The 2026 Judith Champion New Work Series will feature plays by Jasmine Sharma,Seayoung Yim,Sanjit De Silva, andKarina Billini. Readings will take place on June 1, 9, 15, and 22, with matinee and evening readings each day.
The Judith Champion New Work Series features public readings of exciting new plays from a dynamic group of visionary playwrights. Through the Series, playwrights are invited to develop a play early in its generative process with a team of professional collaborators and The Public Theater’s New Work Development staff.
PEACHY: A SORTA CHEKHOVIAN TRAUMEDY by Jasmine Sharma
PEACHY: A SORTA CHEKHOVIAN TRAUMEDY
Written by Jasmine Sharma
Directed by Adrian Alea
Dramaturgy by Amrita Ramanan and Karina Patel
Monday, June 1 at 3:30PM and 7:30PM
In 2022, the owner of a Los Angeles-based, family-run Indi-Mex restaurant has the opportunity to franchise. In 1962, a Mexican woman and Punjabi peach farmer enter a "Mexidu" marriage in order to circumvent California’s stringent miscegenation laws. PEACHY is a sort of chekhovian traumedy about cooking with love...and, family.
FOODS OF THE FORGOTTEN WAR by Seayoung Yim
FOODS OF THE FORGOTTEN WAR
Written by Seayoung Yim
Directed by Chris Yejin
Tuesday, June 9 at 3:30PM and 7:30PM
Plagued by a diasporic desire to taste her ancestral doenjang, Wensu travels through a hermit kingdom’s history and gastronomy in the hopes of recovering an authentic, pungent flavor that's been sealed and encrypted by modernity. Seen through the eyes of Korean women over time, FOODS OF THE FORGOTTEN WAR is an incomplete survey of how war and colonialism change how we flavor, preserve, and package food and cultural memory.
THE DAY THE RIOTS BEGAN by Sanjit De Silva
THE DAY THE RIOTS BEGAN
Written by Sanjit De Silva
Directed by Mei Ann Teo
Dramaturgy by Amrita Ramanan
Monday, June 15 at 3:30PM and 7:30PM
Black July, 1983. It was the day Sanjit's life changed forever. But for the life of him, he can't remember why. In a zoom call with his parents, memories are rehashed, renewed, and rediscovered, leading to a startling revelation. Told through a captivating solo performance, THE DAY THE RIOTS BEGAN is a story about memory, migration, and the trauma we carry with us.
BROOKLYN BOYS CAN'T FLOAT by Karina Billini
BROOKLYN BOYS CAN'T FLOAT
Written by Karina Billini
Directed by Nicky Maggio
Dramaturgy by Amrita Ramanan and Jack Phillips Moore
Monday, June 22 at 3:30PM and 7:30PM
It’s Charlie’s 35th birthday and nothing seems to be going right in his life: the pandemic, his messed-up back, and his deferred dreams of joining the I.T. team with his childhood buddies, Donnie and Solomon. As he and his boys embark on a revelrous birthday trip to Punta Cana, things start to go awry when "strapped-for-cash" Solomon secretly invites the work pariah, "soon-to-be Head of I.T." Gavin, to join the fun. BROOKLYN BOYS CAN'T FLOAT is a riotous interrogation of male fragility, friendship, and the mental cost men pay when they don’t allow each other to feel.
