SPACE on Ryder Farm will welcome a new batch of resident artists, activists, and organizers to its organic farm and 224-year-old family homestead in Putnam County this season. Beginning in June, residents will spend time at SPACE through one of the nonprofit's seven programs: The Working Farm, Family Residency, Creative Solutions Symposium, Creative Residency, Film Lab, Greenhouse Residency, and Institutional Residency.
The 2019 residents include Olivier Award-nominated actor, writer and director Colman Domingo (Fear the Walking Dead), MacArthur recipient Branden Jacobs-Jenkins (An Octoroon), New York Times bestselling author, illustrator and performer Rupi Kaur (Milk and Honey), performer and playwright Shakina Nayfack (Hulu’s Difficult People), Obie Award-winning playwright and director Julia Jarcho (Grimly Handsome), Obie Award–winning composer and performer Heather Christian (Animal Wisdom), songwriter and performer Grace McLean (Great Comet), Whiting Award–winning playwright Anne Washburn (Shipwreck), Obie Award–winning stage and film director Leah C. Gardiner (If Pretty Hurts Ugly Must Be a Muhfucka), musical duo The Bengsons (The Lucky Ones), theatre collective National New Play Network, and D.C.-based Justice for Muslims Collective.
SPACE's Working Farm, the organization's resident writers' group for playwrights, lyricists, and composers, is made up of Kevin Artigue (Sheepdog), Kate Benson (A Beautiful Day in November on the Banks of the Greatest of the Great Lakes), Vichet Chum (Bald Sisters), Mia Chung (Catch as Catch Can), Jahna Ferron-Smith (The Woods), David Greenspan (The Argument), Or Matias (The Wave), and Jenny Rachel Weiner (Horse Girls). The Working Farm writers spend five non-consecutive weeks at the farm developing new work, with the opportunity to have a public reading at Playwrights Horizons in 2020.
SPACE is a resident company of Playwrights Horizons, and will host the Off-Broadway theatre's commissioned playwrights Emily Feldman (The Best We Could coming up at MTC) and Korde Arrington Tuttle (Graveyard Shift). Through its additional partnerships with other organizations, SPACE will host an all-female songwriting residency (in a new partnership with Grammy Award-winner Alicia Keys’ She Is The Music); playwright Harrison David Rivers (in partnership with The American Playwriting Foundation Relentless Award); playwrights Eric Micha Holmes and Marisela Treviño Orta (Audible’s Emerging Playwrights Fund); as well as writers and producers developing various fiction and narrative projects for the STITCHER Podcast Network.
Participants in the 2019 Creative Residency program—which offers up to two weeks of time and resources to develop a creative project—include producer, director, writer, and choreographer Warren Adams and composer and lyricist Georgia Stitt; actors and writers Frankie J. Alvarez and Marty Brown; digital creator and activist Lindsay Amer; multi-instrumentalist and composer Asante Amin and emcee and songwriter Chen Lo; playwright Kevin Armento; poet S. Erin Batiste; playwright Rachel Bonds; actress and writer Nadia Bowers; arts and ideas festival producers Kristen Adele Calhoun, Zakeya Monique, Chris Myers and Stephanie Rolland; composer and performer Christian; playwright Olivia Clement; playwright, opera librettist and lyricist David Cote; playwright Erin Courtney; playwright Mashuq Mushtaq Deen playwright; director and cultural organizer Annalisa Dias, director and producer Anna Lathrop and creative producer, composer, facilitator Ronee Penoi; actor, writer and director Domingo; playwright and composer Kate Douglas and songwriter and performer McLean; actor and songwriter Gabriel Ebert and storyteller and chef Brendan Spieth; visual artist Rachel Farmer; director Leah C. Gardiner and author, illustrator and performer Kaur; playwright Justine Gelfman; food writer Ame Gilbert; playwright Sarah Hammond; filmmaker and actor Kana Hatakeyama; directors and writers Miranda Haymon and Seonjae Kim; singer and songwriter Celisse Henderson; playwright and urban planner Shayan Lotfi; writer and performer Kareem M. Lucas; writer Pooja Makhijani; painter Kylie Manning; writer and artist David McDevitt; writer and genealogist Jennifer Mendelsohn; poet Michelle Moncayo; performer and playwright Nayfack; playwright Mara Nelson-Greenberg; writer Hallie Newton; illustrator and graphic designer Nancy Pappas; writer Naomi Miyoko Raddatz; playwright Noah Rubenstein; playwright, dramaturg and producer Phaedra Michelle Scott; actor and playwright Keith Randolph Smith; playwright James Anthony Tyler; visual artist Andy Van Dinh and composer/lyricist, writer and songwriter Zack Zadek.
This year's Greenhouse residents, a week-long program for early-career writers are Kaitlyn Curry, Celeste Jennings, Janelle Lawrence, Romel Martinez, Brett Miller, Karim Nematt, and Arthur Night.
Click here to see the full list of 2019 residents.
“As SPACE enters its ninth residency season and our first year managing the agricultural offerings at Ryder Farm, I am thrilled and inspired by this roster of residents and the projects they plan to tackle this season on the farm,” said co-founder and executive director Emily Simoness. “Each season we are blown away by the volume and variety of applications for SPACE’s residency programs, and this year was no exception. It is an honor to be able to welcome these incredible artists, activists, organizers and innovators to Ryder Farm and to help move their projects into the cultural zeitgeist.”
