Feelin’ Fresh Festival 2026
December 15, January 5, January 12
‘Tis the season for WP’s Feelin’ Fresh Festival, featuring work by the freshest femme playwrights around – no holiday schmaltz in sight, but there will be Levain cookies and Orchard Hill Cider Tasting! All the readings start at 7pm at WP Theater.
In Her Bones
December 15, 2025
Written by Jessica Kahkoska
Directed by Rebecca Martínez
When a blizzard forces Berkeley freshman Mia to wait out the storm at a rural highway gas station in Southern Colorado, she’s forced to confront a past that she is both fleeing… and seeking out. As Mia shares family memories with store owner Moises to pass the time, another world creeps in– one of shadows, forgotten prayers, and secrets hiding right in plain sight. In Her Bones explores the complicated legacy of crypto-Judaism in the Southwest– illuminating an unlikely, true tale of secrecy, faith, fear, and how we pass on stories when written records are too dangerous to keep.
Run Time: 90 minutes
BOGDONOFF
January 5, 2026
Written by Emma Horwitz
Directed by Leigh Silverman
Francis and Alice walk their dogs off leash in Riverside Park. A play about dying to talk and talking like you’re going to die.
Run time: 90 minutes
You Seem Sad
January 12, 2026
Written by Leah Nanako Winkler
Directed by May Adrales
You Seem Sad weaves post-WWII Nagasaki and early-2000s New York City together through the parallel journeys of Keiko—a young unapologetic atomic-bomb survivor rebuilding her life in 1950s Japan—and Student 1, a half-Japanese twenty-something who is reckoning with her career, love and identity in contemporary America. With humor, brutal honesty, and heart , the play intertwines memory, personal pain and history into a layered portrait of two women shaped by different eras yet bound by a shared search for meaning, connection and the pursuit of survival. A memory play.
Run Time: TBD
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Leah Nanako Winkler
Leah Nanako Winkler (Playwright) is an award-winning playwright and screenwriter from Kamakura, Japan and Lexington, Kentucky. Her plays include Kentucky, God Said This, Two Mile Hollow, Hot Asian Doctor Husband, Thirty-Six, The Brightest Thing in the World, and You Seem Sad. She has received the Yale Drama Series Prize, Mark O’Donnell Award, Jerome New York Fellowship, Francesca Primus Prize, Steinberg Playwright Award, Daryl Roth Creative Spirit Award, Will Glickman Award, Peabody Award. TV credits include Ramy, Love Life, The Summer I Turned Pretty, Schmigadoon! and Elsbeth. Her short film, Get Her Back, which she also directed, was produced by Indian Paintbrush/LuckyChap Entertainment and recently premiered at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival. With lyricist and composer Duncan Sheik, she wrote the musical adaptation of Anno Moyoco’s graphic novel, Memoirs of Amorous Gentleman, which will premiere off-broadway Fall 2027 at The Night Egg, a brand-new venue built inside the Culture Club (the former home of Sleep No More). She is an alumni of Youngblood , Ma Yi Theater Lab, Dorothy Streslin New American Playwrights Group and Ucross/Sundance fellow, WP Lab 2018. She is currently writing the book for Crazy Rich Asians: The Musical! MFA Brooklyn College.
May Adrales
May Adrales (Director) is a director, artistic leader, teacher, and mother who has directed over 40 world premieres. Her work has been seen at notable theaters such as Manhattan Theatre Club, Second Stage, MCC, Yale Rep, Guthrie Theater, Huntington Theater, Signature Theater, Lincoln Center, The Public Theater, WP Theater, New York Theater Workshop, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Seattle Rep, Milwaukee Rep, and South Coast Rep. She has received the Ammerman Award at Arena Stage and Theater Communications Group’s Alan Schneider award. She is also a finalist for the SDCF Zelda Finchandler Award and has held fellowships and artistic positions at numerous prestigious institutions. May currently serves as the Director of the Theatre Program and Assistant Professor at Fordham University. She has also taught at Juilliard, Harvard/ART, ACT, Fordham, NYU, Bard College, Yale School of Drama, and Brown/Trinity MFA program. May holds an MFA from the Yale School of Drama. (www.mayadrales.com)
Rebecca Martinez
