Emerging Writers Group

BRITTANY K. ALLEN is a Brooklyn-based writer and actor. Her plays include Redwood (DEVELOPMENT: Manhattan Theatre Club, Kansas City Repertory Theatre, the Lark; Kilroys List 2017, The Mix 2018), More Than You Can Chew (DEVELOPMENT: Ensemble Studio Theatre/Youngblood), and Happy Happy Joy Joy (DEVELOPMENT: EWG, The Public Theatre), among others. Brittany is the recent recipient of a commission from Manhattan Theatre Club and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. She is also a proud member of Youngblood, the Obie award-winning playwrights collective at Ensemble Studio Theatre, and was a 2017 Van Lier Playwriting Fellow at the Lark. Brittany has received artistic support from SPACE on Ryder Farm and the Sewanee Writers Conference, and her prose appears or is forthcoming in Catapult, The Kenyon Review, Longreads, and The Tishman Review (Pushcart Prize nominee). She holds a BFA from NYU-Tisch and is a proud member of AEA.

OSCAR A.L. CABRERA is a New York-based actor, playwright and member to INTAR Theater's Unit 52, an ensemble company for emerging and established artists. Some credits include Blur at the Kennedy Center for KCACTF, Marfa Lights by Octavio Solis (INTAR); Lilia by Monet Hurst-Mendoza (Rising Circle Rep); Patience by Mariana Coreno (LATC); Basilica by Mando Alvarado (Rattlestick); Leave Me Green by Lisi DeHaas (Kindling Theater Company); and Prospect by Octavio Solis (Boundless Theater). His plays have been workshopped with The Hudson Warehouse, Black and Latino Playwrights Festival, INTAR Theater, Rising Circle's InkTank, Creede Rep Theater, and Lonestar Theater.

DANIELLA DE JESÚS is an actor/writer and native of Bushwick, Brooklyn. Her plays include "Columbus Play" (The Parsnip Ship), "The Thief Cometh" (United SoloFestival), "Assorted Crackers: A Reverse Minstrel Show" (NYU), "Waiting Room" (Cue for Passion Collaborative), and "Mambo Sauce” which was a semi-finalist for Clubbed Thumb’s 2018 commission. Her poetry appears in "Young, Colored & Angry", "Chiflada Magazine", "Vagabond City Literature" and the film “Love Beats Rhymes” (directed by RZA). Recent acting credits include "Orange is the New Black" (Netflix), "High Maintenance" (HBO), and a lead role in the upcoming short "Rat Race". De Jesús is a graduate of NYU Tisch School of the Arts with a BFA in Drama.

RYAN J. HADDAD is an actor, playwright, and autobiographical performer based in New York. His acclaimed solo play Hi, Are You Single? was presented in The Public Theater’s Under the Radar Festival and continues to tour the country. Other New York credits include My Straighties (Ars Nova/ANT Fest), Noor and Hadi Go to Hogwarts (Theater Breaking Through Barriers), and the cabaret Falling for Make Believe (Joe’s Pub/The Orchard Project). Regional: The Maids and Lucy Thurber’s Orpheus in the Berkshires (Williamstown Theatre Festival), Hi, Are You Single? (Cleveland Play House and The Guthrie). Television: Bull, Madam Secretary, and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. Haddad has performed original work at La MaMa E.T.C., The New Museum, and The LGBT Center of New York City. His plays in development include Good Time Charlie and Dark Disabled Stories. He is a former Queer|Art Performance and Playwriting Fellow, under the mentorship of Moe Angelos.

OBEHI JANICE is an award-winning writer, actress and comedian whose multi-genre work spans from stage to screen. She is a member of the 2018-19 Emerging Writers Group at The Public Theater, a Luminary Artist at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and a past recipient of a TCG Fox Foundation Resident Actor Fellowship as well as a Creative Residency at SPACE on Ryder Farm. Her plays include Ole White Sugah Daddy, Era Era, Selah, African Tea, along with one-woman shows FUFU & OREOS and Obehi Janice: Casanova. An alum of Georgetown University, Obehi's work has been featured in American Theatre Magazine, NPR, and For Harriet, among other publications. She is a new member of The Kilroys and a writer for HULU's Castle Rock.

