The 2022 Pipeline Festival
March 24 - May 14
Returning live and in-person with one production to stream written, directed and produced by Iyvon E., B.J. Evans, Gethsemane Herron-Coward, Chika Ike, Nambi E. Kelley, Kristin Leahey, Haruna Lee, Zizi Majid, Ayana Parker Morrison, Daaimah Mubashshir, Sophiyaa Nayar, Machel Ross, Cynthia J. Tong, Katherine Wilkinson
Want to catch the best new work by the most exciting new artists in town? Wondering where to meet the next generation of incredible Women+ theatermakers? Don’t miss WP’s Pipeline Festival, a unique opportunity to see five new works, created by five collaborative teams from WP Theater’s celebrated two-year Lab residency. The Pipeline Festival gives audiences a unique opportunity to see five new works in various stages of development, ranging from staged readings, to streamed films, to full-length workshop productions – presented over a span of several weeks.
When we say Women+ we mean people who are cis women, trans, non-binary, or gender-nonconforming people, and all gender identities which have been systematically oppressed throughout history in the theater and beyond.
THEY CAME IN THE NIGHT
March 24-26
by Zizi Majid
Directed by Carolyn Cantor
Produced and dramaturged by Kristin Leahey
Lighting Design Liz Schweitzer
Sound Design Caroline Eng
Associate Sound Design Joe DiBernardo
Production Stage Manager Bea Perez-Arche
Featuring Hana Chamoun, Sarah Nina Hayon, and Lameece Issaq
After the sudden death of her mother, Zsa Zsa receives a visitor from Baghdad: an aunt, who served as an interpreter for the U.S. military and has finally been allowed to immigrate to the U.S. They Came in the Night is a distinctive play about a family sifting through the debris of America’s fraught War in Iraq.
ROOM ENOUGH (FOR US ALL)
April 14-16
by Daaimah Mubashshir
Directed by Katherine Wilkinson
Produced by Ayana Parker Morrison
Scenic Design Deilis Curiel
Lighting Design Judy Kagel
Sound Design Caroline Eng
Associate Sound Design Joe DiBernardo
Fatimah, a recently widowed mother, is determined to have it all. In an attempt to set things right by her queer daughter, Jamillah, she invites her to return home after a 10-year absence from the family. Fatimah plans to bring a new progressive Eid Holiday Festival to Masjid Al-Noor, but her son, Abdullah, feels that in order to protect the family legacy, he needs to fight against these changes. Room Enough (For Us All) is an insightful journey into the struggle of one contemporary African-American Muslim family to come together, despite everything trying to tear them apart.
KIN
April 21-23
by Gethsemane Herron-Coward
Directed by Chika Ike
Produced by Cynthia J. Tong
Costume Design Alexis Carrie
Lighting Design Kat C. Zhou
Sound Design Caroline Eng
Fight Choreographer & Intimacy Director: Rocio Mendez
Stage Manager Tyler Danhaus
Associate Sound Design Joe DiBernardo
Assistant Stage Manager Jessica Dell Beni
As GHC’s family members come together to celebrate the return of an imprisoned relative—a son, father, and partner—she reveals her worst secret via the internet. With each click of the keyboard, the ties that bind the family are threatened, as well as the impending reunion. KIN is the first part of a three-part work, and an investigation of the ripple effects of sexual trauma, memory, and the temporality of violence.
PLURAL (LOVE)
May 5-8 (on demand)
by Haruna Lee & Jen Goma
Directed by Sophiyaa Nayar
Produced by B.J. Evans
Director of Photography Helena Gruensteidl
Production Designer Deilis Curiel
Costume Designer Karen Boyer
Editor Kate Freer
First Assistant Director Lauren La Melle
Sound Engineer Mariya Chulichkovoa
Assistant Production Design Katherine Gaunche
Production Assistants Morgaine Gooding-Silverwood, Penzi Hill, Shane Mendoza
With the short film plural (love), Jen Goma and Haruna Lee flirt with the boundaries of desire, power and responsibility, building an environment that feels akin to stepping into a soft BDSM roleplay. Originally inspired by auto-theorists such as Audre Lorde, Maggie Nelson and Roland Barthes, Goma and Lee layer political, cultural, and social theory with their own autobiographical stories, and their own experiences of desire and being desired. Their musings are a pastiche of intricate styles that include pop songs with lyrics by Sartre, femme rituals, live podcast, intimate humor, radical truth-telling, and community engagement.
