The Pipeline PlayLab, a year-long series of monthly meetings and events, provides a developmental space for playwrights to turn their biggest, wildest ideas into finished plays. Through an extensive application process, we seek out big dreamers who are taking big risks with their plays, we put them all in a room together, we provide structure and support, and we make magic together.
This year, the Pipeline artistic team received applications from over 200 playwrights. We then selected 7 outstanding artists to be in residence with us through June 2018. It is with great admiration and excitement that we now introduce our fifth PlayLab class:
RICK BURKHARDT
Five Hundred
Rick Burkhardt writes and performs plays, songs, and chamber music, often lumped together into odd works for talking drummers and singing newscasters.
About the Project: Five Hundred is a play whose characters may speak only 500 words each, then fall silent forever — a play on economy, equality, and wild workarounds. Learn More
J. JULIAN CHRISTOPHER
Bundle of Sticks
J. Julian Christopher is an internationally produced playwright exploring Queer subculture and otherness.
Julian is returning for a second consecutive year in the PlayLab, and will be serving this season as a mentor to other playwrights in the group.
About the Project: Gay men from across the globe go deep into the outback of Australia for a secret gay conversion therapy retreat, only to be tormented by Ungud, the Aboriginal God of erections. Learn More
AMY GIJSBERS VAN WIJK
feminine octagon
Amy Gijsbers van Wijk is a playwright whose work features all bodies, pronouns, and identities. She thinks of theatre as an art of reclaiming the self.
About the Project: “Do you ever think about becoming a body in the trunk of a car?” feminine octagon feasts on the banal, and the bizarre, the need, and the danger underneath it. Learn More
JAE KRAMISEN
Earth is Greedy
Jae Kramisen is an internationally produced playwright who specializes in experimental drama that utilizes language, sound and light to create a visceral theater experience.
About the Project: A little girl is haunted by a demonic form of the moon, survivors flee to the woods as the cities fall, and the moon has disappeared from the sky. Who can you trust when everything is on fire? Learn More
KAIROS LOONEY
House of Telescopes
Kairos Looney is a New York City based theater artist fascinated with the strange and familiar.
About the Project: House of Telescopes asks how magic works in a rural American town caught between ideologies. Learn More
DIVYA MANGWANI
The Rise of River
Divya Mangwani wanders around in search of stories. Following cute dogs is just part of the job.
About the Project: A fish is in search of a God. Faith is commanded by Godmen. Art is breaking down. As the river Indus rises and falls, so does the world around it. Learn More
MATT MINNICINO
wyrd
Matt Minnicino is a playwright, director, actor, and teacher who would rather extend belief than suspend disbelief.
About the Project: A play about three sisters who aren’t sisters, a city consumed by fear, magic, love, dead gods, fathomless power, why everyone thought 2016 was so awful (but 2017 is worse), and the gaping maw of Hell. Learn More