Playwrights
Jasmine Sharma
Jasmine Sharma
JASMINE SHARMAshe/her is a South Asian-American performer/writer/activist. She aims to focus her work at the intersection of race/femininity/Americanness. Sharma is currently a Core Member of The Kilroys, a Playwrights' Center Core Writer, and resident with Colt Coeur. She is a 2026 Finalist for the 48th Susan Smith Blackburn Prize and included on “Women to Watch on Broadway: 2026” by Broadway Women’s Fund. Previous acting credits include Twelfth Night (The Public Theater), Love You More (Tank Core Production), you don’t have to do anything (HERE Arts, u/s perf.), Wives (Aurora Theatre), CALVIN BERGER: A Musical (Colony Theatre), The Wolves (McCarter Theater), and a lot of new work development. As a writer, full lengths include Pigeonhole (2026 SSBP Finalist, developed with NYTW, Center Theatre Group commission), PEACHY: a sorta chekhovian traumedy (developed with PWC, IAMA Theatre Company, taught/produced at Yale University, NPC Finalist), THE JAZMINES: a rage play - and for legal reasons, a parody (developed with PWC, NPC Finalist), Radial Gradient (World Premiere at Shattered Globe Theatre, Kilroys Web 2023), among others. Northwestern University. jasminesharma.org | @jasminesharmaa
Seayoung Yim
Seayoung Yim
SEAYOUNG (SHEE-young) YIM is an NYC-based writer, originally from Seattle. She's the winner of the Dramatist Guild's Lanford Wilson Award, the Yale Drama Series Prize, and a recipient of The Venturous Playwright Fellowship from the Playwrights' Center. Yim is a resident playwright with New Dramatists and has taught at Brown University and RISD. Her play, Jar of Fat, has a forthcoming world premiere with Theatre Battery in 2026. Other honors: Kilroys Web selection, The Bruntwood Prize (shortlist), L. Arnold Weissberger New Play Award (finalist), Paul Stephen Lim Playwriting Award (2nd place), and The Relentless Award (semi-finalist). Residencies and Fellowships: Clubbed Thumb's Early Career Writers Group, Colt Coeur's residency, Seoulful Productions’ Korean Writers Lab, Ma-Yi Writers Lab, Sewanee Writers' Conference Playwriting Fellowship, Hedgebrook's Residency, and the Stephen Sondheim Graduate Fellowship in Theater Arts. Commissions: The Powers Playwriting Fellowship (Old Globe), the Woolly Mammoth x Black List, and The Public Theater + CTG commission.
Sanjit De Silva
Sanjit De Silva
SANJIT DE SILVA is an Actor/Writer/Director/Teacher/Father. He received his M.F.A. from New York University’s prestigious Graduate Acting Program. He wrote, starred and co-directed the short film Time After. He’s written four plays with Deepa Purohit, the latest, Crushed Earth, was commissioned by People’s Light Theatre and his TV pilot, “Lankan,” was developed at the Orchard Project Episodic Lab. De Silva’s various stage credits include: Broadway: War Horse (Tony-Award Best Play, Lincoln Center Theater). Off-Broadway: Corruption (J.T. Rogers World Premiere, Lincoln Center Theater, Dir. Bart Sher), Elyria (World Premiere, Atlantic Theater, Dir. Awoye Timpo), Richard III (NYSF/Public Theater, Dir. Robert O’Hara, starring Danai Gurira), The Merchant of Venice (TFANA, Dir. Arin Arbus), An Ordinary Muslim (NYTW, Dir. Jo Bonney), Dry Powder (World Premiere, Public Theater, Dir. Thomas Kail, starring John Krasinski and Claire Danes, Lucille Lortel and Outer Critic's Circle Award Nominations for Best Featured Actor). De Silva has been in several films such as ReEntry, Afterparty, The Girl is in Trouble (produced by Spike Lee), The Company Men (with Ben Affleck and Tommy Lee Jones), and the critically acclaimed Arranged. His television credits include shows such as “Inventing Anna,” “New Amsterdam,” “Evil,” “Tell Me A Story,” “Blindspot,” “Time After Time,” “Madam Secretary,” “Blacklist,” “Elementary”, “High Maintenance,” “Homeland,” “Blue Bloods,” “The Good Wife.” He is an Adjunct Professor at the College of Drama at The New School. www.silvadollarfilms.com
Karina Billini
Karina Billini
KARINA BILLINIshe/her is a Dominican-American playwright and educator from Brooklyn. She is a recent graduate of Juilliard’s Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwrights Program. She is a proud alum of the Public Theater’s 2023–25 Emerging Writers Group, New Harmony Project Conference, Ensemble Studio Theatre’s Youngblood, Pipeline PlayLab, among others. Her plays have been workshopped at La Jolla Playhouse, Alliance Theatre, Williamstown Theatre Festival, among others. Billini holds an MFA in Playwriting from the New School and a BA from Marymount Manhattan College.