2026 projects and artists

Lead artist: Fouad Dakwar
Collaborator: Sivan Battat

I think I’m being haunted by the ghost of my assassinated Jewish Palestinian second-cousin…Part stand-up comedy, part punk-rock, part family-history, part spectral-ritual, Amo Juliano is a musical account of the life and assassination of Jewish Palestinian activist theatre-maker, Juliano Mer-Khamis.

Fouad Dakwar is a multimedia artist and 2025 Jonathan Larson Grant recipient whose subversive comedy channels his Palestinian immigrant upbringing (with a punk-rock twist). His semi-autobiographical musical, Fouad of Nazareth, has been featured on the Playbill Songwriter Series, which described him as “a darkly comic pop-punk composer on the rise.” He is a 2024–25 Dramatists Guild Foundation Fellow, a 2025 Yes And… Laughter Lab Fellow, a 2026 Kleban Prize finalist, and a member of the Joe’s Pub Council.

Sivan Battat is a theatre director and community organizer based in NYC. Recent credits include Last Call with Lampert & Barsha (Long Wharf; supported by Ground Floor), Empty Ride (by Keiko Green; Old Globe), In the Amazon Warehouse Parking Lot (by Sarah Mantell; Playwrights Horizons), Angels in America (NYU Grad Acting), Problems Between Sisters (by Julia May Jonas; Studio), Wish You Were Here (by Sanaz Toossi; Yale Rep), and Layalina (by Martin Yousif Zebari; Goodman). sivanbattat.com

Lead artists: Felonious (Carlos Aguirre, Keith Pinto, Tommy Soulati Shepherd, and Dan Wolf)
Collaborator: Elizabeth Carter

Four estranged emcees reunite for a $200,000 gig at a former fan’s 40th birthday party. One part live hip-hop concert and one part love letter to their artform — the show weaves together the live spectacle of their music set with a deeper exploration of their personal histories, their brotherhood, and the sacrifices they’ve made for each other. It’s not just about getting “The Bag” — it’s about what you find when you reach for it. The Bag’s 2026 Ground Floor Summer Lab residency is supported by Circuit Network with funding from the Gerbode Foundation and the Kenneth Rainin Foundation.

Felonious is a boundary-breaking performance ensemble established in 1998, featuring Bay Area artists Dan Wolf, Carlos Aguirre (aka Infinite), Keith Pinto, and Tommy Shepherd (aka Emcee Soulati). Through a collaborative process rooted in collective authorship and deep mutual respect, Felonious fuses music and theatre to create dynamic community-minded productions.

Carlos Aguirre (actor, musician, playwright, educator) has been performing and educating in the Bay Area for over 25 years. He has shared the stage with The Roots, Erykah Badu, Black Eyed Peas, Mary J. Blige, Jam Master Jay, and LL Cool J, and has recently been guest starring with Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Tony Award-winning show Freestyle Love Supreme. He is currently producing his original rap and beatbox adaptation of Edgar Allen Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart, as well as recording and releasing new music. Aguirre shares his experience by teaching at various schools and at-risk environments throughout the Bay Area.

Keith Pinto is a multidisciplinary artist from the Peninsula. He is a graduate of the Pacific Conservatory of the Performing Arts and has been on the faculty at San Jose State University for 25 years teaching hip-hop dance technique. As cofounder of the award-winning hip-hop band and theatre company, Felonious: Onelovehiphop, Keith has recorded numerous albums (iTunes/Spotify) and performed with groups such as the Black Eyed Peas, LL Cool J, The Roots, Digital Underground, and De La Soul. Felonious theatre pieces which Pinto appeared in as well as choreographed include Beatbox: A Raparetta, Angry Black White Boy, Block by Block, and Stateless: A Hip-Hop Vaudeville Experience.

Tommy Soulati Shepherd (he/him/they) is a renowned actor, rapper, drummer, beatboxer, playwright, author, composer, educator, and producer, aka Emcee Soulati. Cofounder of Bay Area’s Felonious collective and Alphabet Rockers (Grammy- and Emmy-winning family hip-hop group), and longtime Campo Santo member telling people’s stories. He composed, music-directed, and toured with Marc Bamuthi Joseph on Scourge, the break/s, Spoken World, red, black & GREEN, and /peh-LO-tah/. He is an Isadora Duncan Award-winner and 2025 CBS Bay Area Icons honoree.

