Mission and History
In 1991 Laura Maria Censabella gathered a group of like-minded writers to form the Ensemble Studio Theatre Playwrights Unit.  The group provides a safe and supportive haven for professional playwrights to read and critique their new plays.  In addition, the Playwrights Unit has served as an incubator of new work in film, television and fiction.  Current member playwrights are NYFA, NEA, Guggenheim, Obie, Emmy and Writers Guild Award winners.

Critically-acclaimed works that have been developed in the Unit include: String Fever (Ensemble Studio Theatre); Flight (Ensemble Studio Theatre); Klonsky and Schwartz (Ensemble Studio Theatre); Serendib (Ensemble Studio Theatre); The Joy Luck Club (Long Wharf); Julie Johnson (Actors Theater of Louisville); The Adventures of Amy Bock (Yale Rep); Love's Fowl (NY Theatre Workshop); Beggars in the House of Plenty (Manhattan Theatre Club); Four Dogs and a Bone (Manhattan Theatre Club); Psychoanalysis Sexualis (Manhattan Theatre Club); Cellini (Second Stage); Honour (Broadway); Baby Anger (Playwrights Horizons); An Ocean in Iowa (Scribner Books); and The Basketball Diaries (Island Pictures/New Line Cinema).

Playwrights Unit Membership
The Playwrights Unit is open to all EST member writers who can make the commitment to meet each Monday evening.  Interested EST playwrights may join a waiting list by contacting us at pwunit@gmail.com. Non-members of EST are occasionally voted into the group by invitation only.

Due to space limitations, the group is not accepting new members at this time.

Submissions
The Ensemble Studio Theatre Playwrights Unit does not accept or read submitted scripts.

Active Member Playwrights
Click on "[+]" next to each playwright's name to expand biographical content.  You must have Javascript turned on.

Gina Barnett [−] Plays: A Scream; After All; Donna Morelli; Stuff,; T for 2; Blood Bond, The Pursuit of Happiness, Four Play, Thank you M'am; Alone at Last!; Call Girls, Making Meat Loaf; Tryst and Shout. TV: In The Heat of the Night, Bergen Binnen Awards: Kaufman and Hart New American Comedies, finalist; JR Humphries Award; TheatreFest Regional; 2-time finalist, Heidemann Award. Published: Vintage, Applause, Smith and Kraus, Klett Verlag, Workman. Member: WGA East, Dramatists Guild, EST	Jonathan Bernstein [−] Jonathan Bernstein’s plays have been produced all over the country & he is currently at work writing a musical with Sarah Schlesinger and Mike Reid entitled In This House (licensed by TRW Theatrical Rights Worldwide) as well as completing a new commissioned romantic farce called For The Love Of Pete. Directing credits include work at Naked Angels, Williamstown Theatre Festival, New York Stage & Film, Signature Theatre, Ensemble Studio Theatre & many others.
Suzanne Bradbeer [−] Awards: NYFA, Berrilla Kerr, Dayton Playhouse FutureFest, Jane Chambers Honorable Mention, Heideman Finalist. Full Bloom; Bethlehem, Pa; and Sometimes Romeo Is Sad are all published by Smith & Kraus. Productions and support from: Barrington Stage, Main Street Theater, City Theater of Miami, Dreamcatcher Rep, Hudson Stage, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, the Fire Dept., Vital Theater Company, Relentless Theater Co, Six Figures, the New Harmony Project, New River Dramatists, the Lark, Actors Studio, BMI Workshop.	Jennifer Camp [−] Jennifer Camp’s plays include Natural History (Walnut Street Theater, Shadowland Theatre, Todd Mountain Theatre Project, University of South Dakota); The Lake Effect (commissioned by Cuyahoga Community College, finalist at Abingdon Theatre for Christopher Brain Wolk Award); Key West (The Lark, Miranda Theatre); Pilgrim's Way (NYU/Manhattan Theatre Source). Published in Samuel French’s “Off-Off Broadway Festival Plays – Twenty-Ninth Series.” Screenplay Mary Read finalist for Chesterfield Film Fellowship (sponsored by Paramount Pictures). MFA: NYU/Tisch School of the Arts.
