Staff
Joshua Young
Artistic Director & President
Josh’s work has been developed or produced at: The HERE Arts Center, Dixon Place, The Exquisite Corpse Company (ECC), The Brick, The Tank, New York Madness, Rhapsody Cycle, Naked Angels, Primary Stages, FringeNYC, MITF, and Planet Connections. His play The Execution and The Rapture was a 2017 PlayPenn semi-finalist and his play Who Mourns for Bob the Goon? was a Mabou Mines/ Suite 2016 Resident Artist Finalist. His work has been supported by The 2015 Playwrights Horizons/ Kenyon Institute Playwriting Conference and The 2015 Dramatists Guild Conference: #WriteChange. He’s a proud member of the Dramatists Guild as well as an IATSE technician, designer and editor. He is a founding member of The Playwriting Collective, a playwright driven initiative designed to support writers from lower economic backgrounds. He’s written for The Brooklyn Rail and hosts the blog http://LowerClassEntitlement.blogspot.com. http://www.JoshuaDYoung.com
Grace Connolly
Artistic Associate
Grace Connolly was a semi-finalist at the Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, 2018 and a semi-finalist for the 2018 Ball Grant. Grace was 1 of 7 fellows with the Performing Arts Legacy Project in correlation with The Actors Fund, 2017. Grace’s plays have been read or performed at The Wild Project, Dixon Place, Naked Angels, Nuyorican Poets Cafe, The Krane, The Fresh Fruit Festival, and Primary Stages ESPA. Literary publications include Never Apologize/Year of The Pig (Bluestockings), Flying and In the Way I Am Alive (Cleaver Magazine). Her first book of prose “Soft Foods” with BedStuy Press is available online for purchase. She is currently in post production for her first short with Primal Productions.
The Collective Members
Phillip Christian Smith
Phillip Christian has worked all over America as a regional theatre actor. He was last seen at Yale Rep in A Streetcar Named Desire. He has worked at Sonnet Repertory Theatre, The Classical Theatre of Harlem, a season at The Alabama Shakespeare Festival, NYSF, The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey, Cincinnati Playhouse in The Park, The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, The Great Lakes Theatre Festival, Emerge @ The Crossroads, Milwaukee Rep, and Hartford Stage. As a writer his play Biological Tick was a finalist for The Princess Grace Award. He has studied playwriting at ESPA Primary Stages with Brooke Berman, Tessa LaNeve, Halley Feiffer, and upcoming Kara Lee Corthron. Other plays include The Weird Sisters and Jig*a*boo. Phillip co-wrote and starred in the short film The Wrath of Siri, which can be seen in its entirety on Youtube. He is a graduate of The University of New Mexico and Yale School of Drama. He is a founding member of The Playwriting Collective.
Wi-Moto Nyoka
WI-MOTO NYOKA is a performer and transmedia artist. Awards and honors include: Puffin Foundation grant recipient 2012, the Brick’s Comic Book Theater Festival 2014 selected librettist, Indie Boots Theater Festival Finalist & Audience Award Honorable Mention 2015, A.R.T/New York Creative Space Grant recipient 2016. Official Film Selections include: Urban Action Showcase (2016), MeccaCon International Film Festival (2016-17), Official Latino Short Film Festival (2017). Residencies include: Tanzhaus NRW Interdisciplinary Works 2011, The Playwriting Collective Writers Group 2017 and Fresh Ground Pepper Playground Playgroup 2017. She holds a BFA in Music Theater from the University of the Arts and an MFA for Performance & Interactive Media Arts from Brooklyn College. wi-motonyoka.com
Elisabeth Ng
Elisabeth is a New York based director and actor. She firmly believes in nonsectarian approaches to diversity, and is proud to be a member of the Playwriting Collective. Her work has been commissioned by the Visual Art and Experimental Film Festival, After School Theater and One Minute Play Festival. She is a recipient of the 2016 ICWP 50/50 award. elisabethng.com
John Carhart
As an actor he began his acting career in the 90’s, John appeared Off-Broadway working with John Glines and on screen with John Waters in “Hairspray”, "Guiding Light” and the cult horror classic “There’s Nothing Out There”. He then segued into working as a TV/Digital Producer and Film Editor creating and co-hosting “Daily Shot with Ali Wentworth” for Yahoo!. After more than a decade, John returns to his first love, having recently graduated from the 2-year acting conservatory at William Esper Studio. He recently guest-starred on the new sitcom “Nightcap” for the POP Network.