Dan Wolf is a performance artist whose work combines conventional theatre techniques with the music, language, and aesthetics of the hip-hop generation. He is the cofounder of the critically-acclaimed hip-hop music and theatre collective, Felonious, and the artistic director of Sound in the Silence, a site-specific historical education performance project. He is the 2025 recipient of the Launch Award from the Playwrights Foundation for “changing the future through his internationally recognized historical remembrance work with young artists.”

Elizabeth Carter is a regional director based in the SF Bay Area. Her favorite productions include Fat Ham (Oregon Shakespeare Festival), Confederates (Repertory Theatre of St. Louis), Wolf Play (Shotgun Players), Indecent (Center REPertory Co.), As You Like It (California Shakespeare Festival), Crumbs from the Table of Joy (Aurora Theatre Co.), and the new musical Sign My Name to Freedom (SFBATCO). She was the inaugural SDCFoundation Lloyd Richards New Futures Resident Director at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and a current Lucas Arts Fellow.

Lead artist: Borna Barzin
Collaborator: Pirronne Yousefzadeh

Belly Dancing Lessons follows a group of high school students who form an illicit belly dancing studio in the basement of a bakery in 1980s Iran.

Borna Barzin is a Brooklyn-based playwright and director whose work moves between downtown performances and major New York institutions. Borna was recently named the inaugural Theater Resident of the Queer Nightlife Community Center, where his play The Perverse will premiere this fall. A 2024 Van Lier Fellow in Theater with the Asian American Arts Alliance and a recent MacDowell Fellow, he has presented work at Lincoln Center Theater, New York Theatre Workshop, Sibiu International Theatre Festival, Atlantic Theater Company, The Bushwick Starr, and National Queer Theater, among others. He will join the Playwrights Program at The Juilliard School in Fall 2026.

The proud daughter of Iranian immigrants, Pirronne Yousefzadeh is a director with a passion for new work that uplifts the stories of global majority communities with buoyancy and theatrical magic. She serves as the associate artistic director at Playwrights’ Center. She has developed and directed work at Playwrights Horizons, New York Theatre Workshop, The Public, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Geffen Playhouse, and many more. She is a Usual Suspect at NYTW, and an alumna of Williamstown’s Sagal Fellowship, SDC Denham Fellowship, Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab, and Drama League Directors Project. She received an MFA from Columbia University. pirronne.com

Lead artists: Ryan J. Haddad, The Bengsons
Collaborators: Sam Gold, Alison Kopit, Sarah Lunnie

Crip Camp is a wild, joyous, uninhibited live musical adaptation of the Academy Award-nominated documentary. With original music, text, jokes, robust interviews, and dirty stories, Crip Camp is the story of a group of young activists, many of whom met at Camp Jened and went on to fight for disability rights. Original seed commission and ongoing development by The Public Theater (Oskar Eustis, Artistic Director and Patrick Willingham, Executive Director).

Ryan J. Haddad is an actor and playwright. His autobiographical plays include Hold Me in the Water (Playwrights Horizons), Dark Disabled Stories (Bushwick Starr, Public Theater; Obie Award for Best New American Play), and Hi, Are You Single? (Woolly Mammoth, IAMA). His additional stage credits include Tartuffe (NYTW), La Cage aux Folles (Pasadena Playhouse), american (tele)visions (NYTW, Theater Mitu), and The Watering Hole (Signature). His TV credits include A Murder at the End of the World (Hulu) and The Politician (Netflix). Haddad received the Drama Desk’s 2023 Sam Norkin Off-Broadway Award, Vineyard Theatre’s 2021 Paula Vogel Playwriting Award, and a 2020 Disability Futures Fellowship. @ryanjhaddad (Photo: Stephen K. Mack)

The Bengsons are Obie Award-winning composers and performers raising two children in Brooklyn. They are interested in anything that gets us all free. Their Broadway credits include All In: Comedy About Love. Their writer-performers credits include My Joy is Heavy (NYTW, Arena Riffs), Ohio (London Young Vic, Bristol Old Vic, Edinburgh Fringe), The Keep Going Songs (LCT3, Actors Theatre), Hundred Days (NYTW, LJP, Tour), The Lucky Ones (Ars Nova), and more. Additional credits include their appearance as musical guests on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.