RE/MEMORI (Of Hair Land & Sea) – Working Title
May 12-14
by Nambi E. Kelley
Directed by Machel Ross
Produced by Iyvon E.
Scenic Design Patricia Marjorie
Lighting Design Cheyenne Sykes
Sound Design and Original Compositions Christopher Darbassie
Production Stage Manager Caren Celine Morris
A powerfully poetic one-woman show, RE/MEMORI (Of Hair Land & Sea) – Working Title asks the questions: Who is the dreamer? Are the ancestors dreaming you, are you dreaming them, or are we dreaming each other? A meditation on how dreams affect consciousness, agency, and personal power in the construction of a Black woman’s understanding of her connection to her ancestors through time. Commissioned by National New Play Network, RE/MEMORI (Of Hair Land & Sea) – Working Title spans American history from slavery to Black Lives Matter through the lens of one family across generations.
Nambi E. Kelley
(WRITER, she/her) Award-winning playwright/actress, was chosen by Toni Morrison to adapt her novel Jazz. Her adaptation of Richard Wright’s Native Son which had its world premiere at Court Theatre has been seen across the country and premiered off-Broadway in 2019 at The Duke on 42nd Street (The Acting Company; AUDELCO Award for “Best Play”). She is currently developing multiple commercial theatre projects and is a former playwright-in-residence at the National Black Theatre, the Goodman Theatre, The Dramatists Guild Fellows Program, and New Victory LabWorks. She is the recipient of the 2020 NNPN annual commission, the Prince Prize 2019, and a Dramatists Guild Foundation Writers Alliance Grant 2018-19. Nambi’s newly formed production company, First Woman LLC, is currently producing a digital and national tour of Nambi’s young audiences’ play, Jabari Dreams of Freedom, directed by Daniel Carlton. Also an executive story editor in television, Nambi served as a writer on Showtime’s “The Chi”, “Our Kind of People” (Fox), and on an Apple Plus show, TBA. She is also in development with several other film and TV projects. www.nambikelley.com
Machel Ross
(DIRECTOR, she/her) is a Dominican-American director and creative collaborator based in NYC, who specializes in the development of new work and aesthetic world building. Regardless of medium, she’s invested in generating rigorous images, in support of framing stories to their fullest potential. She’s developed work with Agnes Borinsky (A Song of Songs), Aziza Barnes (NANA), Daniella De Jesús (Mambo Sauce), Deaf West (“T“), PigPen Theatre Company (Phantom Folktales), Ellen Winter (This House Is your Home), and directed the world premiere of Jeremy O. Harris’ Black Exhibition at The Bushwick Starr. Machel is a 2022 Ars Nova Visionary Resident, and a 2020 Sundance Theater Lab Fellow. BFA-NYU
Iyvon E.
(PRODUCER, she/her) is a Nigerian-American creative producer, dramaturg, and company manager hailing from Brooklyn, NY. She is the Artistic Director of The Parsnip Ship, a radio-play series and platform amplifying underproduced playwrights via audio theater. In addition, she is the Director of Artistic Programs at Signature Theatre (NYC). She is a recipient of the Fulbright International Scholarship and Gilman International Scholarship (both to Italy) and the recipient of the 2019 Mark O’Donnell Prize. Iyvon is an Affiliate Dramaturg with Beehive Dramaturgy Studio. B.A. Brandeis University. M.A. Baruch College (CUNY) Arts Administration. @iamiyvon
Jen Goma
(they/them) is a performer and maker of music, video and live shows, and collaboration is a vital part of their process. A member of the bands A Sunny Day in Glasgow and Roman à Clef, Goma also works in partnership with Obie Award winning writer Haruna Lee. Recently the duo brought their iterative performance piece plural (love) to the Soho Rep. Writer/Director Lab and Goma worked as a composer for Haruna Lee’s Suicide Forest directed by Aya Ogawa (Ma-Yi Theater Company, Bushwick Starr). A frequent collaborator with Ziwe, the two create live performances and are currently working on Ziwe’s eponymous television show. Goma’s 2017 album Smiley Face, released under the moniker Showtime Goma, made with Deerhoof’s Greg Saunier and A Sunny Day in Glasgow bandmates, was placed on Rolling Stone’s list of “Albums to Stream Now” and Showtime Goma’s music and videos have appeared on Playboy, NPR and Pitchfork. Goma has toured frequently, opening for acts like of Montreal, in a piece made with Lou Tides (Teeny Lieberson of the band TEEN.) Goma has been featured in recorded and live collaborations with musicians like Jherek Bischoff and The Pains of Being Pure at Heart. As a member of People Get Ready, Goma worked with Steven Reker, James Rickman and Luke Fasano to mount shows at The Kitchen and New York Live Arts. P.G.R. have also provided live, original music for Jodi Melnick in the Fall For Dance festival and performed at the Crossing Brooklyn Ferry Festival.
