April 14th, 2023
This June, WP Theater is thrilled to welcome Moxie Arts NY as its second Space Program Residency as Moxie brings three world-premiere plays by emerging artists to the WP stage. Founded in 2017, Moxie Arts NY is a Lilly Award-winning a nonprofit theatre and film production company dedicated to engaging audiences with stories centering women, created by artists of historically-excluded genders. Moxie’s programming provides funding and opportunities for artists at all stages of career development, including dramaturgical support, resources for staged readings, and professional management for the development of new work - from the page to the stage, and everywhere in between. Since their founding, Moxie has produced world premiers of 3 musicals and 10 plays, as well as 13 developmental readings, 9 one-act virtual plays, and 2 full-length filmed plays, to date. Through this new partnership with WP, three additional plays will receive a world premier as part of Moxie’s Incubator program - a season-long accelerated development program for new, unproduced plays by artists of historically-excluded genders.
Each year, nine artists are selected from an open submission process to become part of the Moxie Incubator Cohort: three playwrights, three directors, and three line producers. Each of these artists have the opportunity to work with each other in rotation over three development stages during the season - a virtual table reading, an in-person 29-hour reading, and a fully staged production. The cohort is supported over the course of 9 months by Moxie’s Company Manager and mentored by the executive production team, Kayla Hernandez Friend and Madelyn Paquette. Prior season Incubator members include Jessica Wu, Uma Paranjpe, SMJ, Marissa Joyce Stamps, Jasmine Sharma, Nina Ki, Miranda Cornell, Camile Thomas, Britt Berke, Natalie Rine, Nicole Orabona, Rachel Andres, Kelsi Parsons, Leah Vicencio, Margaret Lee, Shannon Davis, Leigh Rondon-Davis, Kathleen Capdesuñer, Narissa Agustin, Sally Burgos, and Angelica McEwan.
The 2023 Incubator Cohort consists of the following artists:
Alyssa Haddad-Chin, playwright
August Hakvaag, playwright
Skyler Volpe, playwright
Michelle Chan, director
Autumn Angelettie, director
Annabel Heacock, director
Noah Ezell, line producer
Hannah Postlewait, line producer
Carla Troconis, line producer
The three world-premiere plays coming to the WP Space Program this June are:
You Should Be So Lucky
By Alyssa Haddad-Chin
Poh Poh invites granddaughter, Jenny, to her apartment to teach her how to make dumplings for the upcoming Lunar New Year. As they prepare an otherwise-ordinary and traditional meal, Jenny discovers that recent changes to Poh Poh’s Chinatown community are anything but normal. As space and dreams begin to dwindle for Poh Poh with each new change, will there be enough time to pass on so much to a granddaughter whose world only continues to expand? You Should Be So Lucky is a play about generational identities, relationships, and the preservation of community.
one drop cool
By Skyler Volpe
May, Nina, and Cooper have been friends and roommates for over a decade when the revelation of a family secret threatens to tear their friendship apart. one drop cool is a deliciously unsettling living room play about identity, friendship, race, and belonging.
As I Was, Not As I Am
by August Hakvaag
A crowded apartment in Philadelphia, PA - Laurel is sick. Her roommates want her to get better - but how do you help someone who can't afford health care? Could it involve setting a car on fire? As I Was, Not As I Am is mainly about queer roommates, headaches, clubbing, upstairs neighbors, arson, and washing machines; but it's also about love - the kind that would make you do anything for each other.
Each new play will run for one week at WP Theater, Thursdays through Saturdays from June 8 through June 24th, closing out Moxie’s sixth season of developmental work in NYC.
Now in its 45th Season, WP Theater is the nation’s oldest and largest theater company dedicated to developing, producing, and promoting the work of Women+ at every stage of their careers. Founded in 1978 by Julia Miles as Women’s Project Theater, WP Theater has earned acclaim as a home for Women+ theatermakers, historically marginalized in the field, to hone their craft while becoming leaders, change-makers, and advocates in the industry. WP Theater received a 2018 Lucille Lortel Award, a 2019 Obie Award, and a 2020 Drama Desk Award, all for Outstanding Body of Work, recognizing WP’s unique place and vital work in the theatrical landscape. WP empowers Women+ of all kinds to reach their full potential and, in doing so, challenges preconceptions about the kinds of plays women write and the stories they tell.
Moxie Arts NY is the newest resident of WP Theater’s Space Program, an initiative to provide subsidized space to mission-aligned individual artists and small budget not-for-profit companies ($300,000 or less) who might otherwise not be able to produce because of the financial constraints of renting performance space. The program launched in February of 2023 with Lightning Rod Special’s critically-acclaimed production of The Appointment. The Space Program is currently accepting applications for the fall of 2023. Visit wptheater.org/wp-space-program/ for information on how to apply.
Open submissions for the 2024 Incubator Program as well as Moxie’s first-ever regional development program, the Moxie Pipeline Project, will open early fall 2023. For more information on upcoming productions and annual programming, please visit www.moxiearts.org.
Ticket sales for the 2023 Incubator productions will be announced in the coming weeks.