Sam Gold is a Tony Award-winning director based in Brooklyn, New York. His Broadway credits include Romeo and Juliet, An Enemy of the People, Macbeth, King Lear, A Doll’s House, Part 2 (Tony nom.), The Glass Menagerie, Fun Home (Tony Award), The Real Thing, The Realistic Joneses, Picnic, and Seminar. His recent productions include Angry Alan (Studio Seaview), The Secret Life of Bees (Atlantic), Hamlet (Public Theater), Othello (NYTW), The Flick (Barrow Street Theatre, Playwrights Horizons, National Theatre; Lortel Award nom.), The Glass Menagerie (Toneelgroep Amsterdam), John (Signature Theatre; Obie Award, Lortel and Drama Desk noms.), The Village Bike (MCC), Uncle Vanya (Soho Rep; Drama Desk nom.), The Realistic Joneses (Yale Rep), The Cradle Will Rock (Encores! Off-Center), Kin (Playwrights Horizons), The Big Meal (Playwrights Horizons; Lortel Award), Look Back in Anger (Roundabout Theatre Company; Lortel nom.), Circle Mirror Transformation (Playwrights Horizons; Obie, Drama Desk noms.), and The Aliens (Rattlestick; Obie Award). He received his training at The Juilliard School.

Alison Kopit is a Chicago- and NYC-based access worker and dramaturg. Her access dramaturgy work includes the Bengsons’ My Joy is Heavy (NYTW), Ohio (Edinburgh Fringe Festival); Maggie Bridger’s Radiate (Red Eye Theater); Ryan J. Haddad’s Hold Me in the Water (Playwrights Horizons), Dark Disabled Stories (The Public Theater, The Bushwick Starr), Dan Fishback’s Dan Fishback is Alive, Unwell & Living in His Apartment (Joe’s Pub). She was awarded the Michael Feingold Award for Dramaturgy in the 2023 Obie Awards.

Sarah Lunnie is an interdisciplinary new works dramaturg. Meaningful collaborations in the theatre include close work on the development and first productions of Shayok Misha Chowdhury’s Public Obscenities and Rheology, the Bengsons’ My Joy is Heavy, Else Went’s Initiative, Heidi Schreck’s What the Constitution Means to Me, The Mad Ones’ Miles For Mary and Mrs. Murray’s Menagerie, and Lucas Hnath’s The Christians and A Doll’s House, Part 2, among many others.

Lead artist: Becca Blackwell
Collaborator: Madeleine George

Blackwell’s comedy show DANDELION asks what we need to let get blown off in a world obsessed with freedom but terrified of how to get there.

Becca Blackwell is a trans actor, performer, and creator. Existing between genders, and using the pronoun “they,” Blackwell works collaboratively with playwrights and directors to expand our sense of personhood and the body through performance. Blackwell was a recipient of the Doris Duke Impact Artist Award, the Franklin Furnace Award, the Creative Capital Award, and the Herb Alpert Award. They can currently be seen on Survival of the Thickest and The Pitt.

Madeleine George’s plays include The Sore Loser (Ground Floor 2023), Hurricane Diane (Obie Award, starring Becca Blackwell), The (Curious Case of The) Watson Intelligence (Pulitzer Prize finalist, Ground Floor 2012), Seven Homeless Mammoths Wander New England, and Precious Little. Madeleine has written for TV, film, and audio. She recently translated Chekhov’s Three Sisters from the original Russian and has worked for the Bard Prison Initiative since 2006, where she currently serves as the director of admissions. (she/her)

Lead artists: James Hindman, Carmel Dean
Collaborator: Robbie Simpson

When eight desperate Americans board a discount bus to Mexico for medications they can’t afford at home, their simple pharmacy run spirals into a chaotic, hilarious, and unexpectedly healing journey.

James Hindman has performed in six Broadway shows and over twenty television appearances. His writing credits include Pete ’n’ Keely (Off-Broadway, Carnegie Hall; Outer Critics Circle Award nom., two Drama Desk noms.), The Exhibitionist (Off-Broadway; Theatre Aspen’s Solo Flight Grant Award) starring Emmy-winner Jeff Hiller (Somebody Somewhere), Popcorn Falls, and What Doesn’t Kill You; as well as additional credits at 59E59 Theaters in New York, International Gay Dublin Theatre Festival, and the Avignon Festival. He is currently working on a new musical adaptation of Mulan.