Haruna Lee
(they/them) is a non-binary Taiwanese/Japanese/American theater maker, screenwriter, educator and community steward whose work is rooted in a liberation-based healing practice. Recent plays include Suicide Forest published by 53rd State Press (Ma-Yi Theater Company and The Bushwick Starr), plural (love) (Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab; New Georges), and Memory Retrograde (UTR; Ars Nova; BAX). Lee is a recipient of an Obie Award for Playwriting and Conception of Suicide Forest, the Ollie New Play Award, FCA Grants to Artists Award, the Mohr Visiting Artist Fellowship at Stanford University, a MacDowell Fellowship, the Map Fund Grant, and Lotos Foundation Prize for Directing. They were a member of the 2019 artEquity cohort, and is a co-founder and lead facilitator for the Women-Trans-Femme-Non Binary Asian Diasporic Performance Makers Potluck. They are currently writing for HBO Max’s “The Flight Attendant”, as well as teaching the Brooklyn College M.F.A Playwriting Program. Harunalee.com
Sophiyaa Nayar
(DIRECTOR, she/her) is from New Delhi, India. She is an ensemble member with Definition Theatre, member of Director’s Lab Chicago 2017, and was a resident in Milwaukee Rep’s 2017/18 season. She is part of the SDC Foundation’s Observership Class, through which she worked on Soft Power by Jeanine Tesori and David Henry Hwang at The Public. Recent work includes: Good Years by Ada Alozie (Definition Theatre), Being Julia Roberts by Omer Abbas Salem (Jackalope Theatre), MLK Project by Yolanda Androzzo (Writers Theatre), EthiopianAmerica by Sam Kabede (Definition Theatre) which won BTA Awards for Best Play, Featured Actor and Actress and a Jeff award for Fight Choreography. Most recently she directed Shakuntala by Lavina Jadhwani (Future Labs, Goodman Theatre). Currently, she is workshopping a screenplay with Sundance Collab under Jessica Sharzer. Learn more about her on sophiyaanayar.net
B.J. Evans
(PRODUCER, she/her) is the Senior Producer for Performing Arts at BRIC in Brooklyn where she is the manager of the BRIClab Residency Program and producer for BRIC’s theater and dance programs and short-term and long-term performing arts residencies. She has worked with 80+ artists at BRIC across a spectrum of disciplines; from theater and dance, to poetry, non-fiction and visual art. Her creative producing career spans nearly a decade and includes producing and serving in the artistic departments at The Dallas Theater Center, Working Theater, The Public Theater, Our Town (off-Broadway), and Sleep No More. B.J. is also a freelance dramaturg specializing in participatory, experimental, and devised performance, and holds an M.A. in Applied Theatre.
Gethsemane Herron-Coward
(WRITER, she/her) is a playwright from Washington, D.C. She has developed work with JAG Productions, The Hearth, The Fire This Time Festival, The Liberation Theater Company, Roundabout Theatre Company, The Playwright’s Center, Ars Nova, and WP Theater. She is a Resident Artist with Ars Nova’s Play Group, a 2020- 2022 member of the WP Lab, and a 2021-2022 Jerome Fellow at the Playwright’s Center. Additional residencies from VONA and the Millay Colony. Winner of the Columbia@Roundabout Reading Series. Winner of the 45th Samuel French Off-Off Broadway Short Play Festival. Semi-Finalist for the Princess Grace Playwriting Fellowship and the Bay Area Playwrights Festival. Finalist for Space on Ryder Farm’s Creative Residency, the Van Lier New Voices Fellowship at the Lark, and the Founders Award at New York Stage and Film. MFA: Columbia University. Gethsemane splits her time between New York City and Minneapolis, where she is a Proud member of the Dramatist’s Guild. She’s enamored with Sailor Moon and other magical girl warriors. She writes for survivors.
