Our Playwrights
2023/2024: RAJIV JOSEPH
Rajiv Joseph’s play Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo was a 2010 Pulitzer Prize finalist for Drama and also awarded a grant for Outstanding New American Play by the National Endowment for the Arts. He has twice won the Obie Award for Best New American Play, first in 2016 with Guards at the Taj (also a 2016 Lortel Winner for Best Play) and then in 2018 with Describe the Night. Other plays include King James, Letters of Suresh, Archduke, The North Pool, Gruesome Playground Injuries, and Animals Out of Paper. He wrote the book and co-wrote lyrics for the musical Fly, based on Peter Pan, and he wrote the libretto for the opera Shalimar the Clown, based on the novel by Salman Rushdie. He has written for TV and film and has been awarded artistic grants from the Whiting Foundation, United States Artists, and the Harold & Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust. He served for three years in the Peace Corps in Senegal.
Rohit Chandra
2022/2023: MARTYNA MAJOK
Martyna Majok was born in Bytom, Poland and raised in Jersey and Chicago. She was awarded the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for her play, Cost of Living, which debuted on Broadway in 2022 and was nominated for 4 Tony Awards. Other plays include Sanctuary City, Queens, and Ironbound, which have been produced across American and international stages. Other awards include The Hull-Warriner Award, The Academy of Arts and Letters’ Benjamin Hadley Danks Award for Exceptional Playwriting, Off Broadway Alliance Best New Play Award, The Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding New Play, The Hermitage Greenfield Prize, as the first female recipient in drama, The Champions of Change Award from the NYC Mayor’s Office, The Francesca Primus Prize, two Jane Chambers Playwriting Awards, The Lanford Wilson Prize, The Lilly Award’s Stacey Mindich Prize, Helen Merrill Emerging Playwright Award, Charles MacArthur Award for Outstanding Original New Play from The Helen Hayes Awards, Jean Kennedy Smith Playwriting Award, ANPF Women’s Invitational Prize, David Calicchio Prize, Global Age Project Prize, NYTW 2050 Fellowship, NNPN Smith Prize for Political Playwriting, and Merage Foundation Fellowship for The American Dream. Martyna studied at Yale School of Drama, Juilliard, University of Chicago, and Jersey public schools. She was a 2012-2013 NNPN playwright-in- residence, the 2015-2016 PoNY Fellow at the Lark Play Development Center, and a 2018-2019 Hodder Fellow at Princeton University. Martyna is currently writing a musical adaptation of The Great Gatsby, with music by Florence Welch and Thomas Bartlett, and developing TV and film for HBO, Plan B, and Pastel.
Bronwen Sharp
2021/2022: DAVID CALE
David Cale has been acclaimed as “an enthralling writer-monologist” by The New York Times. His recent shows include the solo play Harry Clarke, starring Billy Crudup, for which he received the 2018 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Solo Show, and his solo musical memoir We’re Only Alive for A Short Amount of Time, for which he wrote the book, lyrics, co-composed the music with Matthew Dean Marsh, and starred. For We’re Only Alive for A Short Amount of Time, David was the recipient of the 2019 Jeff Award for Best New Musical, a 2020 Outer Critics Circle Award, 2020 Lucille Lortel Award nomination, 2020 Drama Desk Award nomination and a 2020 Obie Award. His new solo play Sandra, starring Marjan Neshat, premiered Off-Broadway in November 2022 at the Vineyard Theatre.
Kirsten Shultz