Carmel Dean is a Grammy-nominated musician hailing from Perth, Australia who is now based in New York. Her work spans composition, musical direction, and arranging across theatre, television, and international events. Compositions include Well-Behaved Women, Renascence, Maiden Voyage, and On Cedar Street. Music supervision, direction, and arranging projects include Broadway’s The Notebook, Funny Girl (revival), Hands on a Hardbody, American Idiot, and The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. (Photo: Bruce Glikas)

Robbie Simpson is a Critics Choice and GLAAD Award-nominated director, producer, and actor based in New York City. He has helmed productions in New York, London, Shanghai, Sydney, Los Angeles, Chicago, Aspen, and on national tours. He is the director of musical theatre at the Stella Adler Studio of Acting, a faculty member at NYU Tisch, and he serves as the director of creative development at Midnight Theatricals. robbiesimpson.com (Photo: YellowBelly)

Music by Jaime Lozano, book and lyrics by Jaime Lozano and Florencia Cuenca, additional book and lyrics by Adrian Alexander Alea, conceived by Jaime Lozano and Florencia Cuenca, developed and directed by Adrian Alexander Alea

Lead artists: Jaime Lozano, Florencia Cuenca, Adrian Alexander Alea
Collaborators: Yahir Montes, Hugo Moreno, George Sáenz

A Spanglish new musical where multi-instrumentalists blend memory, Mexican musical traditions, and modern beats into a story of love, home, and ambition. Inspired by a true story, Él y Ella follows two Mexican artists who fall in love, move to New York on a whim, and discover the exhilaration and cost of building a home, a family, and a shared dream through art.

Jaime Lozano is a Mexican multi-hyphenate musical theatre storyteller and activist hailed by Lin-Manuel Miranda as the next big thing on Broadway. A 2022 Jonathan Larson Grant recipient, his works include El Otro Oz, A Never-Ending Line, Desaparecidas, and Roja. His project Jaime Lozano & The Familia has performed at Joe’s Pub, 54 Below, Lincoln Center, Sony Hall, and Two River Theater. (Photo: Dash Kolos)

Florencia Cuenca is a Mexican immigrant actress, singer, writer, and director based in New York City. She began performing at age three and became known in Mexico for telenovelas and major musicals. An award-winning jazz artist, she has performed internationally and Off-Broadway. She made history becoming the first Mexican immigrant originating a lead role on Broadway in Real Women Have Curves. (Photo: Stephanie Diani)

Adrian Alexander Alea is a Latiné director and producer working across theatre, film, and live events. A Helen Hayes Award-nominated director for Las Hermanas Palacios (GALA Hispanic Theatre), he was the former producing director of The New Group and is currently a 2026 Guild Hall and Rhinebeck Artist-in-Residence. His work spans Disney Theatricals, Lincoln Center, and The Public Theater. Film and TV includes A West Side Story Story (Tribeca 2025) and You Go Girl! (Sundance 2022).

Yahir Montes is a Mexican multi-instrumentalist musician based in New York City known for his work as a guitarist, bassist, songwriter, composer, and arranger.

Hugo Moreno is a Brooklyn-based trumpeter whose work centers on Broadway, new music, and theatrical collaboration. His Broadway credits include Cabaret, Camelot, Paradise Square, and Here We Are. A graduate of the Yale School of Music, he has also performed with the International Contemporary Ensemble and Marlboro Music Festival Orchestra. He teaches at Brooklyn College and is an active teaching artist with the American Composers Orchestra.

Multi-instrumentalist and composer, George Sáenz is originally from Laredo, Texas, and currently resides in New York City where he works as a freelance musician and educator. He serves as a musical director and trombonist-accordionist with Grammy Award-winning artist Lila Downs, as well as for NYC’s Calpulli Mexican Dance Company, and has worked on Broadway shows such as Gypsy! and currently Buena Vista Social Club as a trombonist. His work is committed to artistic creativity based around border culture.

Lead artist: Adam Mansbach
Collaborators: Kevin Coval, Josh Begley, DJ Frane, Vivien Mansbach, Nino Moschella, Martín Perna

In the shadow of his brother’s suicide, Adam is forced to re-imagine the person he thought he knew — confronting his unsettled family history, his distant relationship with tradition and faith, and his desperate need to understand an event that always slides just out of his grasp. Adapted from Mansbach’s memoir-in-verse, I Had a Brother Once uses words, music, and video to weave a meditation on loss, ritual, masks, narrative, and faith.