Chika Ike
(DIRECTOR, she/her) is a Brooklyn and Chicago based theatre director and dramaturg with a pull towards intimate epic journeys. Recent productions include Kentucky, A Swell in the Ground (The Gift Theatre); Everybody, Antigone (Atlantic School/ NYU); Dontrell Who Kissed the Sea (First Floor Theatre Company); In the Blood (Red Tape Theatre), and the upcoming premiere of And Certain Women (St. Louis Shakespeare Festival). Currently, she is serving as an associate director for Hadestown (Broadway/ National Tour), as well as the associate director for Spacedogs at MCC and for the upcoming musical Goddess at Berkeley Repertory Theatre. She has worked with The Public Theatre, A.R.T., Playmakers Repertory Theatre Company, Goodman Theatre, Victory Gardens and developed work with The Lark, The Playwrights’ Center, Faultline Theatre, About Face Theatre Company, Chicago Dramatists, and more. Chika is the recipient of the Drama League New York Fellowship, SDCF Gielgud Directing Fellowship, Bret C. Harte Directing Fellowship, and is an alumna of Victory Garden’s Directors Initiative Apprenticeship Program and of the SDCF Observership Class of 2016-17. Currently she is a member of the 2020-2022 WP Theatre Directors Lab. She is an ensemble member of the Gift Theatre. www.chikavike.com
Cynthia J. Tong
PRODUCER, (she/her) is an Asian-American creative producer working across commercial (Broadway and off-Broadway), non-profit, and regional theatre. Her artistic roots are in dance; she spent the first 22 years of her life in the studio. Rich collaborations with artists feed her soul, where process matters as much as product. Cynthia is Associate Producer at Tom Kirdahy Productions (Upcoming: The Piano Lesson with Samuel L. Jackson, Current: Little Shop of Horrors, Past: The Inheritance) and a founding member of The Industry Standard Group, the first BIPOC commercial theatre investment and producing organization. Highlights from past independent producing projects include 600 Highwaymen’s A Thousand Ways (across 18-19 venues nationally and internationally), NYCLU’s Sing Out for Freedom Concert (Town Hall, 2021; Virtual, 2020), Playbill’s Women in Theatre: A Centennial Celebration (Virtual, 2020), LORDES (New Ohio Theatre, 2019), and Noah Wise (independent feature film). Based on her fast talking and walking, most people don’t believe this, but she’s originally from a laid-back sunny beach town called Rancho Palos Verdes in California. She now lives in a place much better suited to her anxieties: New York City. Education: Wesleyan University (B.A., Sociology) @cinnabunny24 // www.cynthiajtong.com
Daaimah Mubashshir
(WRITER, she/her) is a playwright based in Manhattan. She is a recent winner of the Helen Merrill Playwright award, and a Fisher Center Commission for development of a new music play called Emily Black is Total Gift. Daaimah is thrilled to be a part of the Pipeline Festival. Daaimah Mubashshir.com
Katherine Wilkinson
(DIRECTOR, she/her/they/them) is a queer director and writer based in Brooklyn. They are a recent winner of the Opera America Tobin Director-Designer prize and a Visiting Artist at Duke, Rutgers & Arcadia University. This spring, they are directing a new world premiere for La Jolla Playhouse’s WOW Fest. www.katherinewilkinson.com
Ayana Parker Morrison
(PRODUCER, she/her) is a digital and theatrical Creative Producer. After graduating from NYU Tisch School of the Arts with a degree in Acting and a minor in Africana Studies, she shifted her focus to develop new projects that speak to the spectrum of stories from the African Diaspora. Ayana was the inaugural Producing Fellow with New York Theater Workshop’s 2050 Administrative Fellowship. Afterwards, she went on to freelance produce shows throughout New York City. Some of her producing credits include Joan with Colt Coeur, Tender Napalm at HERE Arts Center, Saints of Failure, a solo show performed in Fort Greene’s Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church, and NY Times Critic’s Pick Eureka Day with Colt Coeur. She has also served as Creative Producer at Checkmark Productions for the past two years developing the work of the theater industry’s most exciting emerging artists and is currently the Manager of Artistic Production at MCC Theater.
