The Public Theater's Emerging Writers Group 2023 cohort was recently announced, welcoming 4 Tisch alumni as new fellows.
The Emerging Writers Group is a fellowship at The Public Theater for playwrights and other generative artists at the early stages of their professional careers. For over 15 years, EWG has brought artists together to create and develop their work in conversation with their peers and The Public Theater community. EWG is a cornerstone of The Public’s mission to celebrate and support new generations of storytellers.
Congratulations to the Tisch alumni recognized for their work! Read more about them below, and see the full 2023 cohort here.
JESSE JAE HOON '15 (BFA, Drama) is a playwright, organizer, and actor–born in South Korea, raised in Chicago and Berlin, and based in Queens. Hoon is a hopeful cynic whose work combines raucous comedy with a deeply felt sense of urgency to investigate power, class, hope, and our responsibility to the collective good. He’s the current CRNY Resident Artist at Ma-Yi Theater Company; a 2024 MacDowell Fellow; a 2022-2023 Writing Fellow at The Playwrights Realm; under commission from Theater J; the inaugural Radio Roots fellow with The Parsnip Ship, under guidance from Iyvon Edebori and Al Parker; an inaugural member of the Orchard Project Adaptation Lab; and a member of The TANK NYC's LIT Council, Page Break, and the COOP’s Clusterf**k. He holds an MFA in Playwriting from Hunter College and a BFA in Drama from NYU Tisch (Playwrights Horizons).
HUMAIRA IQBAL '23 (MFA, Goldberg Department of Dramatic Writing) (she/her) is a British Indian Muslim, writer-poet-actor based in N.Y.C, born and raised in East London/Essex, U.K. Iqbal’s key inspirational themes are women and violence, but community and history are at the core of her work, striving always to tell the unknown story. Iqbal is a recent MFA graduate from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts in the Dramatic Writing department. Iqbal has also had the honor to train as an actor at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama’s BA (Hons) Acting program and has now been in the professional business for just over four years. Iqbal was the 2022 recipient of The BAFTA Pigott award and has had the privilege to be part of two in-demand writing groups in the UK; SOHO Writers Lab and the Royal Court Writers' Group. Some of Iqbal’s previous acting work includes working with the BBC, Arcola Theatre (Spun), Royal Court, Royal Stratford East (Director: Nadia Fall), and debuting the short film Didi at HollyShorts (USA). Follow Iqbal on Instagram @humi.iqbal to get all current creative updates.
CELESTE JENNINGS '23 (MFA, Design for Stage & Film) is a playwright and costume designer. Using the language of her family, she quilts love songs for Black folks. Her work invites her community to stop and rest awhile as they refamiliarize themselves with the poetic diction of home. She loves to incorporate her unique perspective into her work and is particularly motivated to uplift and protect Black women as a writer and designer. Her dream projects evoke the past, present, and future and remind Black women that they are loved, that they’re soft, powerful, capable of resting, deserving of liberation, and that they are everything—that they always have been. She’s a 2023/24 NYTW artistic fellow, and most recently, her play ‘Bov Water was produced at Northern Stage. She developed another play with music, Contentious Woman, with PlayCo. Selected work includes Citrus (produced at Northern Stage) and Processing. Lately, she collaborated with JAG in a designer workshop for Urinetown. Recent/current design work includes Malvolio, with the Classical Theatre of Harlem; Finding Freedom at the Charleston Gailliard Center; and Fat Ham at Huntington Theatre and The Alliance.
NINA KI '08 (BFA, Goldberg Department of Dramatic Writing) (xe/she/they) is a Queerean (Queer + Korean) American playwright living in Brooklyn. Xe graduated from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts in 2008 with a BFA in Dramatic Writing, and xer plays have been read, recorded, and presented nationwide, including with Clubbed Thumb, Ma-Yi Theater Company, MCC Theater, The Parsnip Ship, Yale Summer Cabaret, and Queens Theater. Xer play Moon Bear was given special consideration for the Relentless Award, and xer play Ravage was a finalist for the Playwrights Realm's Fellowship. Xe was also an inaugural member of The Parsnip Ship's Radio Roots Writer's Group and a member of Clubbed Thumb's Early Career Writer's Group, and is a member of Ma-Yi's Writers Lab. To contact xer or learn more about xer work, please visit xer website at www.nina-ki.com