Adam Mansbach is the number one New York Times bestselling author of Go the Fuck to Sleep, as well as the novels Rage is Back, The End of the Jews (winner of the California Book Award), Angry Black White Boy, the national bestseller The Golem of Brooklyn, the memoir-in-verse I Had a Brother Once, and the award-winning Netflix original film Barry.

Kevin Coval is an Emmy-nominated, award-winning writer, filmmaker, and author of over a dozen collections and anthologies including The Breakbeat Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip-Hop and A People’s History of Chicago. His writing has been featured on/in HBO, The Daily Show, National Public Radio, The New York Times, Source Magazine, CNN, and more. His full-length feature film, Madina in the Summertime, will be out in Fall 2026.

Josh Begley is a data artist and filmmaker based in Brooklyn, New York. His work has been seen at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Venice Architecture Biennale, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the New York Film Festival, and in publications including The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Guardian, Wired, and Vanity Fair. He is the technical director at Field of Vision and an adjunct assistant professor at Columbia University.

DJ Frane is a musician and cognitive psychologist.

Vivien Mansbach is a young Bay Area poet.

Nino Moschella is a musician and producer.

Martín Perna is a Grammy-nominated composer and producer. He is the founder/bandleader of the musical groups Antibalas and Ocote Soul Sounds, a founding member of The Dap Kings, and a contributor to TV on the Radio. He served as musical director at Carnegie Hall for tributes to Aretha Franklin, David Byrne/Talking Heads, and Paul Simon, among many others. He collaborates with visual/performance artist Courtney Desiree Morris and teaches in the Department of Music at UC Berkeley.

Lead artists: Harrison David Rivers, Jacob Yandura, Rebekah Greer Melocik

Theo and Henry move to New York City for a fresh start, only to find their dream home might just be a nightmare.

Harrison David Rivers is an award-winning playwright, librettist, and television writer based in St. Paul, Minnesota. More information can be found at harrisondavidrivers.com.

Jacob Yandura made his Broadway debut with How to Dance in Ohio. He is the recipient of the 2024 Human Rights Campaign Visibility Award and was nominated for a 2024 GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Broadway Production. His other projects include It Comes with the Building, The Coup, The Last Queen of Canaan, and Wringer. Jacob holds a BA in music composition from Kenyon College and an MFA from NYU’s Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program.

Rebekah Greer Melocik made her Broadway debut with the musical adaptation of How to Dance in Ohio (bookwriter, lyricist). Other projects include It Comes with the Building (lyricist) and Wringer (bookwriter, lyricist). Recognitions and residencies include a Drama Desk nomination (best book, How to Dance in Ohio), Ars Nova’s Uncharted residency, NAMT Festival of New Musicals, the Yale Institute for Music Theatre, and the Rhinebeck Writers Retreat. Rebekah teaches at NYU’s Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program.

Lead artist: Rachel Wax
Collaborators: Anne Kauffman, Eli Bosnick, Eric Shethar

Jewish American Magician is a comedic-theatrical magic show that draws from illusion, variety shows, standup comedy, and solo performance to create a new experience for magic and theatre audiences alike.

Rachel Wax is a New York-based magician. She brings her brand of comedy magic to Speakeasy Magick, the Slipper Room, and venues all around the country. She has also been featured on Penn & Teller: Fool Us.

Anne Kauffman is a director whose credits include work at New York Philharmonic, BAM, Ars Nova, NYTW, Roundabout (Resident Director), Encores! Off-Center, Women’s Project, Playwrights Horizons, MCC, The Public, P73 Productions, New Georges, Vineyard Theatre, LCT3, Yale Rep, Steppenwolf, Goodman Theatre, La Jolla Playhouse, Z Space, American Conservatory Theater, and Berkeley Rep. She has received a Tony Award-nomination for Mary Jane, three Obie Awards, a Joan and Joseph Cullman Award for Exceptional Creativity, an Alan Schneider Director Award, a Lucille Lortel Award, a Drama League Award, and a Joe A. Callaway Award.

Eli Bosnick is a magician and consultant based on the East Coast. He’s been making magic and mentoring magicians for over two decades.

