by BWW News Desk Dec. 18, 2019
F*It Club, the New York Innovative Award-winning film and theatre company, will complete ten years of its annual series of short, commissioned world-premiere plays at the IRT Theater as part of their 3B Development Series in Manhattan’s West Village with The Spring Fling: Happily Ever After, ten new short plays by Bekah Brunstetter (NBC’s This Is Us, The Cake), Matthew Lee Erlbach (Showtime’s Masters of Sex, The Doppelganger), Monet Hurst-Mendoza (NBC’s Law and Order: SVU ), Daniel K. Isaac (Fullerton), Chelsea Marcantel (Airness), Gregory S. Moss (Indian Summer, punkplay), Leah Nanako Winkler (NBC’s New Amsterdam, Kentucky, God Says This), Larry Powell (Lost Dog), Daniel Talbott (ABC’s The Conners), & Pia Wilson (National Geographic’s Genius).
After ten successful and critically-acclaimed years of producing all short-form content, featuring short films, short plays, and short-term events, F*It Club will end operations after this final production of The Spring Fling, featuring ten playwrights with ten performances in honor of ten years. Join us for the final celebration!
Performances will be Thursday, May 7th through Saturday, May 16th with Wednesday through Saturday night performances at 8pm and Saturday and Sunday matinees at 2p. Tickets are $20 and will be available in 2020 at brownpapertickets.com and at the door. IRT Theater is located at 154 Christopher Street, 3rd Floor, in New York, NY. For more information, visit http://www.facebook.com/effitclub.
Designed to showcase high-quality, world-premiere ten-minute plays, The Spring Fling offers emerging and established playwrights the chance to develop their work with the support of professional directors and designers and a cast of exceptionally talented New York artists. This annual series presents simple, writer-centric productions that add to the canon of thematically rich, complex and original ten-minute plays.
Previous playwrights have included Ngozi Anyanwu, Kevin Artigue, Liza Birkenmeier, Hilary Bettis, Lucy Boyle, Brooke Berman, Bekah Brunstetter, Jon Caren, Stephanie Del Rosso, Matthew Lee Erlbach, Halley Feiffer, Kate Gersten, Jason Grote, Ashlin Halfnight, Elizabeth Irwin, Nick Jones, Greg Keller, Anna Kerrigan, Ryan King, Krista Knight, Victor Lesniewski, Caroline V. McGraw, Catya McMullen, Seth Moore, Gregory S. Moss, Dan Moyer, Janine Nabers, Leah Nanako Winkler, Isaac Oliver, Matthew Paul Olmos, Heidi Schreck, Erica Saleh, Sarah Sander, Mark Schultz, Mark Sitko, Tommy Smith, Ariel Stess, Daniel Talbott, Joe Tracz, Lauren Yee, and Anna Ziegler.
The Spring Fling series has been nominated for a total of seventeen New York Innovative Theatre Awards with two wins.
Bios
BRUNSTETTER’s plays include The Cake (The Echo Theater; MTC Spring 2019), Going to a Place where you already Are (South Coast Repertory), The Oregon Trail (Portland Center Stage, O’Neill Playwrights Conference) Be A Good Little Widow (Ars Nova), and Oohrah! (The Atlantic Theater). She is an alumni of the CTG Writers Group, Primary Stages Writer’s group, Ars Nova Play Group, The Playwright’s Realm, and the Women’s Project Lab. She is a founding member of The Kilroys, an advocacy group dedicated to achieving gender parity in the theater. She has previously written for Freeform’s Switched at Birth, Starz’s American Gods, and NBC’s This is Us. She is currently developing TV projects with Bad Robot and Skydance, and is developing The Notebook musical with Ingrid Michaelson. BA UNC Chapel Hill; MFA in Dramatic Writing from the New School for Drama.
Matthew-Lee Erlbach is a writer, actor, and filmmaker from Chicago and New York. He is currently writing for an awesome Netlfix show he can’t talk about but you’re gonna love. Also: MASTERS OF SEX/Showtime, GYPSY/Netflix, WWE, MTV, and Nickelodeon. Theatre: THE DOPPELGÄNGER (an international farce), starring Rainn Wilson and directed by Tina Landau at Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago, where he recently developed his political dramas REVELATIONS, RADICAL, and is under commission. Other plays include HANDBOOK FOR AN AMERICAN REVOLUTIONARY; EAGER TO LOSE; KGIII; and KEVIN LAMB which have premiered and/or been developed at Ars Nova, New Group, Steppenwolf, Vineyard, Ars Nova, MCC, Williamstown, NYTW, and the Orchard Project, and Gym at Judson, among others. A HUMANITAS New Voices recipient, he has received support from the National Endowment for the Arts, Laurents/Hatcher Foundation, Elizabeth F. Cheney Foundation, Puffin Foundation, and was a member of Ars Nova‘s Play Group.
