The Alcove

Preston Max Allen

Preston Max Allen (he/him) is a playwright, composer, and lyricist whose work has been featured at the New Amsterdam Theatre, Lincoln Center, Signature Theatre, Musical Theatre Factory, and more. Preston conceived and wrote the 2019 Off-Broadway musical WE ARE THE TIGERS (album now streaming); AGENT 355 (dramaturgy/co-book Jessica Kahkoska); and THE RAGE: CARRIE 2, AN UNAUTHORIZED MUSICAL PARODY (Jeff Nominee, Best New Musical). Plays: MODERN GENTLEMAN (2022 New York Stage and Film summer workshop); CAROLINE (2021 Ars Nova Out Loud); and STORYTIME. Preston is a member of the Writers Guild of America East, Ars Nova Play Group (2019-21), and an alum of the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theater Workshop.

Jennifer Maisel

Andy Bragen

Andy Bragen’s honors include NYSCA and NYFA grants, Workspace and Process Space Residencies with the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, the Clubbed Thumb Biennial Commission, and a Jerome Fellowship. His produced plays include This is My Office (The Play Company), Don’t You F**king Say a Word (59e59/ABTP), and Notes on My Mother’s Decline (Playco/ABTP). Notes on My Mother’s Decline and This is My Office have been published together in an edition from Northwestern University Press. Andy is an alum of New Dramatists, and has an MFA from Brown University. He teaches playwriting at Barnard College

Kristen Adele Calhoun

Kristen Adele Calhoun is a writer, actor, producer and curator. She is a Staff Writer on HBO’s adaptation of Toni Morrison’s novel SULA and is also on the writing team for BLKNWS directed by Kahlil Joseph, produced by A24 and Participant. She is a co-producer of InterFest, an intersectional arts and ideas festival that began at Harlem School of the Arts and is the co-curator of BLKSPACE, a two-week, rest-centered residency for Black artists. She is also an I AM SOUL Playwriting Resident at Dr. Barbara Ann Teer’s National Black Theatre. Her plays include Black Cypress Bayou, Starshine & Clay, Now, She is Rising, Canfield Drive, A Pocket Full of Dandelions, With These Hands, and Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody.

Diane Exavier

Diane Exavier is a writer, theatermaker and educator working at the intersection of performance and poetry. Her work has been presented with The New Group, BRIC Arts, The Bushwick Starr, Bowery Poetry Club, Dixon Place, and more. Diane concerns herself with what she recognizes as the 4 L’s: love, loss, legacy, and land. Her play Bernarda's Daughters premiered Off-Broadway in 2023, co-produced by The New Group and National Black Theatre. Her poetry collection, The Math of Saint Felix was recently published by The 3rd Thing Press. She is currently working on a Sloan Foundation new play commission in partnership with Manhattan Theatre Club. A 2021 Jerome Foundation Finalist, Diane lives and works in Brooklyn

Exal Iraheta

Exal Iraheta (he/his) is a Chicago-based Salvi-American playwright, screenwriter, and teaching artist. Humorous and provocative, his work explores the intersections of cultural and gender identity, family, violence, sexuality, science, and magic through his lens as a brown, queer, first-generation American son. Notable works include Last Hermanos (A Red Orchid), They Could Give No Name, and Open Venas (Theatre Masters).

Amy Berryman

Ramiz Monsef

Azure D. Osborne-Lee

Azure D. Osborne-Lee (he/they) is a multi-award-winning Black queer & trans theatre maker from south of the Mason-Dixon Line. He teaches at New York University and The New School. Azure holds an MA in Advanced Theatre Practice (2011) from Royal Central School of Speech & Drama as well as an MA in Women’s & Gender Studies (2008) and a BA in English & Spanish from The University of Texas at Austin (2005). Still Standing Artist-in-Residence @StonehengeNYC, recipient of Waterwell New Works Lab’s 2021 Commission, Kilroys List 2020 playwright, recipient of Parity Productions’ 2018 Annual Commission, Winner of Downtown Urban Arts Festival’s 2018 Best Play Award, and the 2015 Mario Fratti-Fred Newman Political Play Contest. Azure’s full-length play “Crooked Parts” was published in The Methuen Drama Book of Trans Plays. His full-length play “Mirrors” received its world premiere, produced by Parity Productions, at Next Door at New York Theatre Workshop in spring 2020. Unfortunately, this production closed early due to the COVID-19 pandemic. "Mirrors" is now available for purchase through NoPassport Press. Azure’s new play “Red Rainbow," a National Playwrights Conference semi-finalist, received a production at Mt. Holyoke College in spring 2022 and at Tufts University in spring 2023.

Iraisa Ann Reilly

Iraisa Ann Reilly (She/Ella) is a writer, performer, and educator who is half-Cuban, half-Irish, and whole New Jersey. Select full-length plays include Good Cuban Girls (Teatro del Sol, at The Arden Theatre), The Jersey Devil is a Papi Chulo (Sol Fest 2022, Yale Drama Series Shortlist 2022, Finalist Leah Ryan Prize, KCACTF) Saturday Mourning Cartoons ( Arkansas New Play Festival 2023, Winner, Bay Area Playwright’s Festival 2022, Finalist Goldberg Playwriting Prize 2022, Semifinalist Blue Ink Award 2023, Semifinalist Premiere Stages). Her work has been developed with Theatre Exile, The New Harmony Project, The Chain Theatre, The Workshop Theatre, ARTHouse INKubator, NYU Production Lab’s Development Studio and the Latinx Playwright’s Circle. Her play “House Bill 3979: Amendment #10: The Life and Works of Dr. Hector P. Garcia” was commissioned and produced by Texas A&M-University-Corpus Christi in 2022. Iraisa Ann is currently under commission with the Arden Theatre Company in Philadelphia and Michigan State University. She is a recipient of the 2023 Latinx Playwright’s Circle Mentorship, working with mentor Migdalia Cruz. As a screenwriter, her screenplay La Reina del Bronx won best screenplay at Fusion Film Festival and was a semifinalist for the Vail Screenwriting Competition. Iraisa Ann recently performed off-Broadway in Arlene Hutton’s According to the Chorus. She’s taught students of all ages and is an adjunct professor of Dramatic Writing at NYU. MFA in Dramatic Writing from NYU, B.A. in Theatre and English from the University of Notre Dame. iraisaannreilly.com.

Annie Siddons

Annie is a writer, dramaturg and performer from South East London, UK, with origins in Egypt, Greece, and the East Midlands of the UK. She trained in theatre and French at Royal Holloway, University of London (1st Class Hons). Her work mixes the mythic and mundane, smooshes the dark and the light. Her breakthrough play, written after a misspent youth and then having two daughters, was a version of Rapunzel taken up by Cornish legends Kneehigh Theatre. It opened at BAC in 2006, returned to the South Bank 2007, then toured the UK 2007-8, finishing at the New Victory Theatre New York in 2008.