The Alcove New Play Development Program

Caridad Svich, Artistic Director

The Alcove at the Lortel is a national and international multi-faceted approach to developing plays by early and mid-career playwrights and translators led and curated by Caridad Svich. The play development process starts with the awarding of micro-commissions for full-length work and has additional elements including R & D work sessions in conjunction with dramaturgs, directors and/or designers, and rotating roster of artists-in-residence. Two digital components of the program are a digital reading series and a webcast series entitled “Conversations from the Alcove” where Svich chats with Lortel-commissioned artists about arts and ideas in theatre and performance.

The Alcove at the Lortel is a place to seed dreams and innovative writing for performance reflective of the breadth and depth of artistry and perspectives in the national and global theatre realm.

Future components of the program will include a scratch night series, a works-in=progress festival and more.

How to Apply: Currently one-page proposals are accepted by invitation and agent submission only. An open submission window will be announced at a later date.

Commissioned Playwrights (2022-2023)

Dramaturgy & Directors Cohort (2022-2023)

Commissioned Playwrights (2023-2024)

Dramaturgy & Directors Cohort (2023-2024)

Digital Reading Series

Red Sky at Night by Eve Leigh directed by Taylor Reynolds. (May 2023)
(in partnership with The Brick Theater in Brooklyn, NY.)

Racist Actor by Daniel York Loh directed by Lucy Jane Atkinson. (October 2023)

The Deodand, Or; The Rat Play by Justice Hehir directed by Joan Sergay. (October 2023)

About the Playwright

Jennifer Maisel

Jennifer Maisel’s Eight Nights, The Last Seder, Out Of Orbit, There Or Here and @thespeedofJake have been produced nationally and internationally. The Last Seder premiered off-Broadway with Gaby Hoffmann and Greg Mullavey and the critically acclaimed Eight Nights was nominated for nine Ovation Awards, winning for Best Playwriting and Actress. Honored by PEN West, The Kennedy Center, EST’s Sloan, the Woodward/Newman Award for Drama and The Kilroy List, Jennifer was one of seven playwrights commissioned by CTG and Playwrights’ Arena to create The Hotel Play; she was invited into the Humanitas PlayLA workshop, where she wrote Better, and the Travis Bogard Residency at Eugene O’Neill’s Tao House, where she wrote Yellow Wallpaper 2.0 2020, commissioned by The Alcove at the Lortel. She also writes for film and television. JenniferMaisel.com.

About the Director

Jackson Gay

Recent work: Into the Breeches by George Brant (Gulfshore Playhouse); Natural History by Collin Van Son (O’Neill Festival); Christina Anderson’s the ripple, the wave that carried me home (world premiere co-production Berkeley Rep and Goodman Theatre); New musical workshop Hard Road (book by Willy Holtzman, music by Marty Dodson and David Spangler); Partnership (Mint Theater); New Neighborhood’s Endless Loop of Gratitude www.newneighborhood.net (New Ohio’s Ice Factory); Lucy Thurber’s Transfers for Audible, MCC, and New York Stage & Film; These Paper Bullets! by Rolin Jones with music by Billie Joe Armstrong (New Neighborhood, Atlantic, Geffen, Yale Rep). MFA Directing Yale School of Drama. www.jacksongracegay.com