THE PIECE
This ecological drama centers around the frustrations with the inherent inequities of being a person of color in academia, told in conversation with a soundscape of nature and hyperpop. The narrative follows Janey, a Black female Animal Behavior graduate student at UC Davis, as her academic pursuit is routinely disrupted by what seems to be a malevolent and flamboyant force.
In 1890, the first successful flock of European Starlings were released in Central Park. The Starling, which was brought to eat pests and sing its beautiful song, outcompeted the native species. Its song became "disruptive," and after being named the most successful invasive species, US citizens targeted the bird with bounties, firearms, and poisons. Sound familiar?
THE ARTIST
M. D. Schaffer (They/He) is an award-winning, Non-Binary, Ashkenazi, African-American playwright, librettist, lyricist, and Theatre & Horror scholar. They evoke American history, embodying historical and scientific facts to ground narratives that explore, uplift, and empower marginalized experiences in contemporary times. Their previous productions include “A Rodeo Clown” with the Obsidian Theatre Festival & “Drapetomania: A Negro Carol” with the We Will Dream Festival. Their dramatic works have been developed in collaboration with Art House Productions, Lighthouse Ladies LLC, The Classical Theatre of Harlem, New Jersey Play Lab, Fresh Ground Pepper, The Bechdel Project, and the Obie Award-winning Harlem9 Inc.
THE MEXICANS
PLAY DESCRIPTION
In 1965, Singapore became an independent country and needed to form an army; the government's solution was to reach out to Israel, who sent a delegation from the IDF to train the first officers of the Singapore armed forces. To avoid backlash, the public was told that these visitors were agricultural experts from Mexico. The Mexicans investigates the maneuvering that took place behind the scenes in both Singapore and Israel that led to this collaboration, juxtaposing these historic events with the present-day crackdown on pro-Palestine activists in Singapore and elsewhere.
BIO
Jeremy Tiang was awarded an Obie for his bilingual play Salesman之死 (Yangtze Rep/ Connelly and Singapore International Festival of the Arts). Other plays include A Dream of Red Pavilions (Pan Asian Rep) and The Last Days of Limehouse (New Earth), as well as translations of plays by Wei Yu-Chia, Chen Si'an and Zhan Jie. His novel State of Emergency won the Singapore Literature Prize, and he is the translator of over 30 books from Chinese, including the National Book Award-longlisted To the East of the East by Ping Lu. Tiang trained as an actor at Drama Centre London.
THE HYPOCRITES
Synopsis: South Bronx, July 14, 1970. At dawn, members of the Young Lords occupy Lincoln Hospital, a city-run institution so notorious for medical neglect that the community has given it another name: The Butcher Shop. After years of systemic failure, a coalition of radical activists, sympathetic medical workers, and community members decides waiting for change is no longer an option. As the occupiers barricade themselves inside, the threat of an NYPD raid looms. With patients’ lives hanging in the balance and city officials closing in, competing visions of care, power, and liberation collide. Outside, the clock is ticking. Inside, the fight for the community’s future may prove as complicated as the system they seek to dismantle. Inspired by the Young Lords’ historic occupation of Lincoln Hospital, The Hypocrites is a taut, music-driven drama about institutional hypocrisy, radical solidarity, and the audacity of turning a system built to fail a community into an instrument of its survival.