Laura Maria Censabella [−] Laura's plays include: Three Italian Women, Abandoned in Queens, Posing, Jazz Wives Jazz Lives, The Actual Footage and Some Girls. She is a three-time participant in the O'Neill Playwrights Conference, is a recipient of The Geri Ashur Award in Screenwriting, two NYFA grants in Playwriting, the Tennessee Chapbook Prize for Drama, and two Emmy Awards. Her half-hour film Last Call has screened in festivals throughout the world and is available on Netflix. She is a graduate of Yale and a member of EST.  contact: Elaine Devlin Literary at edevlinbei@aol.com	Elizabeth Diggs [−] Playspublished and/or  produced off-Bway, off-off, regional, UK, Europe: Priceless, How To Plant A Rose, Nightingale, Close Ties, Goodbye Freddy, American Beef, Dumping Ground, Algae, Hunting Season. Musical: Mirette (with Tom Jones & Harvey Schmidt). Plays In Progress: The Gospel Of Victoria, Mother/Daughter/Mother, Custer’s Luck. TV: St. Elsewhere Awards/Honors: Guggenheim & NEA playwriting grants, Los Angeles DramaLogue award (best play), CBS/FDG prize, Kennedy Center - Fund for New American Plays. Prof. of Dramatic Writing at Tisch/NYU. Memberships: Ensemble Studio Theatre, Dramatists Guild, PEN. Graduate of Brown.
Jeanne Dorsey [−] Plays: Footprints in the Snow (finalist - Playwrights First Award), The Soul Savers, The Longbottom Way (Apartment A Theatre in L.A.), Too Small to Drive (The Play Group), Compliments to Amanda (Gilgamesh Theatre, finalist - Heidemann Award), Stepping Out with Mr. Markham (New Georges), Gideon and Josephine and At the Movies with Vera and Vivian Vigilante (Westbank Café); published by Smith and Krauss, Heinemann Press; three time fellow at Virginia Center for the Creative Arts; graduate of Bennington College and Trinity Rep Conservatory; EST member.	Bruce Ellman [−] As a writer, teacher and sound designer, Bruce Ellman’s career spans 30 years. His plays have been seen at EST and other local venues. He’s an adjunct faculty member of the New York City College of Technology. His sound design credits range from Broadway – Absurd Person Singular and The Tale of The Allergist’s Wife – to Off-Broadway and Regional – Comic Potential (Drama Desk nomination) and Fully Committed (­­­Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award nomination).
Annie Evans [−] Annie Evans' plays have been produced at such theatres as Actors Theatre of Louisville, Manhattan Class Company, NYS&F Company, Circle Repertory Company Lab and The National Playwrights Conference, among others. Her plays are published by Samuel French and Heinemann Press. She has written on television shows for PBS, Disney Channel, Nickelodeon, Animal Planet, Noggin, Granada Television and Cartoon Network. She currently writes for Sesame Street (6 Emmy Awards, Aurora Award). Her recent anthology is available at Funnygirlscopingwithboys.com	Jim Farrell [−] Plays: Here and There; Old Times, Good Times; In the Recovery Lounge; Bing and Walker; Migrant Moon; Donnie; Djibouti; Purple Haze; Black & White & Blue All Over; Flying Blind; Correspondence; A Believer in Those Things Which Cannot Be Proven to Be True; and Transplant. Produced at Circle Rep; South Coast Repertory; Northlight; Cleveland Playhouse; Jewish Repertory Theatre; Seattle Public; Riverside Church, among others. Member: Dramatists Guild, Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas.