DIANA OH is a multi-hyphenate Generative Artist – performer, musician, singer, songwriter, director, maker of installations, performances, concerts, and parties. An open channel to the art that feels good to their body. A feeder of the soul. A non-conforming free spirit. Passionate about decolonizing & queering processes, Diana is driven most by pleasure, mutual care, and keeping things heart-centered. Oh is a Refinery29 Top LGBTQ Influencer, the First Queer Korean-American interviewed on Korean Broadcast Radio, a Sundance Institute Fellow, a TOW Fellow (Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre), a Van Lier Fellow in Acting (Asian American Arts Alliance), a Venturous Capital Fellow, an Elphaba Thropp Fellow, a writer with The Public Theater’s Mobile Unit, and a member of The Public’s Emerging Writers Group. Oh is the creator of CLAIRVOYANCE, a yearlong series and concert with installations in Harvard Yard, the Boston Public Library, the Institute of Contemporary Art, and Oberon/A.R.T.; {my lingerie play}: Ten Underground Performance Installations in their lingerie staged in an effort to provide a safer and more courageous world for women, queer, trans, and non-binary humans to live in culminating into a concert; The Infinite Love Party: an intentional barefoot potluck dinner, dance party, and sleepover for QTPOC and Their Allies; and Asian People Are Not Magicians on mic.com. They star as Devon in the YouTube Series “Queering.” The New York Times calls Oh "irreverent." You can call them "friend." 

IFE OLUJOBI is a playwright and screenwriter.  Her one-act play, Only, was produced as part of NYU Drama's Inaugural PlayGround Festival of New Works in 2016.  Her work has been performed at the Charity Randall Theater (Pittsburgh, PA), Bishop Arts Theater Center (Dallas, TX), City Pier A (New York, NY), and the Abe Burrows Theater at NYU.  Her screenplay, SISTER, was selected as a finalist in the inaugural Half the World Global Literati Award Competition.  Originally from a suburb of Baltimore, Ife currently lives in Brooklyn. She received her BFA from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts in 2016.

JOSHUA YOUNG is a playwright, public speaker, and theater technician.  His play Red Room on a Dark Web (2018 O'Neill semifinalist, 2018 SPACE Working Farm semifinalist) was presented as part of the 2019 Primary Stages ESPA Drills 2018 Reading Series.  Other plays include My Guggenheim Play (SPACE Working Farm 2019 semifinalist), The Execution and The Rapture (PlayPenn 2017 semifinalist), and Who Mourns for Bob the Goon?. He was a 2018 Horton Foote Scholar at the Sewanee Writers’ Conference and is a founding member of The Playwriting Collective, a playwright driven initiative supporting writers from lower economic backgrounds.

DAVID ZHENG is a first-generation Chinese American playwright, actor, and visual artist from the Bronx. He is the recipient of The Lark’s 2018 Van Lier New Voices Playwriting Fellowship, The 2017 Playwriting Observer Fellowship at Labyrinth Theater Company, and the 2017 inaugural Greenhouse Residency at SPACE on Ryder Farm. Plays include KINGSBRIDGE, Boogie Down Bastards, Ghetto Baptism, and What’s In The Tent? His work has been developed at The Public Theater, The Labyrinth Theater Company, Cherry Lane Theater Company, The Lark, and Rattlestick Playwrights Theater. Recent acting credit includes Exposure (Eugene O’ Neill National Playwrights Conference). He is a member of the 2018-2019 Public Theater Emerging Writers Group, Ma-Yi Writers Lab and the Gingold Theatrical Group’s Speakers’ Corner. Zheng is also a founding member of the Middle Voice at Rattlestick.