Okay wow wow wow wow wow. It’s been six months! How did that happen? I want to say something like, hope you’ve been doing well wherever you are in the world, but I know my mom is the only person who reads this, so—hi Mom.
This is what’s been going on with me over the last,say it with me, six months!
- Finished my first year at Juilliard! I am completely in love with the beautiful community of writers and actors and teachers and every other artist over the sun there. I feel so lucky to count myself as a member.
- In May, burn for You had an incredible reading at Huron Station Playhouse in Los Angeles, in association with Ojai Playwrights Conference. My beloved friend, Jeremy Cohen, the artistic director of OPC, directed the reading, and the cast included Jacqueline Toboni, Jessica Barden, Sasheer Zamata, Kanoa Goo, and Patrick J. Adams. What Alden, Matthew, and Emma are building out at Huron is so special, and I can’t wait to be back again someday.
From L to R: Lily Brown (Stage Directions), Sasheer Zamata (Beth), Jacqueline Toboni (Franny), Jessica Barden (Lila), Kanoa Goo (Mark Lucas), and Patrick J. Adams (Evan.)
- Speaking of OPC, Tremolo was a finalist for the 2026 Playwrights Conference!
- Nazi Mind was chosen for 2026 Fall Residency at the O’Neill, which I’m actually attending next week! I’m excited to get some good rewrites done (read: pretend I’m in Big Little Lies and stand on the beach with a cardigan and a glass of wine, thinking about my ex husband and where we went wrong…)
- Nazi Mind was a Finalist for the Terrence McNally New Works Incubator! They chose my friend Beth Hyland, which was absolutely the right decision :)
- Nazi Mind was a Finalist for the Princess Grace Playwriting Fellowship at New Dramatists!
- Speaking of New Dramatists, I was accepted into the 2026-2033 class of resident playwrights! My cohort includes Dave Harris, Nazareth Hassan, DJ Hills, May Treuhaft-Ali, and Bailey Williams. A teacher once told me you’re in the right room if you’re surrounded by people who are smarter than you. This is definitely one of those times :) At our New Playwright Welcome on September 14, I shared an excerpt from burn for You directed by Sammy Zeisel, with Madeline Weinstein, Sky Smith, and Christopher Cassarino in the cast.
Me with my plant after the New Playwright Welcome!
- Back to Nazi Mind—it was chosen for a 2027-2028 residency at the cell, and will have a public two week workshop in June 2027!
- And finally, Nazi Mind was one of just 3 Finalists chosen out of over 2,000 plays for the 2026 Relentless Award. It will have a reading in February 2027, and I’m just so proud of this play.
- I started my second (and final! 😔) year at Juilliard, and we welcomed a new cohort of amazing playwrights: Brittany K. Allen, Borna Barzin, Nurit Chinn, and Arturo Luiz Soria.
- Okay, finally, I have two new plays:
- Florida is about a QAnon follower dying of ALS; her estranged, Disney Gay Tik-Tokker son; and JFK Jr’s return. I’ve wanted to write this play forever, and I’m so excited to keep working on it. The play will be my thesis workshop at Juilliard in January 2027 (with four public performances!!), and Teddy Bergman (the astonishing director of Birthright and Mother Russia) is going to whip it into shape. I can’t wait.
- Grand Union is about a group of six employees working at a grocery store in Rockland County, NY just after a national tragedy, American paranoia, and the longings and tensions that unfurl when Harleen, a young Sikh woman, joins the team. Last week it had a Play Lab (my second and final at Juilliard! 😔) with Joshua Chapman, Vaughn Hoffman, Anoushka Mishra, Mary Mullane, Abel Santiago, Lorenzo Sella, and Camille Umoff. I love this play so much, and I was astonished by this cast. Can’t wait to keep working on this one, too.
From L to R, standing: Anoushka Mishra (Harleen), Abel Santiago (Da’Brion), Lorenzo Sella (Brooken), and Joshua Chapman (Solomon.) From L to R, seated: Camille Umoff (Meach), and Vaughn Hoffman (Jacoby.)
Okay, that’s pretty much all that has happened since April. There’s some fun stuff going on with burn for You and Tremolo I hope to share soon. In non-writing news, I read East of Eden (life changing), said goodbye to my beautiful grandmother, Mary Moro (devastating), and drove across the country with my four nephews this summer (life changing but also smelly.) More soon, don’t forget to vote by Nov 3, and hope you are doing something autumnal!