Welcome
A look back over the 2018-2019 season is a glimpse into our seven-decade history. New Dramatists has supported the creative, artistic, career, leadership, and community endeavors of American playwrights since our founding in 1949 by Micheala O'Harra. Her vision has staying power and urgency: to sustain a company of playwrights each following their individual creative paths, exploring their work in their own time and on their own terms, buoyed and fortified by a company of peers.
At any given time, about 50 of the American theatre's most gifted playwrights make New Dramatists their laboratory, not for a few weeks, or even a year, they do it for a full seven years at no cost to them. Through the gifts of time, space and a dynamic, eclectic community of peer artists, playwrights build community, share resources, incubate plays, innovate new working methods, inspire one another, welcome talented collaborators, become leaders, and nourish their writing lives. Since 1949, that amounts to over 700 playwrights, thousands of new plays and an unprecedented cross-generational, multi-directional mentor/fellowship program. We maintain and nurture this haven for story-tellers and makers to wrestle with the complexities of existence, face truths, attempt to make sense of it, and spark immediate and long-term connections.
This playwrights’ church is soaked with theatrical history. The walls are decorated with decades of our playwrights’ production posters. Walk the halls and hear a multitude of compelling voices whispering to you from across time. The shelves of our library are lined with plays borne of the vast imaginations of the current and alumni playwrights in-residence. The space itself is often occupied with ambitious young theatre artists making or scouring for new material. This is a place where you can feel the co-mingling of the past and the present; where there is always the pulse of something new in the making; where diversity is celebrated, and where you will always be met with hospitality. Welcome to this rich artistic community.
- Emily Morse
- Artistic Director
- Joel K. Ruark
- Executive Director
Events of the Year
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January 11, 2019: Creative Producing Summit
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January 23-February 8, 2019: 34th Annual Composer-Librettist Studio
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May 14, 2019: 70th Anniversary Spring Luncheon honoring Nathan Lane
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May 15, 2019: Spring All-Writers Meeting
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June 4, 2019: After Seven Festival
