INKubator New Play Program
MEET THE 2024-2025 COHORT
Michael Judson Berry is an actor and writer with a BFA from Boston University and MA from LAMDA, but he is best known for creating the viral series “QuaranTeaTime,” a parody of Schitt's Creek’s lovably loquacious matriarch Moira Rose, which has received millions of views on socials and even garnered praise from Catherine O'Hara herself. Michael co-created two TV series which are currently in development and is thrilled to begin work on his first play!
Phillip Gregory Burke is a Black American of Haitian, Creole, and Gullah-Geechee descent artivist, actor, playwright, and producer. His play A Mercy At Midnight Castle won the 49th Annual Samuel French Off-Off Broadway Short Play Festival and will be published by Concord Theatricals. He won the 2024 National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures Fund for the Arts Grant, is a 2024-2025 Bandung Resident, holds memberships in SAG-AFTRA, AEA, and The Dramatists Guild, and co-founded DIEZ. @PhillipGBurke
Sarah Cuneo is a playwright, actress, director, aerialist, and founding member of Taproot Creatives. A semifinalist for the 2024 Dramatists Guild Foundation National Fellows Program, Sarah has had her writing featured at the New York International Fringe Festival, The Tank, Chelsea Film Festival, and Chain Film Festival. As an actress, she loves to develop new works. She collaborated with Tectonic Theater Project on workshops of their new play Here There Are Blueberries and has acted in new play festivals across the country.
Molly Horan is a lyricist, librettist, playwright, and novelist. Her play The Patron Saint of Other Women won Georgia College’s Arts & Letters 2021 Drama Prize. She is a member of the BMI Musical Theatre Advanced Workshop and Librettist Workshop. Her sophomore novel, Thanks For Listening, will be out this November. She currently teaches creative writing and literature at New York University and The School of Visual Arts.
Frank Murdocco is a New York-based actor and writer. Most recently, his solo show A Little Treat premiered at the 2024 Edinburgh Fringe Festival. His plays, which have been produced Off-Broadway and internationally, include I Didn't Mean to Scream So Loud, Legume, The Yearnings, and The Public and Private Deaths of Carol O'Grady. He is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild and Actors Equity Association. @frankmurdocco, www.frankmurdocco.com
M. D. Schaffer (they/he) is a non-binary, Ashkenazi, African-American playwright, choreographer, librettist, and lyricist born in Houston, Texas, and residing in New York City. They are a proud alumni of Princeton University and the Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program at New York University. They look to represent cultures honestly to create spaces for all people to speak, connect, and form a solidified resistance to damaging and oppressive structures.
Art House Productions' INKubator program is an eight-month generative playwriting process for six playwrights-in-residence in Jersey City, culminating in the annual INKubator New Play Festival in May. From October 2024 to May 2025, playwrights will meet monthly in person as a group alongside program director Alex Tobey to develop the first draft of a brand-new play and receive feedback.
At the end of this process in May, each writer will collaborate with a professional director and actors to present a public staged reading as part of the annual INKubator New Play Festival.
INK ALUMNI:
2023-2024 INKubator Writers
Upasna Barath, Amanda Sage Comerford, Leo Layla Díaz, Neil Levi, Dave Osmundsen, and Marcus Scott
2022-2023 INKubator Writers
Micharne Cloughley, Amir-Gabriel Gad, Adin Lenahan, Iraisa Ann Reilly, Edwin Rivera-Arias, Emmy Weissman
2021-2022 INKubator Writers
Jake Brasch, Nay Harris, Justice Hehir, Christian Mendonça, Riley Elton McCarthy, Melissa Toomey
2020-2021 INKubator Writers
Andrea Coleman, Izzi D’Esposito, Madeline Dennis-Yates, Nathaniel Foster, Aja Nisenson, SMJ
2019-2020 INKubator Writers
Kev Berry, C. Julian Jiménez, Alyssa Haddad, Christopher-Rashee Stevenson, Leila Teitelman, Colin Waitt
2018-2019 INKubator Writers
Molly Bicks, Stephen Kaplan, Emily Kitchens, Dan O’Neil, Lia Romeo, Michael Shayan, Catherine Weingarten, Ruth Zamoyta