Eric Shethar is a dramaturg and producer who is one of the co-directors of Brooklyn’s The Brick Theater. He has developed work at institutions including Ars Nova, Chautauqua Theater Company, iHeartRadio, The Mercury Store, The Public Theater, Second Stage, South Coast Repertory (three seasons of the Pacific Playwrights Festival), the Williamstown Theatre Festival (two seasons), and WP Theater. His writing has appeared in Culturebot, NYC’s Poetry Project Newsletter, and the 2024 and 2025 Honcho Campout Zine.

Book by Mat Smart, music and lyrics by Liza Anne, developed and directed by Jaime Castañeda, music production by Kyle Ryan, based on the play Kill Local by Mat Smart

Lead artists: Mat Smart, Liza Anne
Collaborators: Jaime Castañeda, Kyle Ryan

Murder, mayhem, and music! A dark comedy with music about blood ties, revenge, and how hard it is to get unstuck — especially when your life is dedicated to ending others.

Mat Smart has traveled to all seven continents and written a play set on each one. His upcoming work includes A Black-billed Cuckoo’s world premiere at La Jolla Playhouse in Fall 2026 and Kill Local: A New Musical with music and lyrics by Liza Anne, world premiere at Dallas Theater Center in Spring 2027. He is currently writing an original screenplay for Taylor Sheridan, Bosque Ranch Productions, and Range Media Partners.

Liza Odachowski is a songwriter, musician, and poet releasing music and performing under the moniker “Liza Anne.” Their work is a harmonious cacophony, bending through genres and building landscapes of sound and poetry that pull from the inner dialogue of their childhood where they grew up a closeted lesbian in the Bible Belt of Southern Georgia. Their posture towards emotional excavation has fueled five studio albums and over a decade of touring. Liza lives in Paris with their wife and two cats. They are currently working on their forthcoming album (release TBD) and the development of Kill Local: A New Musical (2027) which is soundtracked by their catalogue.

Jaime Castañeda’s directing credits include Seize the King by Will Power, The Luckiest by Melissa Ross (La Jolla Playhouse), The Canadians by Adam Bock (South Coast Repertory), Poor Yella Rednecks and Vietgone by Qui Nguyen (ACT), Chimichangas and Zoloft by Fernanda Coppel (Atlantic Theater Company), and The Royale by Marco Ramirez (American Theatre Company). Jaime is the artistic director of Dallas Theater Center. He is a recipient of the Princess Grace Award and the Drama League Directing Fellowship, and holds an MFA from the University of Texas at Austin.

Kyle Ryan is a writer-producer living in Nashville, TN. He spent 10 years on the road performing with Kacey Musgraves as her musical director. He has worked with artists Liza Anne, Natalie Prass, Molly Tuttle, Madi Diaz, Willie Nelson, Leon Bridges, Lana Del Rey, Dr. Dog, and more. He is currently releasing music under the alias Junior Pro.

Lead artist: Britton Smith

MAMA by Britton Smith is a theatrical concert ritual that follows a southern queer Black artist’s spiritual awakening through water — transforming grief, memory, science, and music into a communal revival calling humanity back into right relationship with the Earth and each other.

Britton Smith is a Tony Award-winning artist, musical storyteller, and co-founder of the Broadway Advocacy Coalition. As bandleader of Britton & The Sting, a funk liberation band, he has performed at venues worldwide and has been featured in Vanity Fair, Vogue, and NPR. A 2025 Hydro20 Honoree, he is the creator of Return to MAMA and the MAMA Impact Tour, and continues to develop interdisciplinary work exploring memory, Black queer identity, and ancestral connection. CAA @brittonsmithworld

Lead artist: Alice Wu
Collaborator: Leigh Silverman

It’s never too late to fall in love for the first time. A musical update of an old-fashioned romantic comedy featuring lesbian daughters, pregnant Chinese mothers, and a whole lot of dancing. Based on the 2005 film Saving Face, now in the Criterion Collection.

Alice Wu’s debut feature Saving Face made its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival and was released by Sony Pictures Classics in 2005. It entered the Criterion Collection in 2025. Her second film, The Half of It, won the Founder’s Award at the Tribeca Film Festival before its release on Netflix in 2020; its script was a 2018 selection for the prestigious Black List and garnered a nomination for Best Screenplay at the Independent Spirit Awards. In addition to her feature projects, Alice has directed episodic television (Fleishman is in Trouble, Interior Chinatown). Her commercial spot for OREO was recognized as one of the top 10 commercials of 2022 by Adweek. Alice has degrees from Stanford in computer science and prior to filmmaking, worked as a software designer at Microsoft.