Monet Hurst-Mendoza is an NYC-based playwright from Los Angeles, CA. Her plays have been developed with Rising Circle Theater Collective, Astoria Performing Arts Center, American Academy of Dramatic Arts, |the claque|, Amios, The MITTEN Lab, SPACE on Ryder Farm, Magic Time @ Judson, Atlantic Acting School/NYU Tisch, #serials@The Flea and the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, among others. Alum: Emerging Writers Group at The Public Theater, the R&D Group at The Civilians, WP Playwrights Lab, and the Van Lier Fellowship at New Dramatists. She is currently a staff writer for Law and Order: SVU and advocates for equal representation for woman, trans, and non-binary writers in the American Theatre as a member of The Kilroys.
DANIEL K. ISAAC is a queer Korean American actor and writer based in New York City. His full-length plays include FULLERTON, ONCE UPON A (korean) TIME (2019 O’Neill Finalist), GAY.SEX.PRAY., and OR OR OR &&& (available as a podcast recording on The Parsnip Ship).
Daniel’s work has been developed at Ma-Yi Theater Company, New York Theatre Workshop, SPACE on Ryder Farm, Page73’s Interstate73, Ensemble Studio Theatre‘s Youngblood, Queens Theatre, The Tank, TheatreC, Leviathan Lab, and Lambda Literary. Training: UCSD, BADA. www.DanielKIsaac.com
Chelsea Marcantel is an LA-based writer, director, and collaborator. Reared by Cajuns in southwest Louisiana, Chelsea has lived and made theatre among the tribes of the Midwest, Appalachia, the Mid-Atlantic, and now the West Coast. In 2016, she completed a Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwrights Fellowship at The Juilliard School. Her plays, which have been produced across the US and Canada, include Airness, Everything is Wonderful, Tiny Houses, Ladyish, and Devour. As a writer, Chelsea is extremely interested in humans as small-group primates, and what happens when the rules and value systems of our chosen groups cease to serve us. She reads a lot of books, watches a lot of documentaries, and listens to a lot of podcasts. Chelsea is an avid self-producer, an enthusiastic member of The Writers Guild of America and The Dramatists Guild, and runs with a kick-ass group of activists called The Kilroys. Current commissions: Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, Geffen Playhouse, Cleveland Play House. www.ChelseaMarcantel.com
GREGORY S. MOSS is a writer, educator and performer from Newburyport MA. His work has been produced at Playwrights Horizons, Soho Rep, Steppenwolf, La Comédie-Française, EST-LA, Clubbed Thumb, Capital T Theatre and South Coast Rep, among others. His plays include Indian Summer, punkplay, Reunion, Billy Witch, House of Gold and sixsixsix. Gregory is a MacDowell Fellow and the recipient of a Jerome Fellowship and a McKnight Fellowship. He is the recipient of the Reva Shiner Comedy Prize (Billy Witch) and an Edgerton Foundation New Play Award (Indian Summer). His work is published by Overlook Press, Dramatists Play Service, Dramatic Publishing Company, Playscripts and in the journals Play: A Journal of Plays and n+1. He is an Associate Professor of Theatre and Head of the MFA Dramatic Writing Program at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque. He is currently at work on The Untitled Hunter S. Thompson Musical, with composer Joe Iconis and director Chris Ashley, premiering in Fall 2020.
Leah Nanako Winkler is an award-winning playwright from Kamakura, Japan and Lexington, Kentucky. Her plays include God Said This (Winner: Yale Drama Series, World Premiere: Humana Festival, Off Broadway Premiere Primary Stages/Cherry Lane), Two Mile Hollow (Winner: Francesca Primus Prize, 2017 Kilroys List), and Kentucky (2015 Kilroys List/ World premiere: Ensemble Studio Theatre in coproduction with Page 73 and the Radio Drama Network.) Hot Asian Doctor Husband (Theater Mu/Mixed Blood ) and Nevada-Tan (only on Audible). Leah was awarded the first-ever Mark O’Donnell Prize from The Actors Fund and Playwrights Horizons. MFA Brooklyn College.
