The Playwrights Realm will host the 2022 INK’D Festival of New Plays May 2-5, featuring playwrights Audley Puglisi, Will Brumley, Emma Horwitz, and Jeesun Choi. Taking place at Theaterlab, this will be the organization's first in-person event since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Last year, the annual event was held online.
The festival is the culmination the organization’s Writing Fellowship program and will allow attendees to hear from emerging voices within the New York theatre scene while giving playwrights the opportunity to present their work in front of an audience.
"The INK'DFestival is one of my favorite things we do at The Realm, because it provides theatre lovers with the opportunity to get to know new and exciting voices emerging onto the scene," says Playwrights Realm Associate Artistic Director Alexis Williams. "So many of our fellows have gone on to see their work go up in stages all over the country, and it all starts here! This edition is particularly thrilling, because we're welcoming audiences back in person for the first time in over two years to get a glimpse into what our wonderful fellows have been working on."
Puglisi’s the salt women will run May 2 and is directed by abigail jean-baptiste. Transporting audience members back to the 19th Century, it tells a story about sisterhood as it follows three Black women who live and work in a river and encounter a group of outsiders.
Brumley’s play Pulling Leather: A Queer Rodeo Fantasia is directed by Carlos Armesto and will be presented May 3. The show follows Glen as he moves back home to Kansas after struggling in New York. After discovering that his distant uncle was an International Gay Rodeo champion, he heads to Oklahoma in hopes to form a bond with the other man.
Playing May 4 is Horwitz’s Mary Gets Hers, directed by Josiah Davis. Inspired by Hrosvitha of Gandersheim’s Abraham, or the Rise and Repentance of Mary, the play takes place in the 10th century during the plague in Germany and follows two hermits who rescue an abandoned orphan named Mary.
Last in the line-up is Jeesun Choi’s Lost Coast, which will run May 5 and is directed by Nana Dakin. The play takes place in a coastal forest in Northern California and follows a group of displaced strangers dealing with the challenges in their lives, due to immigration, financial burdens, and forest fires
The organization's fellowship program awards four early-career playwrights nine months of resources, a $3,000 stipend, workshops, and feedback from Realm artistic staff. During the program, they develop one new play and participate in monthly group meetings to collaborate with the other creatives.
For more information and reservations, visit PlaywrightsRealm.org.
