iron Theatre Company and is currently an Interact Core Writer and commissioned by South Coast Rep and EST/Sloan. He received a BFA in Dramatic Writing from Purchase College and an MFA from UC San Diego.
Ben Levan
Ben Levan is a Norristown native and graduate of West Chester University with a focus in playwriting and technical theater. He has been living in Philadelphia and working in the theater community since 2013. In addition to writing he serves as the Production Manager for Azuka Theatre and Master Electrician for the Lantern Theater Company. Recent PM credits include: I Am Not My Motherland (Orbiter 3), Brewers Fayre (Tiny Dynamite), Local Girls (Azuka). Recent ME credits include: 36 Views (Lantern Theater Company), Invisible Hand (Theatre Exile), A Fierce Kind of Love (Temple University Institute on Disabilities.)
Erlina Ortiz
Erlina Ortiz is a Dominican-American playwright, performer, and theatre maker from Reading, PA based in Philadelphia. She graduated with a BA in Theatre from Temple University. Her heart-felt and difficult plays on gentrification, domestic violence, and rape culture have been produced with Power Street Theatre Company (PSTC) where she is proud to be resident playwright. Erlina is a member of New Pages, a professional writer’s group with Azuka Theatre Company. She has received the Amtrak Writer’s residency, the Signal Fire Outpost Residency, and her play She Wore Those Shoes had a developmental reading at Theatre Exile’s Studio X-hibition Series in 2016. She has twice been a finalist for the Leeway Transformation Award. In 2018 Erlina’s play Las Mujeres premiered with Power Street Theatre Company to sold out houses and rave reviews picking up a Bonaly Award for Creation of Community Joy, and this spring her play Morir Sonyando was Barrymore Recommended. Up Next: A remounting of Power Street Theatre’s hit show MinorityLand. Erlina believes being an artist is a superpower, she believes in using her powers for good. ‘Thank you to The Foundry for helping me hone my skills, and for the beautiful community that has been created.’
Jenny Ruymann
Jenny Ruymann is a Philadelphia-based writer, performer, and educator, originally hailing from the great state of South Jersey. She is a 2015 graduate from Kenyon College with a degree in Sociology. In her writing, Jenny explores everyday manipulation, connection and its erosion, text messaging, and lesbians. In other words, she writes fan-fiction of her own life. While in Philadelphia, Jenny has worked as a Teaching Artist for the Wilma Theater, a mentor and advisor at Penn Treaty School, and a perennial barista at La Colombe. In addition to being a member of The Foundry, she has been a core writer with Writers on the Rocks, an intern at the Ojai Playwright’s Conference, and most recently a collaborating performer in the forthcoming play – Brian’s House – by Foundry member, Tenara Calem. For her next magic trick, Jenny will be attending law school at Northeastern University in Boston, MA this fall.