Leigh Silverman is a two-time Tony Award-nominated director who loves Berkeley Repertory Theatre. She previously directed Harry Clarke, In the Wake, and Chinglish at Berkeley Rep. She participated in the first year of The Ground Floor, helped administer it in 2023, and is thrilled to be back!

Lead artists: Vickie Ramirez, Ty Defoe, Jeanette Harrison

This is a story about Jigonsahseh, the first Clan Mother, and her various incarnations as they travel through the living memory of the world’s oldest democracy. This new performance blends text, movement, and song to explore the timeless wisdom of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy’s Great Law of Peace, its relevance to modern democracy, and its historical impact both within the Confederacy and on the United States. Commissioned and development support provided by The Democracy Cycle, a program of Perelman Performing Arts Center/PAC NYC and Civis Foundation.

Vickie Ramirez (Tuscarora) is a playwright, director, and filmmaker based between Six Nations of the Grand River and New York City. Her work interrogates Indigenous identity, sovereignty, and survival. A co-founder of Chukalokoi Native Theater Ensemble, she was first Indigenous playwright at The Public Theater and first enrolled Native playwright at New Dramatists. Her plays, recognized by The Kilroys, have earned the NNPN Smith Prize and premiered on PBS and at Red Nation Film Festival.

Ty Defoe (he/we) is an Indigiqueer citizen of the Anishinaabe and Oneida Nations, and a writer, playwright, and interdisciplinary artist. A Grammy Award-winner and 2026 United States Artist Fellow, Ty creates work across theatre, film, VR/XR, ceremony, and civic activation. Their work fosters Indigenous and decolonial futures, environment, and kinship. Ty is a member of All My Relations Collective and is based in NYC. tydefoe.com

In the Bay Area, Jeanette Harrison co-founded AlterTheater in 2004 and architected the award-winning AlterLab playwright residency program, shepherding more than 25 new plays to world premieres, including two plays by Larissa FastHorse, with whom she made her Broadway debut in 2023 (The Thanksgiving Play). She is now based in Portland, Oregon, where she founded the Native Performing Arts Network. With fellow Haudenosaunee artists Vickie Ramirez and Ty Defoe, she was awarded a Democracy Cycle Commission from NYC’s Perelman Performing Arts Center. She’s written two pilots about family and cultural identity, including Little Drummer Girl, which she developed during Native American Media Alliance’s inaugural Animation Lab.

Lead artist: Cat Brooks

Three Black women defy the violent constraints of concrete walls and metal bars by fostering sisterhood, humanity, and resilience despite the trappings of solitary confinement. As part of the docu-theatre process, Cat Brooks is collecting the lived experiences of incarcerated women through a partnership with award-winning incarcerated journalist Kwaneta Harris who is serving time in a Texas state prison and California-based Sister Warriors Freedom Coalition.

Cat Brooks is a theatre artist, writer, and community organizer. She is a resident artist with The Lower Bottom Playaz. Her one-woman show ‘Tasha, about the in-custody murder of Natasha McKenna, won Best of the SF Fringe (2017). Her film Bottled Spirits about the violence of gentrification has received nominations and won multiple awards including Best Narrative Short. Cat was a member of the 2024–2026 resident playwright cohort with Playwrights Foundation.

Lead artist: Ren Dara Santiago
Collaborator: Ludmila de Brito

Dramaturgical revision workshop incorporating movement and the connection between folklore, systemic sexual exploitation, and colonization. A young man travels from Harlem to Manila to find his roots, only to be drawn into a hidden rebellion led by his mother and his pen-pal, inciting a supernatural struggle where the line between hero and monster — and the true cost of freedom — are tested.

