2025/2026 EST/Sloan Project Commissionees

new play commissions

Room 407 by lily akerman

A play about a group of math teachers at a math-science high school.

Lily Akerman's recent work includes Creatures of Habit (Cork Opera House), The Commons (59E59), The Stalls (Cork Opera House, nominated for Best Opera by the Irish Times), and Hedgehog Years (Playing On Air, a winner of The James Stevenson Prize). She’s a Fulbright awardee and a recent graduate of Juilliard’s Playwriting Program.

io by milo cramer

An old-fashioned romantic comedy about NASA and the poet laureate of the United States. Inspired by Ada Limón’s NYT article, “A Poem Hitches a Ride on a Rocket, to Infinity and Beyond”.

Milo Cramer is a writer and performer. Obie Award for School Pictures (Playwrights Horizons, This American Life); Kendeda Award for Business Ideas (The Alliance, Clubbed Thumb); Cute Activist at The Bushwick Starr (“a brilliant match of material and theater… a fable for our times” - NYT). MacDowell fellow; MFA: UCSD.

i believe in the night by annalisa dias

A multidisciplinary theatrical work that explores humanity's relationship with cosmic darkness through the convergence of cutting-edge astrophysics, contemplative poetry, and embodied movement. This project weaves together lived experiences of astrophysicists, excerpts from Rainer Maria Rilke's Book of Hours, and communal dance practices in an immersive ritual experience.

Annalisa Dias is a Goan-American transdisciplinary artist, a Co-Director of HERE Arts Center in NYC and a co-founder of Groundwater Arts. Prior to joining HERE, she was Director of Artistic Partnerships & Innovation at Baltimore Center Stage. With over 10 years of experience in theatre making and community organizing, Annalisa works at the intersection of racial justice and care for the earth.

I DREAM OF FEMINIST SCIENCE by CORI DIAZ

Set in the time of the riot grrrl movement, a group of college girls form a lesbian computer science club in order to avoid having their experiments tampered with by men. 

Cori Diaz has had her plays workshopped with SheNYC, LaGuardia Performing Arts Center, The Tank, RE/VENUE, The Workshop Theater, Playhouse on Park, Concord Theatricals’ Off-Off Broadway Festival, Life Jacket Theatre’s Writer’s Room, and was a finalist for the LAMBDA Literary Writers Retreat and the Stanley Drama Award. BFA: NYU Tisch

a parguera story by nelson diaz-marcano

Gwendy returns home with A.I.-powered tech, a business partner who might just be more than that, and a plan to save her family’s boat tours and the dying bioluminescent bay. But when her solution threatens the very legacy she’s fighting for, Gwendy must decide if her past will shape her future or disappear with it.

Nelson Diaz-Marcano is a Puerto Rican playwright, advocate, and community leader based in NYC. His work has been produced Off-Broadway and regionally in Chicago, Dallas, Connecticut, and beyond. He crafts bold stories rooted in history and culture that explore identity, community, and what it means to be who we are today.

otter delight (working title) by michael feldman

Doris and Dave were the golden couple of children’s TV 23 years ago. Summoned from retirement (or exile, depending on who you ask), they’re back with a show about marine life and conservation, featuring the cuddliest creature of all: the sea otter. Enter the scientific advisors.

Michael Feldman is a proud alumni of EST/Youngblood. He's developed work across the country and taught playwriting at the University of Rochester. In Fall 2025, he will begin his MFA in Writing for the Stage and Screen at Northwestern University.

radio / quiet by amanda keating

In a small Appalachian town where one of the largest radio telescopes in the world is probing deep space, the question is: who owns the sky? An exploration of what it means to explore the very farthest reaches of the universe, the very deepest parts of ourselves, and the very strangest, most human parts of each other.

Amanda Keating is a playwright and translator from Western Mass. Plays include WITH FELLOWSHIP (EST/Sloan, O’Neill Finalist), BOOTH (O’Neill Finalist), the fog comes on little cat feet (David Mark Cohen Award), TEACH/TEACH (Leah Ryan Honorable Mention), RETREAT (EST, Two Headed Rep), OF SOLITUDE (Neukom Finalist), and others. Alumna of EST/Youngblood. MFA: Iowa Playwrights Workshop | BA: Williams College.

the great vaccine revolt of 1904! byfernando buzhar segall

As Rio de Janeiro goes through aggressive urban and sanitation reforms, Doctor Oswaldo Cruz is charged with the herculean task of ending simultaneous epidemics of Malaria, Smallpox, and The Bubonic Plague. But as the people’s distrust for the government grows, the decision to make the smallpox vaccination mandatory starts an all-out revolt in this farce based on history.

Fernando Buzhar Segall is a Brazilian writer based in NYC. Member of EST’s Youngblood and recent residencies at The Barn at Lee and NYU Production Lab. Plays: Saudades (JACK); The World’s Most Boring Murder (The Players Theatre); The Devil and The Candlemaker (Semifinalist: Rattlestick’s Terrance McNally Incubator and Druid’s New Writing Scripts). In Brazil, he works as a screenwriter and translator.

haute plate by ethan venzon

As their Filipino family restaurant teeters towards closure, Bea and Rudine turn to fine dining’s thriving molecular gastronomy movement for inspiration. The pair set out to build their own dining experience that fuses scientific innovation with the flavors of tradition to find out who really gets a seat at the table.

Ethan Venzon is a Filipino-American playwright from Jacksonville Florida, currently based in Chicago.

paper son by marcus yi

In the heart of Chinatown's Yu's Paper Goods, Shu Fen, a Hong Kong-American matriarch, meticulously crafts funeral paper goods. Her son, Aiden, returns home, eager to modernize their ancestral rituals business. As they prepare for the Hungry Ghost Festival, their clash over tradition versus innovation threatens to reshape their family legacy forever.

