Theater Masters

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  • About
    • Who We Are
    • Diversity, Equity, and inclusion
  • Programs
    • Take Ten
    • Aspiring Playwrights
    • Visionary Playwrights
    • Theater for Social Change
  • Alumni
    • Take Ten
    • Aspiring Playwrights
    • Visionary Playwrights
    • Other Programs
  • Auditions
  • Support
  • Contact

​TAKE TEN

ANNOUNCING THE 2023 MFA Playwrights

Take Ten 21
Join us at 7:00pm May 5th, 2023
 at the Robert Moss Theater (440 Lafayette Street, NYC)
for a reading presentation of new 10-minute plays by these emerging playwrights.
RESERVE YOUR SPOT
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Jose Sebastian Alberdi

jose sebastian alberdi is a Mexican-Basque-American playwright (with TV aspirations) originally from San Diego. He now lives in Brooklyn & writes about queerness, faith, power, love, climate & other things he finds interesting &/or important. He has developed work with the Huntington Theatre Company, SpeakEasy Stage, the Workshop Theatre, Exquisite Corpse Company, Breaking & Entering Theatre Collective, Fresh Ink Theatre, Teatro Chelsea, & Campfire Theatre Festival & has received commissions from SpeakEasy Stage & INTAR.
Selected plays: bogfriends, The Family Saves A Life, rachel, nevada, ¡Mamágua! MFA: New York University.

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DJ Hills 

DJ Hills (they/them) is a cross-genre writer for the stage, page, and screen, currently based in Los Angeles. Their play TRUNK BRIEF JOCK THONG was shortlisted for the 2023 Yale Drama Series. Other plays have been produced most recently at Carnegie Mellon University (Adult Things), University of California Los Angeles (A Driving Play), and Single Carrot Theatre (we broke up.). Their short play …in daylight was part of Theater Masters TAKE TEN 2022 and subsequently published by Concord Theatricals. Connect with them online at www.dj-hills.com. ​

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CHAD Kaydo

Chad Kaydo (he/him) is a queer playwright from Ashtabula, Ohio, who writes intimately observed plays obsessed with friendship, mortality, and the existential questions hidden in the quotidian. He is developing a play with Clubbed Thumb as a finalist for the 2022 Biennial Commission, and has been a finalist for the Bushwick Starr Reading Series and a semifinalist for the O’Neill National Playwrights Conference. As Playwright in Residence at the Brick, Chad produces community-building programs for early career writers and directors, including Quick + Dirty, a development series for short works by new collaborators. MFA ’23, Hunter College.

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Katie kirk

Katie Kirk is a playwright/screenwriter originally from Northwest Indiana, currently living in Pittsburgh, PA. Their work has been staged as part of Carnegie Mellon School of Drama's yearly Playground festival and developed with support from the Playwrights Realm's Script Share program, The PlayGround Experiment, and the Kentucky Theatre Association, among others. Katie has an MA in English from the University of Kentucky and is currently pursuing an MFA in Dramatic Writing from Carnegie Mellon University (exp. 2024).

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Malena Pennycook

Malena Pennycook is a writer, performer and MFA Playwriting candidate at The University of Texas. Malena creates formally inventive theatre about women with unusual impulses. Their plays include Diving Board (O'Neill Finalist; Austin Latinx New Play Festival); Two Apprentices (Kennedy Center: Latinx Award); 9/10 Beds (Kennedy Center: Musical Theatre Runner Up) and their solo show Am I Busy Yet? (Cosmic Cherry Arts). As a performer, Malena has developed projects with The Public's Under the Radar, Santa Cruz Shakespeare and The Flea. Malena was a 2022 New Harmony Project resident and a 2019 Richie Jackson Fellow. BFA NYU Tisch

Bridging the Gap between Playwrights' Education and Career

Theater Masters hosts a national 10-minute playwriting competition among the students at the top MFA programs in the country. Out of 60+ submissions, 6-7 winning plays are selected by a reading panel made up of industry professionals.
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Once selected, the MFA playwrights are given feedback to further develop their plays. They are then flown to New York City where they are able to observe the process of putting their plays into production, with a team of professional actors, directors and designers, culminating in a three night run of their work at a reputable New York City theater.

During this New York production week, Theater Masters also provide the playwrights with "Wonder Week," during which we arrange meetings with the top agents, literary managers, and artistic directors in the industry, offer them professional development panels with working playwrights, and introduce them to the writers' guilds as well as major theaters in NYC. This is a unique and career-starting program for these young playwrights that has launched the careers of our many successful alumni. 

We are the only organization to bridge the gap between the training playwrights receive in their MFA programs and the professional careers that lay ahead of them.  


Anthology by Samuel French


​We are excited to announce that A Concord Theatrical Company: Samuel French is publishing an annual anthology of the winning plays from our National MFA Playwrights Festival.

Order your acting edition - a perfect-bound script for use in production or as a reading edition.
Learn More and Order Your Copy
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Past National Adjudicators

 Martyna Majok 2022
​James Anthony Tyler 2021
​Craig Lucas and Dave Auburn 2020

Craig Lucas 2019
​David Auburn 2018

Abe Koogler 2017
Alexander Maggio 2016
Kathleen Chalfant 2015
Robert LuPone 2014
Theresa Rebeck 2013
A.R. Gurney 2012
Eric Bogosian 2011
Lanford Wilson 2010
Gordon Davidson 2009 
John Lithgow 2008
John Guare 2007
Alfred Uhry 2006 
Christopher Durang 2005 
Terrence McNally 2004
William Luce 2003

Read More About Our Other Programs

Aspiring Playwrights

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Visionary Playwrights

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Meeting on the Page

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(970) 633-0731

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