Kevin Fisher [−] Kevin Fisher's plays have been performed at Ensemble Studio Theatre, Naked Angels, Adobe Theatre and Westbeth Theatre in New York. His screenplay Under My Skin won the 1995 Independent Feature Project screenwriting award. His comic monologues have been performed in comedy clubs, published by Smith & Kraus, printed as New York Times Op-Ed pieces, produced together as the show Legal Alien, and are currently being recorded for radio. His play Monkey Room, developed under a Sloan Foundation grant through EST will be produced at the Magic Theatre in San Francisco in 2008.	Adam Forgash [−] Adam wrote and produced the feature film Everything Put Together, which showed at the dramatic competition at Sundance and was nominated for two Independent Spirit awards. He was resident at Performing Arts Labs Ltd. in Kent, UK—mentored by Stephen Frears, and Ian Rickson. He has adapted screenplays based on stories by Michael Chabon and Ira Levin. His current project: writer and producer for the forthcoming feature film, The Last New Yorker.
Joe Gilford [−] Joe Gilford's plays have been produced at Todd Mountain Theater Project and E.S.T./Los Angeles. Other plays have been produced at a lot of other theaters. He's written screenplays and TV episodes too. He’s produced TV documentaries, winning a New York Emmy for his work on Channel 13’s “City Arts” series. He has taught screenwriting at NYU's Film & TV Dept. since 1999. He has been active at EST since 1973 and a member since 1982.	Graeme Gillis [−] Graeme Gillis is from Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. He has been produced at EST in Youngblood and in the Marathon of One-Act Plays. His plays have been published by Dramatists Play Service and in Applause Books' Best American Short Plays Anthology. He is a member of the Actors Studio and of EST.
Arthur Giron [−] Plays: Edith Stein, Becoming Memories, Flight, Moving Bodies, Emilie's Voltaire: A Love Story, The Coffee Trees, Boy Dies Dancing Mambo (aka Money), Love And Murder, A Dream Of Wealth, Scout's Honor (aka Dirty Jokes), Innocent Pleasures, Charley Bacon And His Family, and Memories Of Our Women. Opera: The Golded Guitar. Screenplay: The Deed. He is a founding member of EST.	Bryan Goluboff [−] Bryan Goluboff's plays include Big Al, My Side Of The Story, In-Betweens and Shyster. He wrote the screenplay for The Basketball Diaries and is among the writers on K-Pax, Above The Rim and HBO's Emmy Award winning Something The Lord Made, among others. This season he was on staff for Spike TV's The Kill Point and wrote ten episodes of HBO's upcoming drama series In Treatment. He is currently developing Ice, a one hour drama for NBC and director Antoine Fuqua.
Wendy Hammond [−] Wendy Hammond's plays include Road Rage and Family Life: Three Brutal Comedies, produced in New York City, regional theatres, London Fringe, Tel Aviv, Singapore and Rome. Her produced screenplays are Julie Johnson and A Beautiful Life now in post-production. Ms. Hammond has taught playwriting and screenwriting in several universities, currently at Brown. Grants: NEA, NYFA, McKnight. Degrees: MFA from NYU, M.Div. from Yale Divinity School. She lives with her beloved husband and son in Connecticut.	Jeremy Kareken [−] William Inge, EST Next Step and Walter Dakin Fellowships. Guthrie/ Playwrights Center Two-Headed Challenge for The Sweet Sweet Motherhood. Three time nominee,  Heidemann award; won Hamptons International Film Festival's Screenwriters' Conference. His plays have been performed regionally, in New York and internationally. TV: The Researcher for Bravo's Inside the Actors Studio. BA: University of Chicago. MFA: Actors Studio Drama School. Member, the Actors Studio contact: Elaine Devlin Literary at edevlinbei@aol.com
Susan Kim [−] Plays: The Joy Luck Club (Pan Asian). Merlin's Apprentice (score: Matthew Ward & Stephen Cole) Walden Family Playhouse. The Arrangement (Ohio); Where It Came From (O'Neill NPC). One-acts: Memento Mori (Smith & Krauss), Pandora, Dreamtime for Alice (Farrar Strauss, DPS), Rapid Eye Movement, Seventh Word Four Syllables, Death and the Maiden. TV documentaries: Paving the Way (PBS, WGA Award), Imaginary Witness: Hollywood & the Holocaust (AMC), The Meaning of Food (PBS). Graphic novels (w/Laurence Klavan): Germantown, Fielding Course (First Second Books).	Romulus Linney [−] Romulus Linney is the author of three novels, many stories, and forty plays, produced throughout the United States and abroad. He is a member of The Ensemble Studio Theatre and the American Academy of Arts and Letters, which gave him its Award in Literature and its Award of Merit Medal for Drama.