BIO:
MARCUS SCOTT is a dramatist & journalist. Heartbeat Opera commissioned Scott to adapt Beethoven’s FIDELIO (Co-writer; Met Live Arts at the MET Museum, NY Times Critic’s Pick). Selected plays: TUMBLEWEED (2025 Orlando Shakes PlayFest; finalist: BAPF; semifinalist: O’Neill NPC, Blue Ink Award, Princess Grace Award), SIBLING RIVALRIES (2022 Zoetic Stage's Finstrom Festival of New Work at the Adrienne Arsht Center; finalist: Seven Devils, Normal Ave NAPseries, Royer Award; semi-finalist: O’Neill NPC, Princess Grace Award, Blue Ink, Lanford Wilson New American Play Festival), THERE GOES THE NEIGHBORHOOD (finalist: Princess Grace Award, Blue Ink Award; semifinalist: BAPF, Irons in the Fire & O’Neill NPC), VINYL VANGUARD (2024 Step1 R&D Series) and CHERRY BOMB (recipient: Drama League First Stage Artist-In-Residence). Scott is the recipient of the Robert Chelsey/Victor Bumbalo Foundation Award and a 2025 Ryan Hudak LGBTQ+ Dramatic Writing Award
finalist. Other honors include finalist status for the Dramatists Guild Foundation National Fellowship, Many Voices Fellowship, Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab, and NYSAF Founders’ Award. He is a Doric Wilson Independent Playwright Award semifinalist. His extensive residencies include The Helene Wurlitzer Foundation, The Guggenheim (Works & Process), SPACE on Ryder Farm (via Liberation Theatre Co), Art House Productions INKubator, Maria Irene Fornés Workshop, JACK, Goodspeed Opera House, La Maison de Simon (France), The Fire This Time Festival New Works Lab and The Outrage Queer Writers Residency. His cultural criticism appears in Architectural Digest, Time Out New York, American Theatre Magazine, Playbill, Elle, Out, and The Brooklyn Rail. He holds a BFA from State University
College at Buffalo and an MFA from NYU Tisch School of the Arts.
MARCUS SCOTT is a dramatist and journalist. Notable plays include Tumbleweed (2025 Orlando
Shakes PlayFest), Sibling Rivalries, and There Goes the Neighborhood, which have collectively earned
finalist recognition from the O’Neill NPC, Princess Grace Awards, Blue Ink Award, SDNPF and
BAPF. Musical credits include Cherry Bomb and a commissioned adaptation of Beethoven’s Fidelio for
Heartbeat Opera (The Met Museum; NY Times Critic’s Pick). Recent honors include the Robert
Chelsey/Victor Bumbalo Award, a Helene Wurlitzer Foundation Residency, and finalist status for
the 2025 Ryan Hudak LGBTQ+ Award, the Dramatists Guild Foundation National Fellowship, and
the Many Voices Fellowship. MFA: NYU Tisch.
THE DOES
Bio
Sheri Wilner-Deering’s plays have been presented at leading theatres nationally and internationally, including the Guthrie Theater, La Jolla Playhouse, The Old Globe, and Actors Theatre of Louisville’s Humana Festival. Her work has earned the Heideman Award, a Helen Hayes Award nomination, and fellowships from the Howard, Bush, and Jerome Foundations, as well as the Dramatists Guild. Compelled by urgent real-life stories too often overlooked, she has turned to verbatim theatre, with pieces presented at the Donald J. Trump–Jeffrey Epstein Reading Room and the Verbatim Salon. Her plays have been widely published and anthologized. She directs the MFA Playwriting program at Pace University.
Project Description:
The public has been fascinated by Jeffrey Epstein and the powerful figures in his orbit, while showing little curiosity about the girls he abused. The Does shifts that focus.
Drawn entirely from the survivors' own words, as recorded in court transcripts, depositions, and published interviews, The Does is a verbatim docudrama that reveals the false promises, psychological manipulation, and threats used to ensnare the girls, many of whom chose to remain anonymous under the alias Jane Doe.
By placing their voices at the center of the story, The Does challenges the victim-blaming that has long surrounded the Epstein case and reminds us that accountability begins with listening to those who were harmed.
WILD JUSTICE PROJECT
Bio:
Will Dagger has helped develop new work with Ars Nova, Audible, The Civilians, Clubbed Thumb, Ensemble Studio Theatre, MTC, The New Group, New York Theatre Workshop, Primary Stages, The Public Theater, Roundabout, and Second Stage. Acting credits include Good Night, and Good Luck (Broadway), Well, I’ll Let You Go (Studio Seaview), Give Me Carmelita Tropicana (Soho Rep), Corsicana (Playwrights Horizons), Uncle Vanya (O’Henry), and Among The Dead (Ma-Yi). His play not looking for anything special received a workshop in ESTs 2024 Memberfest, and his in-progress play Epitaph for Utopia is under commission with the Sloan Foundation. He also writes songs. www.willdagger.com.
Synopsis:
ISW is a human archive of the Indian Claims Commission, a cross-section of a faltering 32-year experiment in reparative justice.