Rebecca Martinez (Director) (she/her) is a director who focuses on new plays and musicals and uses adaptation to envision classic plays through a contemporary lens. Recent Off-Broadway credits: Public Theater’s Mobile Unit: Much Ado About Nothing; The Comedy of Errors (also co-adapter; Drama Desk Nomination, Outstanding Adaptation, LATA Awards for Outstanding Adaptation and Theatrical Concept). At WP: Dirty Laundry (WP Theater / Spark Theatricals), Bite Me (WP Theater / Colt Coeur), Sancocho (Latinx Playwrights Circle / Sol Project / WP Theater). Regional projects include: In Her Bones (Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center), Living and Breathing (Two River), Somewhere Over the Border (Syracuse Stage & Geva Theatre). Martínez has directed and developed new work with Signature Theatre, the O’Neill, Latinx Playwrights Circle, the Sol Project, NAMT, INTAR, Working Theater, The Playwrights Realm, among others. Affiliations: member of the Obie Award-winning Sol Project Collective, WP Directors Lab Alum, 2021 TCG Rising Leaders of Color, Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab, INTAR’s Unit52, New Georges Affiliated Artist, Drama League Directing Fellow, member of SDC. Commissions: Artist-in-Residence (Radical Evolution), SEED Directing Commission (Public Theater) Awards: Colorado Henry Award for Directing; four Portland, Oregon Drammy Awards; Lilla Jewel Award for Women Artists. rebeccamartinez.org
Jessica Kahkoska
Jessica Kahkoska (Playwright) is a writer, producer, and dramaturg/researcher for theatre and TV. Theatre projects include WILDFIRE (Commissioned by/World Premiere by the Denver Center for the Performing Arts), STRAWBERRY SEASON (with Tommy Craword, commissioned by/World Premiere by Northern Stage Theatre), IN HER BONES (Commissioned by the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, World Premiere: Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center), LETTERS TO THE PRESIDENT (Goodspeed Musicals, The Cooper Union), AGENT 355 (with Preston Max Allen, New York Stage and Film, Chautauqua Theater Company, Signature Theatre), THE DEATH OF DESERT ROSE (with Elliah Heifetz, Rhinebeck Writers Retreat), and WILD HOME (Notch Theatre Company, NEA ArtWorks Grant). She was the Archival Researcher on GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK on Broadway (written by George Clooney and Grant Heslov), and is under new work commissions by Broadway Licensing, the Alley Theatre, and Hausman & Patino. In TV, Jessica has worked on series on CNN, Netflix, The Discovery Channel, Oxygen, and Max Originals. She has TV projects in development with Lighthouse Pictures, AGC Studios, Fifth Season, XTR, and HappyBad Bungalow. Selected Awards: National Archives Foundation’s Cokie Roberts Women’s History Fellowship, Marion International Fellowship in the Performing Arts, Dramatists Guild Foundation Fellowship. BA: Northwestern. MBA: SUNY New Paltz. www.jessicakahkoska.com
Emma Horwitz
Emma Horwitz (Playwright) is a writer from New York City. Recent productions include: Two Sisters Find a Box of Lesbian Erotica in the Woods (written & performed w/ Bailey Williams, dir. Tara Elliott, w/ Rattlestick Theater and New Georges) and Mary Gets Hers (dir. Josiah Davis, w/ The Playwrights Realm, NYT Critic’s Pick). Page One Resident and Writing Fellow with The Playwrights Realm. Alum of Clubbed Thumb’s Early Career Writers’ Group. Audrey Resident and Affiliated Artist with New Georges. Recent residencies with: The Barn at Lee, North American Cultural Laboratory, the O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, and the William Inge Center for the Arts, among others. Alongside Lucas Baisch, she co-edited 53rd State Press’ The Occasional No. 3. With Bailey Williams, Emma co-hosts & curates The Ecstatic Peephole Play Club at Pete’s Candy’s Store (@ecstaticpeephole). Upcoming: Clubbed Thumb’s Winterworks 2025 w/ Hanna Yurfest. For more, visit: emmahorwitz.com.
Leigh Silverman
Leigh Silverman (Director) has directed over 60 world premiere new plays and musicals including Jump/Cut and Bright Half Life for WP. She received Tony nominations for her direction of the musicals Suffs and Violet and received a 2011 Obie Award and 2019 Obie for Sustained Excellence. Broadway credits: Yellow Face (Roundabout), Suffs (Tony nomination), Grand Horizons, The Lifespan of a Fact, Violet (Tony nomination), Chinglish, Well. Select Off-Broadway: The Seat of Our Pants (Public Theater), Harry Clarke (Audible with the Vineyard (Lortel nom), Minetta Lane, Berkeley Repertory Theater and West End (Ambassadors); The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe (Shed, Taper), Soft Power (Public Theater; Ahmanson Theater/Curran Theater; Drama Desk nomination), Sweet Charity (New Group). Encores: Violet, The Wild Party and Really Rosie. Audible projects include Harry Clarke and Dykes to Watch Out For, which was named Best of Year for Audible and Slate.
