Visionary Playwrights

Announcing
Our 2020 Visionary Playwrights!

AVA GEYER received her BA from Princeton University in 2015 and MFA in playwriting from UC San Diego in 2019. Geyer is currently the Shank Resident Playwright at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, a member of EST/Youngblood, and under commission by La Jolla Playhouse. Her play Monster was a finalist for the Alliance/Kendeda National Graduate Playwriting Competition. She was a finalist for the 2019/2020 Jerome Fellowship and semi-finalist for the Ingram New Works Lab. Her play Fruit Snacks appeared in Williamsburg, Brooklyn as part of the Hopeful Decade event celebrating new work by female playwrights. Past plays include SERE (Wagner New Play Festival 2018) and Baby Teeth (WNPF '17).

PHILLIP HOWZE is a theater maker whose work includes Self Portraits (BRIC-Arts Media) and Frontieres Sans Frontieres (Bushwick Starr). He is currently a Lucas Artist Fellow at Montalvo Arts Center and a Resident Writer at Lincoln Center Theater/LCT3. He was recently named the Lecturer in Playwriting at Harvard University’s new Theater, Dance & Media program.

Meet the 2019 Visionary Playwrights:

JESSICA HUANG is a playwright and producer from Minneapolis, based in New York City. Jessica’s work has been developed, commissioned, and/or produced by New York Theatre Workshop, The New Group, Atlantic Theater Company, Mixed Blood Theatre, TimeLine Theatre Company, History Theatre, Theater Mu, and many more. Jessica is a MacDowell Fellow; two-time Playwrights’ Center Jerome Fellow; and Playwrights’ Center Many Voices Fellow; and has received awards from the Sloan Foundation, the Jerome Foundation, the Minnesota State Arts Board and The Metropolitan Regional Arts Council/McKnight.
Jessica cofounded and co-directs Other Tiger Productions, a theatrical production company with a mission to pursue multidisciplinary collaborations, intentional inclusivity and a re-examination of traditional theater practices. She is a member of the Civilians R&D Group, Ars Nova Play Group, Page 73's Interstate 73, and she is a resident playwright at Chance Theater. She attends the Playwrights Program at Juilliard.

EMILY ZEMBA is a Brooklyn-based playwright, screenwriter, and creative producer. Her work has been seen and developed with places like The Adam Mickiewicz Institute in Poland, Exquisite Corpse Company, Williamstown Theater Festival's Professional Training Company, First Floor Theater (Chicago). Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, The Playwrights’ Center, Great Plains Theater Conference, The Party Line, GUIDED TOUR, and the Yale Cabaret. Emily holds an MFA in playwriting from Yale School of Drama, and a BA from Sarah Lawrence College. She is an Affiliated Writer with The Playwrights Center, affiliated artist with New Georges, co-founder of The Party Line, and founding member of Middle Voice at Rattlestick. She has worked with MCC Theater Youth Company’s Playwrights Lab as a mentor and director. Emily has taught playwriting with Tres Artis studio in NYC and at Wesleyan University.

HARMON. is a queer multiply neurodivergent writer/performer/visual artist. Harmon.’s works for the theatre include: Minden (The Tank, TBA); People Like Us, a musical autofiction (written with Lisbeth Scott, in development); No Land to Land In (Dixon Place, Director: Craig Lucas); Goodbye, Kansas, a new musical (KC Fringe Fest); Disability Romp (Folly Theatre, KCMO, a dance); M. (Bete Noire Online Theatre Festival, 2021); Visionary, a musical biography of Buddha (Elgin Theatre, Toronto, Director: Craig Lucas); True Blood musical (workshop 2017/18, Director: Pam McKinnon). Harmon. is a fellow at the Hermitage Artist’s Retreat in Englewood, Florida. As a performer, Harmon. has toured the country as a stand up and in sketch comedy and solo shows. Harmon.’s performative work explores trauma, sexual violence, mental illness, alter personalities and humor as a way to open up space for truth-telling and to build resilience/reduce fear among those who have survived abuse and to inform those who live in ignorance of the toll humanity’s hidden epidemic takes on victims and their communities. Over the past ten years, Harmon.’s paintings, videos and embroidered sculptures have been sought after by private collectors across the U.S. Harmon. is based in Hudson Valley, NY.

Professional Play Development Programs

In 2008, Theater Masters initiated the Visionary Playwrights Award, in partnership with the Aspen Institute and three of America's top regional theaters: Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago, La Jolla Playhouse in California, and Playwrights Horizons in NYC. One playwright from each theater, was chosen jointly by Theater Masters and the participating theater, received a pass to attend the Aspen Ideas Festival and was commissioned to write a new full-length play. The playwrights were to draw inspiration from the Festival and reflect the Institute's philosophy of timeless values and powerful issues.

As this program has evolved, we now instead draw from Theater Masters' own pool of alumni, choosing two of our own playwrights each year to receive this prestigious Award, participate in The Aspen Ideas Festival, and receive a full-length play commission.

Since 2014, we have been able to add the additional commitment to this Award that Theater Masters will either do a developmental workshop and reading of the playwrights Visionary Play or will connect them with a theater able to so. This added commitment is meaningful to the playwrights as it gives them additional support to develop the play to the point of being ready for a production.

This program can boast an impressive list of alumni. Among the many Visionary Plays that have been written through this program, our first commissioned play, Milk Like Sugar, by Kirsten Greenidge, ran at La Jolla Playhouse, then at Playwrights Horizons Off-Broadway where it won the Obie for Best Play. Another commissioned play, Marjorie Prime, by Jordan Harrison ran at Playwrights Horizons Off-Broadway in November 2015 and was a Finalist for the Pulitzer.

New Play Development

Our New Play Development series invites a director, playwright, and cast to Aspen, New York, or Palm Beach, where workshops of a new play-in-progress culminate in a reading for the community and/or industry. In 2015 Theater Masters additionally launched a partnership with the O'Neill Playwrights Center for them to offer a residency to a Theater Masters playwright in the Fall. Plays and musicals developed have received a 1st Place in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the honor of being the critics choice as one of the 10 best plays of the year, Off-Broadway productions and a production at the Berkshire Theater Festival.

Talkabouts

As part of Theater Masters' education for audiences, our Talkabout programs feature world-renowned artists in a series of lectures and theatrical readings on a variety of topics. Past Talkabouts have included director Richard Digby Day and actress Dana Ivey discussing what theatre's great characters reveal about political ambition; Denver Center Theater's Kent Thompson on what it takes to be an artistic director; and Cheers' star Shelley Long on mastering stage, film, and television.

Theater Masters Presents

Theater Masters presents distinguished professional productions for Aspen/Roaring Fork audiences. These popular events have included Gareth Armstrong's Shylock, Frank Barrie's Playing Shakespeare, and the provocative plays Dearborn Heights and Open Admissions.

Our School Outreach program uses a Theater Masters production as a springboard to bring arts education to the high schools in the Roaring Fork Valley. A study guide is produced for students and teachers. The Theatre professionals visit classrooms to discuss the play Theater Masters is presenting, with a focus on how the themes relate to the students' studies and their own lives. This is followed by a trip to the theater where the students see the play for themselves and deepen their discussion.