Zizi Majid
(WRITER, she/her) is a playwright whose plays advocate for a shared humanity. Plays include How to Gild An Eagle (Finalist, Columbia@Roundabout New Play Reading Series; Semi-Finalist, National Playwrights Conference; Semi-Finalist, Athena Project); Return to Fall (Finalist, Blue Ink Playwriting Award; Semi-Finalist, National Playwrights Conference; Semi-Finalist, Bay Area Playwrights Festival); To Raqqa With Love (International Human Rights Arts Festival 2021); Cost (Climate Change Theatre Action Commission 2021); Being in Time (International Human Rights Arts Festival 2019); How Did the Cat Get So Fat? (nominated Best Play, Life! Theatre Awards, Singapore); Yusof (Festival Commission, Pesta Raya, Singapore). For five years, Zizi was the Artistic Director of Teater Ekamatra (Singapore), successfully breaking into the mainstream during her tenure, tripling audiences and garnering multiple awards. She received the Young Artist Award from National Arts Council of Singapore for extraordinary contributions to Singapore theatre. Currently, an Instructor of Drama at Syracuse University she received her MFA from Columbia University, where she was also a fellow of the International Fellows Program at the Columbia School of International and Public Affairs.
Carolyn Cantor
(DIRECTOR, she/her)is thrilled to be back at WP Theater working with Zizi and Kristin on this beautiful play. She is a New York based director of primarily new work for the stage. Off Broadway credits include Sell/Buy/Date, Regrets and Pumpgirl (Manhattan Theatre Club); Indian Summer, Fly By Night, Great God Pan, After the Revolution (Callaway Award), Essential Self Defense (Playwrights Horizons); Arlington (Vineyard); In a Dark Dark House (MCC Theater); Something You Did (Primary Stages); The Talls (Second Stage); Core Values (Ars Nova); Orange Flower Water and Stone Cold Dead Serious (Edge Theater), and EVE-olution (Cherry Lane). Selected Regional credits include: Good Boys (Pasadena Playhouse), Sell Buy Date and Rabbit Hole (Garland Award) and The Violet Hour (Old Globe), After the Revolution, Not Waving and King Stag (Williamstown Theatre Festival), Vera Laughed and Get What You Need (NYS&F), and Diary of Anne Frank (Papermill). Carolyn has received the Boris Sagal and Bill Foeller Fellowships from Williamstown, a Drama League Directing Fellowship and the Seldes-Kanin Fellowship from the Theatre Hall of Fame. She is a graduate of Dartmouth College and the mother of two daughters.
Kristin Leahey
(PRODUCER, she/her) served as the Director of New Works at Seattle Repertory Theatre, and, prior to that post, the Literary Manager at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, among others. She has freelanced as an artist with the O’Neill Theater Center, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Play On Shakespeare, Arizona Theatre Company, Trinity Repertory Theatre, Primary Stages, Classical Stage Company, the Playwrights’ Center, Dallas Theater Center, Denver Center for the Performing Arts, Guthrie Theater, Jungle Theater, Village Theatre, Steppenwolf Theatre, Goodman Theatre, The Lark, The Kennedy Center, The Old Globe, the Indiana Repertory Theatre, Cleveland Play House, Victory Gardens Theater, American Theatre Company, Collaboraction, Rivendell Theatre Ensemble, New Repertory Theatre, Actors’ Shakespeare Project, Galway Arts Festival, Teatro Luna, Teatro Vista (artistic associate), Steep Theatre Company (ensemble), A Red Orchid Theatre, and Shakespeare & Company (Artistic Consultant), among others. She is an Assistant Professor, Dramatic Literature & Dramaturgy at Boston University and holds a Ph.D. from The University of Texas at Austin. She is a 2021 recipient of a Fulbright.
