EST/Sloan Project presents a Reading of

Hello, World

written by Margot Connolly, directed by Alex Keegan

In a coding competition, two teams of teenage girls need to create an app that changes the world for the better - but who decides which app and cause is most worthy?

Margot Connolly is a playwright and librettist originally from Pleasantville, NY. Her plays include Belfast Kind (Winner, JPP's Jewish Playwriting Contest, Patty Abramson Prize Finalist), Quiz Out (Princess Grace Finalist, 2019 Kilroy’s Honorable Mention), The Twitch (Princess Grace Finalist), and Tough (Lanford Wilson New American Play Festival.) Her work has been produced and developed through Repertory St. Louis, Primary Stages, Williamstown Theatre Festival, the Playwrights Center, the Drama League, the Jewish Plays Project, the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, and The Juilliard School, among others. She's the recipient of an EST/Sloan commission, a former Core Apprentice at the Playwrights Center, and has been a finalist for the Jerome Fellowship, the Emerald Prize, and the Princess Grace Award. She received her BA from Bennington College, her MFA from the University of Iowa’s Playwrights Workshop, and is a recent graduate of the Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwrights’ Program at Juilliard.

Alex Keegan is a director of new work, adaptations, and devised pieces often centering queer stories and narratives of mental illness. Her directing includes: AFFINITY co-adapted with Rebecca Adelsheim from Sarah Waters' novel, MANNING by Benjamin Benne, UHURU by Gloria Majule (Yale Drama), BIRDS OF NORTH AMERICA by Anna Ouyang Moench (Chester Theatre), AUNTIE VANYA by Reed Northrup (Ars Nova ANT Fest), THAT POOR GIRL… by Jen Silverman (AADA), TOUGH by Margot Connolly (Williamstown), and new work in development with NYTW Adelphi Residency, Primary Stages, Signature Theatre, The Drama League, MCC FreshPlay. She is the 2022/2023 Directing Fellow at Rattlestick Theater, a New Georges Jam member, an EST/Sloan Project Commission recipient, a former Artistic Director of Yale Summer Cabaret, and she currently teaches directing at Wesleyan University. Alum: Roundabout Directors Group, Lincoln Center Directors Lab, The Civilians R&D Group, Geva’s Directing Fellowship, Williamstown Directing Corps. BA: Brown. MFA: Yale School of Drama. alex-keegan.com

EST/Sloan Project presents a Reading of

WITH FELLOWSHIP

written by Amanda Keating

WITH FELLOWSHIP is a play that bounces back and forth through time, between the present day – when a team of women scientists study the fossilized dental plaque of medieval nuns – and the 11th century – where one of those medieval nuns is hard at work illuminating manuscripts as the latest plague rages around her. How does the work of women artists and women scientists support, inspire, and combat each other across the bounds of time?

Amanda (she/her) is a playwright and translator from Western Mass. Her plays include WITH FELLOWSHIP (EST/Sloan Commission, Student Jane Chambers Winner, O'Neill Finalist), the fog comes on little cat feet (KCACTF David Mark Cohen Award, Dreamwell Theatre), TEACH/TEACH (Playwrights Realm Finalist, Leah Ryan Honorable Mention), RETREAT (Ensemble Studio Theatre, Two Headed Rep), OF SOLITUDE (Neukom Award Finalist, Martha's Vineyard Playhouse), HOW CAN I KEEP FROM SINGING (University of Iowa), GO THAT WAY (O’Neill Semifinalist, Williams College Summer Theatre Lab), THE MARTYRDOM (Two Headed Rep), and adaptations of TARTUFFE and MISS JULIE (Two Headed Rep). She is a former member of EST/Youngblood and her short plays have been produced by The Williamstown Theatre Festival, Ensemble Studio Theatre, and Rule of 7x7. MFA: Iowa Playwrights Workshop | BA: Williams College | http://www.amandackeating.com/

EST/Sloan Project presents a Reading of

S P A C E

written by L M Feldman, directed by Larissa Lury
CREATED BY BOTH

Drawing on history and imagining the future, S P A C E unearths the forces at work in our own time. Before any human travels to space, thirteen female pilots excel at the medical testing to become astronauts. Their story collides with the pilots and astronauts across time—like Bessie Coleman, Hazel Ying Lee and Jasmin Moghbeli—who burst their own path in, out, and up. Through transcript, fiction, feats of endurance, and the ridiculous, S P A C E takes us into moments of expansive missions, lays bare invisible forces at work, and brings us close to the personal side of facing them. It asks: What is the mission of our time? And will we fulfill or betray it?

L M Feldman is a queer, feminist, GNC playwright who writes theatrically audacious, physically kinetic, ensemble-driven plays that are both epic & intimate. So far, her plays include S P A C E ; Thrive, Or What You Will [An Epic]; Another Kind Of Silence; Scribe, or The Sisters Milton, or Elegy for the Unwritten; The Egg-Layers; Grace, or The Art Of Climbing; A People [A Mosaic Play]; Tropical Secrets, or All the Flutes in the Sea; and 7 full-length devised works. L's work has been nominated for the Venturous Award, Herb Alpert Award, Wendy Wasserstein Prize, Barrie & Bernice Stavis Playwright Award, New York Innovative Theatre Award, Doric Wilson Independent Playwright Award, and twice for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. Her work was also a finalist for the Jane Chambers Award, Terrence McNally Award, FEWW Prize, and the Lambda Literary Award for LGBTQ Drama. She couldn't be more grateful for the validation each of these has offered. L is also ongoingly thankful to have been a Shakespeare’s New Contemporaries winner; an Orbiter 3 playwright; a fellow at MacDowell, the Playwrights Realm, New Georges, and the Dramatists Guild; an alum of the Yale School of Drama and the New England Center for Circus Arts; and a core writer with InterAct Theatre and The Playwrights’ Center. As a circus artist, L performed duo trapeze at festivals around the world. She continues to teach & dramaturg for circus artists around the country. She’s passionate about theater that MOVES, and circus that DELVES. L has lived in seven cities and is currently based in Philadelphia, where she writes, teaches, advocates, and handstands.