Larry Powell is a writer, actor, director and producer born and raised in South Central LA. As an actor he’s originated and premiered roles in some of the most exciting new plays in America including The Christians by Lucas Hnath, The Legend of Georgia McBride by Matthew Lopez, Father Comes Home From The Wars by Suzan Lori Parks, Seared by Theresa Rebeck, Brokeology by Nathan Louis Jackson, Curve of Departure by Rachel Bonds, and While I Yet Live by Billy Porter to name a few. His NYC debut was in the premiere off-off broadway production of Pia Wilson’s The Flower Thief. He is a two-time Ovation Award nominee, three-time NAACP Theatre Award Nominee, San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Award Nominee, two-time LA Drama Critics Circle Award Winner, as well as an Audelco and Audie award nominee. Larry is also a published playwright and professional screenwriter. He most recently finished as screenwriter on upcoming indie feature film which wrapped in NYC spring 2019. His play Lost Dog will premiere in Los Angeles at the Los Angeles Theatre Center in Spring 2020. He is a core playwright at the Lark Play Development Center. As a director he has worked with several contemporary playwrights on exciting new works, has directed his own film project Mother’s Milk, and has been mentored by the likes of Michele Shay, Robert O’Hara and Phylicia Rashad (Assistant Director; Center Theatre Group‘s production of August Wilson‘s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom). Also serves as an Adjunct Lecturer at University of Southern California’s School of Dramatic Arts MFA Acting program, where he recently directed an extremely successful production of Tarell Alvin McCraney‘s The Brothers Size. Larry is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon’s School of Drama.
Daniel Talbott is a writer, director, actor, and a Lucille Lortel Award winning theater producer. He’s currently a writer on The Conners on ABC and was a writer on The Mist, based on the Stephen King novella. He is in development with That’s Wonderful Productions for a feature, Yosemite. He’s on the lit team of Rattlestick Playwrights Theater and is the artistic director of Rising Phoenix Rep. He most recently directed The Convent Off-Broadway, is writing a new play commission for Echo Theater Company, and is co-writing a new play with Lucy Thurber titled The Land of Ghosts. He is a graduate of Juilliard and a proud member of The Actors Studio.
PIA WILSON is a 2017 NJPAC Stage Exchange commissioned playwright, 2017 resident with the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Process Space program, 2015 Sundance fellow, and a recipient of the 2014 Sarah Verdone Writing Award. She is a 2012-2013 resident with LMCC’s Workspace program, a member of the 2008 Emerging Writers Group at The Public Theater, and a 2009 playwriting fellow with the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. Her plays have been produced by Crossroads Theatre, Workspace Collective, Drew University, Adelphi University, Horse Trade Theater Group, and The Fire This Time play festival. She was a staff writer for the upcoming season of National Geographic’s Genius series, GENIUS – Aretha Franklin. www.piawilson.com Twitter & Instagram: @pwilson720
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR/PRODUCER Allyson Morgan is a performer, writer, and producer. She is the founder and Executive Director of the award-winning film and theatre collective F*It Club. Most recently, she has been seen onstage with F*It Club and Ensemble Studio Theatre, and has performed in readings all over New York at such theatres as Playwrights Horizons, The Lark, New York Theatre Workshop, & Jewish Plays Project. She has been named a “performer to watch” by ReviewFix.com. TV: “Law and Order: SVU” (NBC), “The Americans” (FX), “Hostages” (CBS), “Inside Amy Schumer” (Comedy Central), “Divorce” (HBO). She has been commissioned to write short pieces for the New York play series Shotz and #serials@theflea, as well as for the One Minute Play Festival and videos for the online TDF Theatre Dictionary. Her short play What Goes Up was a finalist in the Samuel French Festival, reaching the top 10 out of 900 submissions. She was named one of just five winners out of thousands of entrants from over 63 countries in the Bombay Sapphire Imagination Series; her short film Need For Speed (Dating) premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. She has twice been selected out of hundreds for the iTV/Catalyst Content Festival pitch competition and was also one of twelve selected finalists in the Comedy Script competition for Catalyst. She has twice been awarded a Juno Women’s Leadership Residency through the Omega Institute. In addition to Executive Producing ten years of F*It Club’s programming, including ten seasons of “The Spring Fling,” five short films, and “Webseries: The Webseries,” Allyson has served as Festival Producer for the Jewish Plays Project’s Open Festival, Festival Producer for the BEAT Festival, Festival Producer for the Indie Street Film Festival, a Producer for the Waterwell Drama Program, and co-producer of The Green Plays in conjunction with Gowanus Art + Production. Allyson recently was a part of the Webby Award-winning team for Dave Holstein and Alan Schmuckler‘s Wait, Wait, Don’t Kill Me, producing the podcast for Wondery Media’s Secrets, Crimes, and Audiotape. She also created and produced, with frequent collaborator Kevin Laibson and Developer Alex Coulombe, Ghosted, an AR experience for the Magic Leap One headset, which was awarded “Most Innovative Immersive Experience” at the North Bend Film Festival.