​Marcus Yi is an award-winning theatre writer/composer/director and performer based in New York. Marcus was an inaugural member of the 92nd Street Y Musical Theater Development Lab Collective, a 2021-2022 New Victory LabWorks Artist, and a Resident Artist with the American Lyric Theater. He has been commissioned by The Kennedy Center, Queens Council on the Arts, Yangtze Rep, and First Stage.

regional development & production grants

making waves by dr. heather beasley
with miners alley playhouse

Two physical oceanographers are on a mission. Twenty years into their Arctic research program, they realize Hollywood’s got more public impact than the National Science Foundation. When they convince a few Emmy-winning screenwriters to pitch a new show about climate science, they begin a new experiment: can situation comedy save the planet?

Dr. Heather Beasley is a playwright, director, dramaturg, and educator. She writes plays for adults, for adults performing for young audiences, and for young actors. Plays and musicals include: The Gentle Life-Changing Magic of Burning it All Down to the Ground, Bone Records, Amelia’s Big Idea, and The Armstrongs’ Arctic Adventure!

Miners Alley Playhouse Founded in 1993 as Morrison Theatre Company, the Miners Alley Playhouse moved to Golden, Colorado in 2003. Since then, Miners Alley has grown to become one of the premiere small professional theatres in the Denver metro region. Their new downtown theatre facility puts the arts at the heart of Golden.

fission by cindy lou johnson
with seattle rep

Fission explores the creative partnership between physicist Lise Meitner and chemist Otto Hahn, dramatizing both the energy of scientific discovery and the ethical tensions that eroded their relationship across two world wars and the rise of the Third Reich. Commissioned by the Lost Women of Science podcast.

Cindy Lou Johnson is best known for her psychological drama Brilliant Traces. Her work has been produced at The Manhattan Theatre Club, The Alliance Theatre, The Actors Theatre of Louisville, and The Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, among other places. Johnson is a recipient of the National Endowment Playwriting Fellowship. She also writes for film and television.

Seattle Rep is the city's flagship regional theater. Their mission is to collaborate with extraordinary artists on productions and programs that reflect and elevate the diverse cultures, perspectives and life experiences of our region. They put theater at the heart of public life for over 85,000 patrons annually through our mainstage productions, education and community programs, and new play development activities.

the rocket men by crystal skillman
with phoenix theatre cultural centre

A cast of seven women step into the roles of the former Nazis who sent us to the moon to share with us a story about the team that formed the backbone of NASA in the most unlikely of places...North Alabama. A startling new play about the intersection of scientific exploration and moral responsibility, The Rocket Men asks what it means to be an American... then and now.

Crystal Skillman is an award-winning playwright, fictional podcast writer & comic book author. In addition to The Rocket Men, Crystal is the dramatist of Open (currently off Broadway), Rain and Zoe Save the World (premiered in the UK in 2022) and the NYTimes Critics’ Picks Geek, Cut, and King Kirby.

The Phoenix Theatre Cultural Centre champions new play development with its own productions, nurtures the visions of its five other resident companies, and uplifts social and cultural organizations by providing a community hub that celebrates diversity, creates equity, insists on inclusion, and provides accessibility to all.

frANKLINLAND by LLOYD SUH
with LANTERN THEATER COMPANY

Benjamin Franklin played many roles: publisher, inventor, political agitator, diplomat, and he wanted his son to follow him into the sciences. When William rebels and becomes the Royal Governor of New Jersey, the stage is set for a father-son conflict of international proportions. Suh's work is an endearing and insightful new play of revolutionary consequences.

Lloyd Suh is the author of plays including The Hearts Sellers, The Chinese Lady, The Far Country (Pulitzer Prize finalist), Bina’s Six Apples, American Hwangap, and others, which have been produced at many theatres in New York, across the country, and internationally.  Awards include the Steinberg Playwright Award, Guggenheim Fellowship, Herb Alpert Award, Horton Foote Prize, and Helen Merrill Award.  A resident playwright at New Dramatists and EST member, he was elected in 2016 to the Dramatists Guild Council, and teaches at Princeton University. 

Lantern Theater Company was established in 1994 in Philadelphia and will produce its 32nd season in 2025/26. The mission of the Lantern is to produce plays that investigate and illuminate what is essential in the human spirit and the spirit of the times.  Founder and Artistic Director Charles McMahon will direct its 2025/26 production of Franklinland. McMahon has directed over 40 plays at the Lantern, including more than 20 by Shakespeare.

HAVE A GREAT NIGHT! by PETER MILLS WEISS & JULIA MOUNSEY
with MEDIA ART XPLORATION

Have a Good Night! takes the form of stand-up night with a host who engages with the audience between each performance. Comedians, invested in becoming better artists and citizens, collaboratively tell the story of how they trained with a propaganda expert and data scientist to become funnier, more persuasive, and more fluent in their politics. They are here to demonstrate their newfound skills.

Peter Mills Weiss and Julia Mounsey’s work wrestles with questions of cruelty, authenticity, deception, entertainment, and power. They value simple language, functional design, autobiography, and vulnerability. Their work has been presented at UTR at the Public Theater, La MaMa, JACK, Soho Rep, and abroad at the Deutches Schauspielhaus, München Volkstheater, and the Noordezon Arts Festival.

MAXlive produces, develops, and deploys groundbreaking live-art experiences at the intersection of artistic expression, scientific inquiry, and technology. We foster collaboration between artists, scientists, and creative technologists to amplify critical dialogues, expand access to new ideas, and explore the impacts of innovation and scientific discovery on our shared human experience.