PlayGround PlayGroup
The PlayGround PlayGroup is an intimate, process-focused collective of makers gathered to celebrate the creation of new work. The group, now in its 15th season, welcomes artists to develop and support new projects within the structure of an engaged, curious, and uplifting cohort of colleagues. This year, PGPG will convene in-person, and the group is open to artists in the NYC area. Artists will rotate weeks of sharing and supporting during meetings that will occur on Mondays approximately every two weeks from February - June 2025.
Geena Quintos, 2021 PGPG Artist in Residence
FGP's PlayGround PlayGroup has changed the way I create and reinforced the notion of knowing your artistry has no bounds. I've never been more excited to throw paint at the wall because the cohort is filled with other incredible people and artists who were doing exactly the same thing. I can safely say that I have found an artistic home in FGP!
2024 Artists in Residence
Ella Lee Davidson (She/Her) is a Theatre Artist from Albany, New York. She double majored in Dramatic Writing and Drama at NYU Tisch, where she studied at Playwrights Horizons Theatre School and the Classical Studio. Recently, she directed and acted in a sold-out run of The Ben Shapiro Project, a show she wrote as part of the 2023 Exponential Festival at The Brick Theater.
Miles Orduña is a NYC-based Fil-Am writer. He’s a Sundance Institute / TAAF Collab scholar. Notable development opportunities: Great Plains Theater Commons, Cherry Lane Theatre, Royal Family Productions, Naked Angels, The Lark, and Fresh Ground Pepper. Finalist for the Bay Area Playwrights Festival, Sundance Episodic Lab, and the Orchard Project Episodic Lab.
Simran Bal is a multi-hyphenate artist originally from the midwest. Her television scripts have been developed via Circle of Confusion's Writer's Discovery Fellowship and NYU'd Department Dramatic Writing. Her play scripts have been honored as finalists at Austin Film Festival and Screencraft's Stageplay Competition, and produced with Blank Theatre LA and Northwestern University. Simran's written work is inspired by rural life and the South Asian/mixed experience in its many forms. Currently, Simran is a writer’s assistant for Madhuri Shekar via Eka Tantham Inc, where she assists with the development of screenplays/pilots for Disney+, HBO, and Netflix. If all else fails, Simran is outside.
Luz Lorenzana Twigg is a Filipinx American playwright, poet, and dramaturg. Her writing explores diasporic identity, ritual, ancestral healing, and theatre as a living archive. She holds an MFA in Playwriting from Columbia University.
Jayne Deely (they/them) is a Puerto Rican writer and proud millennial from Queens, NY. Their work has been developed with American Stage, the New Harmony Project, Renaissance Theatreworks, and Coe College, among others. They are a two-time winner of the Latinx Playwriting Award with KCACTF, two-time semi-finalist for the O’Neill Playwrights’ Conference and BAPF, and a recent Dramatist Guild Foundation National Fellows Finalist, 2024. MFA Indiana University. Proud member of AEA, SAG-AFTRA, Dramatists’ Guild.
Phillip Christian Smith is a member of New Dramatists, The Fire This Time Playwright, Sewanee Scholar, Playwrights Realm and Lambda Literary Fellow. O’Neill, PlayPenn, and BAPF Finalist. Adjunct Pace and Hunter. MFA Yale School of Drama. MFA Hunter College. He is currently working on a Roe Green Commission with The Cleveland Playhouse. www.phillipchristiansmith.com
Carolina Đỗ is a multi-dimensional artist and proud descendant of Vietnamese freedom fighters and refugees. Carolina’s writing has been supported by fellowships/residencies from Soho Rep’s Writer Director Lab, MacDowell, JACK, Piper Theater, Naked Angels, and The Orchard Project. Current commissions: The Hearth’s Virtual Retreat and Fault Line Theater’s Irons in the Fire. Co-founder of The Sống Collective.
Previous Residents
2024
Ella Lee Davidson, Miles Orduña, Simran Bal, Luz Lorenzana Twigg, Jayne Deely, Phillip Christian Smith, Carolina Đỗ
2022-2023
Piper Hill, Charlotte Lang-Bush, Nancy Ma, Achiro P. Olwoch, SB Tennent, Valerie Work
2021
Andrea Coleman, Gabby Preston, Geena Quintos, Jaime Jarrett, Jessica Almasy, k. lyons, Kimiko Tanabe, Morgan McGuire, Peppa, Rat Queen Theatre Company (represented by Molly Bicks, Carsen Joenk, and J. Mehr Kaur)
2019-2020
Ben Beckley, Asa Wember, Darian Dauchan, Monet Hurst-Mendoza, Matt Minnicino, Ankita Raturi | अंकिता रतूड़ी, Charlotte Murray, Annie Jin Wang, Rev. Yolanda, Justin Taylor, Shaun Peknic, Ada Westfall, Alex Thrailkill, Sunny Hitt, Jeanna Phillips
2017-2018
Lena Hudson and Jess Chayes, Eric Farber, Ben Holbrook and Nate Weida, Krista Knight, Liz Morgan, Wi-Moto Nyoka, Jacob Marx Rice, WIl Petre
2016
Andrew Butler and Jordan Fein, Cat Crowley, nicHi Douglas, Ryan Fogarty, Tory Keenan-Zelt,and Ilana Becker, Gordon Leary and Julia Meinwald, Nikki DiLoreto, Kareem Fahmy
2015
Molly Beach Murphy, Julia Izumi, Andrew Scoville, James Monaco, Joe Castle Baker, Chris Tyler, Lindsey Hope Pearlman, Matthew Jellison, Charly Simpson, Jamie Effros, Claire Keichel
2014
T Adamson, Mikey Barringer, Amy Virginia Buchanan, Sam Corbin, Noah Mease, Jay Stull, Ellie and Drew Vanderburg, Antu Yacob
2013
Truth Bachman, Salty Brine, Max Freedman and Hugh Trimble, Dylan Lamb, Dano Madden, Callan Stout, Emma Tattenbaum-Fine
2012-2011
Kevin Armento, Andrew Farmer, Theresa Giacopasi, Anna Greenfield, Preston Martin and Jaclyn Backhaus, Max Reuben, Evan Watkins, Ali Mendes, Sarah Todes, Alex Kveton, Mike Brun, Blake Allen, and Joel Esher
2010-2009
Alexandra Bassett, Andrew Farmer and Emma Koenig, Jaclyn Backhaus, Alyssa Yackley, Mara Wilson, Matthew Robert Gehring, Dylan Lamb, Kevin Armento, Aaron Schroeder, Brooke Bundy, Chris Chan, Jais Brohinsky, Lorelei Ignas
This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.