Daniel Talbott is a writer, director, actor, and a Lucille Lortel Award winning theater producer. He’s currently a writer on The Conners on ABC and was a writer on The Mist, based on the Stephen King novella. He is in development with That’s Wonderful Productions for a feature, Yosemite. He’s on the lit team of Rattlestick Playwrights Theater and is the artistic director of Rising Phoenix Rep. He most recently directed The Convent Off-Broadway, is writing a new play commission for Echo Theater Company, and is co-writing a new play with Lucy Thurber titled The Land of Ghosts. He is a graduate of Juilliard and a proud member of The Actors Studio.
PIA WILSON is a 2017 NJPAC Stage Exchange commissioned playwright, 2017 resident with the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Process Space program, 2015 Sundance fellow, and a recipient of the 2014 Sarah Verdone Writing Award. She is a 2012-2013 resident with LMCC’s Workspace program, a member of the 2008 Emerging Writers Group at The Public Theater, and a 2009 playwriting fellow with the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. Her plays have been produced by Crossroads Theatre, Workspace Collective, Drew University, Adelphi University, Horse Trade Theater Group, and The Fire This Time play festival. She was a staff writer for the upcoming season of National Geographic’s Genius series, GENIUS – Aretha Franklin. www.piawilson.com Twitter & Instagram: @pwilson720
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR/PRODUCER Allyson Morgan is a performer, writer, and producer. She is the founder and Executive Director of the award-winning film and theatre collective F*It Club. Most recently, she has been seen onstage with F*It Club and Ensemble Studio Theatre, and has performed in readings all over New York at such theatres as Playwrights Horizons, The Lark, New York Theatre Workshop, & Jewish Plays Project. She has been named a “performer to watch” by ReviewFix.com. TV: “Law and Order: SVU” (NBC), “The Americans” (FX), “Hostages” (CBS), “Inside Amy Schumer” (Comedy Central), “Divorce” (HBO). She has been commissioned to write short pieces for the New York play series Shotz and #serials@theflea, as well as for the One Minute Play Festival and videos for the online TDF Theatre Dictionary. Her short play What Goes Up was a finalist in the Samuel French Festival, reaching the top 10 out of 900 submissions. She was named one of just five winners out of thousands of entrants from over 63 countries in the Bombay Sapphire Imagination Series; her short film Need For Speed (Dating) premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. She has twice been selected out of hundreds for the iTV/Catalyst Content Festival pitch competition and was also one of twelve selected finalists in the Comedy Script competition for Catalyst. She has twice been awarded a Juno Women’s Leadership Residency through the Omega Institute. In addition to Executive Producing ten years of F*It Club’s programming, including ten seasons of “The Spring Fling,” five short films, and “Webseries: The Webseries,” Allyson has served as Festival Producer for the Jewish Plays Project’s Open Festival, Festival Producer for the BEAT Festival, Festival Producer for the Indie Street Film Festival, a Producer for the Waterwell Drama Program, and co-producer of The Green Plays in conjunction with Gowanus Art + Production. Allyson recently was a part of the Webby Award-winning team for Dave Holstein and Alan Schmuckler‘s Wait, Wait, Don’t Kill Me, producing the podcast for Wondery Media’s Secrets, Crimes, and Audiotape. She also created and produced, with frequent collaborator Kevin Laibson and Developer Alex Coulombe, Ghosted, an AR experience for the Magic Leap One headset, which was awarded “Most Innovative Immersive Experience” at the North Bend Film Festival.