Ren Dara Santiago is a Yonkers and Harlem Native, Fili-Rican storyteller, and world-builder. They write stage plays, screenplays, audio dramas, video games, and prose. They act sometimes. They started writing this play 10 years ago. 5 years after reckoning with their own CSA. 10 years after Epstein’s first charges. The year the Black Lives Matter Movement took off. Trump took office and Duterte was celebrating the extrajudicial killing of innocents. rendsanti.carrd.co | @rendsanti

Ludmila de Brito is a director from Brazil. Her recent work includes Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler (CSUSM), Mylan Gray’s Motherloss (WNPF), Ariano Suassuna’s The Rogue’s Trial, and José Rivera’s The Promise (UCSD). She has developed new work with The Public Theater, La Jolla Playhouse, Cygnet Theatre, Whitman College, and The Tank. National Theatre Institute’s Lin-Manuel Miranda Family Fellow and United World Colleges alum, Ludy is a Public Mischief Collective member and SDC associate. She received her MFA from the University of California San Diego. ludcabrito.com

Lead artist: Gabriel Holman

When an eldritch ghost haunts an expecting widow, she and her family must determine if these visions are truly her late wife or an entity from beyond the veil seeking more than undying love. Star Mother explores queer family through a lens of eldritch horror and multiverse theory. The production aims to eventually incorporate immersive stagecraft to thrill audiences.

For the last 15 years, Gabriel Holman’s creative journey in the Bay Area has let him experience art in various roles. Patron, stage crew and supervisor, actor, director, stage manager, designer, dungeon master, game writer and developer, and member of Oakland Gay Men’s Chorus. As he dons the role of playwright, he reflects on the friends, family, mentors, and adorable cats who have supported him along the way and helped make his story called life full of endless joy.

Lead artist: Jonathan Moscone
Collaborator: Joy Meads

A solo performance that uses one person’s experience of devastating loss to examine how theatre can create space for grief and collective mourning.

Jonathan Moscone was the artistic director of California Shakespeare Theater from 2000–2015. He is the first recipient of the Zelda Fichandler Award, given by the Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation for “transforming the American theatre through his unique and creative work.” Upcoming projects include Aaron Loeb’s ROI (Return on Investment) for SF Playhouse and Abe Koogler’s Deep Blue Sound for Actors’ Reading Collective.

Joy Meads is the director of dramaturgy and new works at American Conservatory Theater. Prior to ACT, she was the literary manager and artistic engagement strategist at Center Theatre Group, literary manager at Steppenwolf Theatre Company, and associate artistic director at California Shakespeare Theater. Meads has also developed plays with Oregon Shakespeare Festival, NYTW, Berkeley Rep, Denver Center, the O’Neill, Ojai Playwrights Conference, Portland Center Stage, South Coast Rep, and Campo Santo, among others. Meads is a co-founder of The Kilroys (thekilroys.org) and a proud native of Oakland, CA, city of artists and activists.

Commissioned and originally produced by WP Theater, New York City | Lisa McNulty, Producing Artistic Director | Michael Sag, Managing Director

Lead artist: Mathilde Dratwa
Collaborator: Jeremy Cohen

When a woman realizes she may no longer control the narrative of her own life, she begins searching for a way back to herself. A darkly funny play about identity, intimacy, performance, and the unstable line between private life and public narrative.

Mathilde Dratwa’s plays include Dirty Laundry (WP Theater, Audible), Esther Perel Ruined My Life (IAMA), Milk & Gall (Theatre503), and A Play about David Mamet Writing a Play about Harvey Weinstein. Her work has been developed by the Ojai Playwrights Conference, Playwrights’ Center, LAByrinth Theater Company, Cape Cod Theatre Project, The Old Globe, and the Young Vic. Her film and TV projects have been developed by FX, Chernin, LuckyChap, Condé Nast, Picture Start, Sony/TriStar, and Wiip.

Jeremy Cohen is the producing artistic director at Ojai Playwrights Conference. His previous roles were as producing artistic director at Playwrights’ Center, associate artistic director at Hartford Stage, and founding artistic director of Naked Eye (Chicago). Cohen received a commission on a co-written play (with Dipika Guha) for Malicious Animal Magnetism at ACT/Z Space, is currently under commission at Arena Stage, and is developing a musical adaptation of The Gospel of Eureka with Mfoniso Udofia and Emily Saliers (Indigo Girls).

Lead artist: Gloria Calderón Kellett

Over one emotionally charged night, three siblings reunite at their childhood home to say goodbye to their dying mother and confront the truths that have long divided them.

Gloria Calderón Kellett is an Emmy-winning writer, producer, director, actress, and activist best known for co-creating and showrunning One Day at a Time and creating Amazon’s With Love. The daughter of Cuban immigrants, she is a passionate advocate for Latine representation, gender equity, and emerging artists. A prolific storyteller across television, film, and theatre, Calderón Kellett has been recognized by TIME and The Hollywood Reporter as one of the entertainment industry’s most influential voices.