The Alcove
New Play Development Program
Alcove Circle
The Alcove’s dramaturgical/advisory circle of artists focused on holistic engagement with the Alcove’s new works focusing on sustainability and accessibility.
Callan McCarthy
Callan McCarthy is a writer and dramaturg originally from Rhode Island, now based in London. She was Methuen Drama’s most recent Commissioning Editor of Plays, meeting a diverse and exciting range of early to mid-career theatre-makers from all over the UK, US, Ireland and mainland Europe to add brilliant new work of varying styles and genres to the published canon. Callan performed and wrote sketches for the Soho Theatre Comedy Lab: Sketch programme led by Tony Craze award-winning writer Fran Bushe in early 2020; her short piece SO I BLED was featured in the March 2020 Theatre503 ‘Rapid Write Response’ night responding to Gill Greer’s play Meat; she wrote her full-length play CANARY during the Royal Court Theatre’s Introduction to Playwriting group in spring 2023 led by playwrights Ross Willis and Yasmin Joseph. Her full-length play Half a Sorrow (formerly titled IT COULD NEVER BE ME) was Longlisted for the BOLD Playwriting Prize 2024. Callan is a die-hard lover of horror in its many iterations, and is particularly drawn to new work of all kinds which stimulates the senses. Callan earned her BA in English Literature from Fordham College at Rose Hill, and her MA in Playwriting & Screenwriting at City, University of London. You can visit her website at: callanplays.com.
Sammy Zeisel
Sammy Zeisel is a theatre director and filmmaker based in Brooklyn. He recently received his MFA in directing from the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale University where he was awarded the Julian Milton Kaufman Prize for excellence in directing. While at Yale, he directed Annie Baker's translation of Uncle Vanya and his own adaptation of Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale, as well as new work by playwrights Doug Robinson and Danielle Stagger. Last fall, he directed a puppet-centric eco-fable entitled The Undercity at Culture Lab LIC. He has assisted directors Les Waters, Steve Cosson, Jessica Thebus, Marti Lyons, Michael Patrick Thornton, among others, and worked at institutions including Steppenwolf Theatre, Lookingglass Theatre, Woolly Mammoth Theatre, and Actors Theatre of Louisville where he was a directing apprentice in 2016-17. His short films have screened at festivals across the country and won accolades at The Windy City Film Festival (Best Chicago Director) and Indieworks (Audience Choice Awards). He is the current directing fellow at Rattlestick Theatre. B.A. Upcoming: The Seagull (Quinnipiac University), Tremolo by Regan Moro (Irons in the Fire 2025/26). Northwestern University. Website: sammyzeisel.com.
Alison Kopit
Alison Kopit is a queer and disabled access worker and access dramaturg based between Chicago and NYC. Access dramaturgy credits: The Bengsons’ Ohio (2025 Edinburgh Fringe Festival), Maggie Bridger’s Radiate (2025, Red Eye Theater), Ryan J. Haddad’s Hold Me in the Water (2025, Playwrights Horizons) and Dark Disabled Stories (2023, The Public Theater; The Bushwick Starr), and Dan Fishback’s Dan Fishback is Alive, Unwell & Living in His Apartment (2024, Joe’s Pub). She co-directs Pay Rate for Access Workers Now project (PRAWN) with Madison Zalopany. She was awarded the Michael Feingold award for Dramaturgy in the 2023 Obie Awards and holds a PhD in Disability Studies.
Oscar Toeman
Oscar Toeman is Baylis Director at the Old Vic theatre in London 2023-2025; he is an alumni of the Lincoln Centre Theater Directors Lab, a recipient of a Michael Grandage Company Futures Bursary, and an Associate Artist at National Youth Theatre. He has been runner up for the JMK Award, and twice a finalist for the Peter Hall RTST Award. . As director credits include: One Hundred Feet Tall (Old Vic); Farewell Mr Haffmann (Park Theatre); The Sugar Syndrome; The Misfortune of the English (Orange Tree Theatre); Actually (Trafalgar Studios). He trained on the National Theatre Studio’s Directors Course, and as an assistant and associate to directors including Matthew Warchus, Bartlett Sher, Roger Michell, Tim Carroll, Lucy Bailey and Blanche Mcintyre.
Rory Willats
Rory Willats (he/him) is an interdisciplinary theatermaker with a BA from Wabash College and an MFA in Digital Arts and New Media from UC Santa Cruz’s Future Stages Lab, led by Marianne Weems. His personal research explores the development and implications of new masculine social rituals in online communities -- exemplified by his work Come, Fur(r)ies, Dance! (UCSC, 2023). Willats has presented on his hybrid theater work at Prague’s DOX Center for Contemporary Art, London’s Central School of Speech and Drama, the Rochester Institute of Technology, and the Berlin School of VR.