Larissa Lury is a freelance director, associate professor at New Mexico State University, deviser, and former acrobat. She loves artwork and experiences that open her to new ways of looking at the world around her, and strives to create those experiences for others. She’s directed and workshopped plays for companies including: Nashville Rep, American Shakespeare Center, San Diego Rep, The Assembly, Cherry Lane (Mentor Project), The Playwrights’ Center, Urbanite, Dorset Theatre Festival, Portland Center Stage, Southern Rep, San Diego Rep, InterAct, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Clubbed Thumb, New Georges, Ma-Yi, New Jersey Rep, Keen Company’s Keen Teens, McCarter Theatre’s Youth Ink!, Curious Theatre Company, American Southwest Theatre Company, Lake Dillon, Passage Theatre, Abingdon/Small Pond, Leviathan Lab, and Prospect Theatre. Larissa and L first began developing work together through an Audrey Residency with New Georges. Larissa was a member of the inaugural group of National Directing Fellows, received a Next Stage Residency through The Drama League, was an LMCC Process Space Resident, a Resident Director at Ensemble Studio Theatre, and a chashama AREA Award recipient. She was a member of the Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab, and is a New Georges Affiliate Artist. She received a BS from Northwestern University and an MFA from UC San Diego. She works to cultivate practices, processes and structures for our field that are as innovative, equitable, inspiring, productively malleable, supportive and humane as an industry built on creativity warrants. larissalury.com

EST/Sloan Project presents a Reading of

Las Borinqueñas

written by Nelson Diaz-Marcano

Maria, Fernanda, Yolanda, Rosa and Chavela are Puerto Rican women yearning to full lives in the midst of a changing country full of new rules and judgements. Meanwhile in the United States, Gregory Pincus is about to invent a miracle that could give them a chance, if they make it. This is the story of the birth control pill and the women who sacrificed everything for a chance to live free.

Nelson Diaz-Marcano is a Puerto Rican NYC-based theater maker, advocate, and community leader whose mission is to create work that challenges and builds community. He currently serves as the Literary Director for the Latinx Playwright Circle where he has helped develop over 100 plays. His plays have been developed by The Road Theatre Company, Pipeline Theatre Company, Clubbed Thumb, The Lark, Vision Latino Theater Company, The Orchard Project, The William Inge Theatre Festival, Classical Theatre of Harlem, and The Parsnip Ship among others. Recent credits include: World Classic (Bishop Theatre Arts Center,) Y Tu Abuela, Where is She? Part 1 (CLATA) When the Earth Moves, We Dance (Clubbed Thumb, Teatro Vivo) The Diplomats (Random Acts Chicago,) Paper Towels (INTAR,) Misfit, America (Hunter Theatre Company,) I Saw Jesus in Toa Baja (Conch Shell Productions) and Revolt! (Vision Latino Theatre Company.)

EST/Sloan Project presents a Reading of

PIN.

written by Sam MUEller

When nonbinary athlete Jo Wagner is kicked off their high school wrestling team for being on testosterone, their rival MJ McKinnon comes up with a plan to stage a guerrilla final match for their senior year spring. Flanked by new local radio DJs, Ray & Jay, and factually bolstered by biology teacher Tom Rodgers, the event grows in scope, joy, imagination, and also complications. In a world structurally designed around false ideas of binary gender and sex, what would it mean to not only protect trans-nonbinary kids, but to also let them thrive?

Sam Mueller [they|she] is a Chicago-born, Florida-raised, New York-based playwright. Their work primarily explores bodies, public spaces, and the search for safety and security to live as one's authentic self. Their plays include Laced (2022 Princess Grace Semifinalist, 2020 Kilroys List, 2019 O’Neill Finalist), 70.3 (2020 Hearth Theater Commission), and LYS (2021 WMU Commission). They find a deep joy in working with students; their work has been read at Northwestern University, Columbia College Chicago, University of Central Florida, Western Michigan University, and University of Dayton. They feel most at home in the pit of a punk concert. The plays (and Sam) are all very queer. BS: Northwestern University

EST/Sloan Project presents a Reading of

ReWombed

written by Nikki Brake-Sillá

ReWombed asks, in a world where nothing is believed until it can be replicated, when did science lose its faith?

We are sorry to announce that there will not be ASL interpreters at our reading of ReWombed. We had hoped to make this presentation accessible to the Deaf and Hard of Hearing community. We sincerely apologize that we are not able to provide this important service.

All First Light festival readings are free, reservations are encouraged.

Nikki Brake-Sillá is a Black playwright and filmmaker with an invisible disability, who tried to check out of the hospital with her infant, A.M.A. During the day, she works in a research lab and merges science and art to expose people to inherent bias in the medical system. She weaves stories that give urgency to folx who birth, (AGAINST MEDICAL ADVICE), COVID frontline workers, (SILOS), and exposes the challenges of uterine transplant research trials, (REWOMBED). She has been commissioned by EST/Sloan, Revolution Shakespeare, Elevate Theatre, and Black Music City. Nikki received her B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania and her M.F.A. from the City College of New York. But what gives her the most joy is giving someone their likeness on screen and stage.