Julie McKee [−] Julie began her writing career at EST with Ron’s Garden. This was followed by Invitation to a Funeral, A Backward Glance, The 'Far-Flung', and A Farewell To Mum (EST Marathons); The Adventures of Amy Bock, Yale Rep; Play By Ear directed by Pamela Berlin, HBPF; Free Ascent, nominated for Susan Smith Blackburn Prize; Get It While You Can, Yale Summer Cabaret; EST/Sloan Foundation commissioned Fringe Benefits, and most recently The Sleeper Awakens, nominated for the L. Arnold Weisberger Award. www.juliemckee.org	Cassandra Medley [−] Grants: New York Foundation for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, National Endowment for the Arts. Finalist: Susan Smith Blackburn Award in Playwriting, Eugene O'Neill National Playwrights Conference. Awards: New Professional Theatre Award, Marilyn Simpson Award. Teaching: University of Iowa Playwrights Workshop, Columbia University, Vanderbilt, William and Mary College, Sarah Lawrence College and NYU. TV: ABC-TV’s One Life to Live. Member, Ensemble Studio Theatre and Playwrights Workshop of Healing Springs.
Tim Pinckney [−] Plays: Message to Michael, produced by Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre, A Perfect Blendship, First Refusal, Ever So Humble and To Get to the Other Side. Broadway concert adaptations: On the Twentieth Century, Hair, Chess and Funny Girl. Liner notes for the Special Limited Edition CD/DVD of Chicago. Other: Advisory board of The Fred Ebb Foundation, contributing writer to Passport Magazine. Originally from Auburn, New York, is a member of the BMI Librettist Workshop and The Dramatists Guild.	Jacquelyn Reingold [−] Plays include: String Fever, A Story About A Girl, Acapulco, Girl Gone, Dear Kenneth Blake, Tunnel of Love, Freeze Tag, seen in New York, Los Angeles, theatres across the country, London, Hong Kong, and Belgrade. Awards include: 2006 NYFA, EST/Sloan Foundation Commissions, Kennedy Center‘s Fund for New American Plays Roger Stevens Award. Published: Things Between Us, Women Playwrights: The Best Plays 2003, Best American Short Plays. Writes for Law and Order: Criminal Intent. MFA, Ohio University. www.jacquelynreingold.com.
Randee Smith [−] Randee Smith has been an active member of Ensemble Studio Theatre since 1985. Her most recent credits include a production of Windowshine in Summer Shorts 2007 at 59 E 59, which was also a finalist in the Attic Theatre’s 2005 One Act Marathon. Her play Mom, won the 2004 Virginia Liebeler Award sponsored by the National League of American Pen Women. She has been an Arts & Educational Director for over 25 years.	Susan J. Vitucci [−] Susan J. Vitucci is librettist/ director/ puppet designer/ performer of the puppet operetta Love's Fowl, music by Henry Krieger (NY Theatre Workshop, Spoleto USA, PICA, and other venues). Nomination (puppets): Hewes Design Award. In development: Small Fish, music by Henry Krieger, and In the House of the Chaste Lovers. Advisory board: 52nd Street Project. Susan also specializes in corporate communications for nonprofits. EST member, NY Theatre Workshop Usual Suspect, Yale Drama School (MFA). www.pulcina.org www.susanjvitucci.org
Sharr White [−] Sharr White’s plays include Six Years (Actors Theatre of Louisville’s 30th Anniversary Humana Festival of New American Plays); Iris Fields (Lincoln Center Theatre Directors Lab, Key West Theatre Festival); The Escape Velocity of Savages (Dr. Henry and Lillian Nesburn Award as part of the Julie Harris Award in Playwriting); and Sunlight, a new play commissioned by South Coast Repertory Theatre. He is a recipient of a 2006 New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship.	David Zellnik [−]