Habib Yazdi, MFA 2022
2023 Goldberg Play Prize Winner
Habib Yazdi is an Iranian-American writer and director. He is part of the Amazon and AMC-sponsored writing lab Mentorship Matters, and is completing a docuseries on comedians with ITVS and NYFA.
Tirosh Schneider, BFA 2021
2022 Goldberg Play Prize Winner
Tirosh Schneider (they/he) holds a BFA in playwriting from Tisch's Department of Dramatic Writing, and a minor in teacher education from NYU Steinhardt. Their plays include Daniel (Goldberg Prize Winner, 2022), Six Evacuations (Imaginarium Theater Company, 2020; reprised for the 2021 Plays for the Planet Festival), Paradise Lost and Found (Alabama Shakespeare Festival workshop, 2017; Isle of Shoals Theater Company, 2019; Austin Film Festival Second Round, 2018), Scully and Stitch (The Pack Theater, 2018), Sunday in Tompkins Square Park (Serials at the Flea, 2017), and The Other Hand. As an actor, they have performed with the Shakespeare Theater of New Jersey, the Peccadillo Theater Company, the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene, and on television in Hulu's High Fidelity and Apple TV's Little America. They teach theater and improv at the Windward School in Los Angeles and write crossword puzzles when inspiration strikes.
Alicia Louzoun-Heisler, MFA 2020
2021 Goldberg Play Prize Winner
Alicia holds an MFA in Dramatic Writing from NYU Tisch. She won the Goldberg Play Prize for her Jane Austen-inspired Orthodox matchmaking play, Bashert. Additionally, she is the 2021 winner for Best Screenplay at Fusion Film Festival and was a 2020 finalist for the Alfred P. Sloan Screenwriting Award. Her short plays have been produced by Full Circle Theater Company and Crossroads Theater Company. In 2019 she was an Artist-in-Residence at the Catwalk Institute. Her experimental short films such as Camgirl_194 have screened at the academy-award-qualifying St. Louis International Film Festival
Carl Holder, MFA 2020
2020 Goldberg Play Prize Winner
Born in Gainesville Florida, Carl received his BFA in Acting from SUNY Purchase (2008), and an MFA in Dramatic Writing from NYU/Tisch (2020). Carl has developed and/or performed work with Incubator Arts Project, EST, Dennis and Victoria Ross Foundation, The Tank, FringeNYC, The Brick, Standard Toykraft, The Gym at Judson, House of Yes, Hearth Gods, Allegra LaViola Gallery, The Gene Frankel, Ice Factory and The New Ohio. His play Until You Come Back to Me won the 2020 Goldberg Play Prize and was a Finalist for the 2019 Neukom Literary Arts Playwriting Award. Carl was also an Honorable Mention for The Relentless Award from The American Playwriting Foundation, a Semi-Finalist for The Jerome Fellowship at the Playwrights Center and the 2019 O'Neill Playwrights Conferenc, as well as a 2018/19 Finalist for the DVRF Playwrights Program. Holder was awarded an E-Grant from The Foundation for Contemporary Art for his play An Intimate Evening with Typhoid Mary. Carl has written, acted, and directed as Artistic Director of Glass Bandits Theatre Company since 2008. He’s currently in a yearlong residency at The Bricks Inaugural Writer’s Group ‘SoundLab’ a residency developing fiction podcasts with playwrights. Carl Holder lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.
Sanaz Toossi, MFA 2018
2019 Goldberg Play Prize Winner
Toossi is the 2019 Page 73 winner and the 2019 winner of the [Shonda] Rhimes Unsung Voices Playwriting Commission. Her Goldberg-winning play English was read at the Roundabout Underground Reading Series, made The Kilroys’ List, and has been commissioned by South Coast Rep, IAMA Theater, and the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.
Lilly Camp, MFA 2017
2018 Goldberg Play Prize Winner
2019 National Playwrights Conference Semifinalist for All Eight, 2019 Bechdel Group Finalist for All Eight, 2018 Relentless Award Special Consideration for Best Friend, 2018 Austin Film Festival Semifinalist for Best Friend, 2017 LA Indie Film Festival Finalist for Heathens, 2017 Rhode Island Film Festival Semi-Finalist for Heathens, 2017 LA Femme Film Festival Finalist for Heathens, 2017 Fustion Film Festival Finalist for Heathens, NexTV Writing and Pitch Competition Quarter-finalist, 2017 for Heathens, 2017 New York Short Film and Screenplay Festival Finalist for Heathens, 2017 ScreenCraft Pilot Launch Competition Quarter-finalist for The Lesbian Spirit Guide, 2017 Torrent Theatre Company produced Mostly Naked, 2016 Theater Masters Festival Finalist for The Lesbian Spirit Guide, 2017 Torrent Theatre Company produced Mostly Naked, 2016 Theater Masters Festival Finalist for Mostly Naked.
Jack Ciapciak, BFA 2015
2017 Goldberg Play Prize Winner
Jack Ciapciak is a New York based Playwright & TV Writer originally from St. Louis, Missouri. He studied Acting and Playwriting at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, earning a BFA in Dramatic Writing. His thesis play Naming the Dog won the 2017 Goldberg Prize and was the inaugural winner of the Tennessee Williams New Playwright Initiative. Jack currently is a writer for Blue Bloods on CBS. He is a proud member of The Dramatists Guild and WGAE.
Stacey Rose, MFA 2015
2016 Goldberg Play Prize Winner (with David Zax)
Rose is a 2019- 20 McKnight Fellow, 2020-22 Playwrights’ Center Core Writer, 2018-19 Goodman Theatre’s Playwrights Unit writer, and member of The Civilians R&D Group. She was a 2018 Sundance Theatre Lab Fellow, 2017-18 Playwrights’ Center Many Voices Fellow, and 2015-16 Dramatist Guild Fellow. Her play AMERICA v. 2.1 was awarded the inaugural Burman New Play Prize and received its world premiere production at Barrington Stage Company in June 2019. Her play LEGACY LAND, developed at The Playwrights’ Center, will world premiere at Kansas City Rep in February 2020. AMERICA v. 2.1 and her play AS IS are featured on the 2019 Kilroys list.
David Zax, BFA 2015
2016 Goldberg Play Prize Winner (with Stacey Rose)
David shared 2016 prize with Rose for The Room Where I Was Held, which had its premier in 2018 at the Martha’s Vineyard Theatre. He was a 2015-16 fellow at the Playwrights Realm.
Leah Franqui, MFA 2014
2013 Goldberg Play Prize Winner
Author of American for Beginners (2018) and Mother Land: A Novel (2020).
Anne Washburn, MFA 2001
1998 Goldberg Play Prize Winner
Since becoming the first Goldberg winner, Washburn has won a Guggenheim, a Whiting, and a PEN/Laurel Pels award. Her 18 produced plays include Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play, 10 Out of 12 (SoHo Rep); an acclaimed adaptation of Iphigenia in Aulis (Classic Stage Company); and Shipwreck (which premiered at the Almeida Theatre in London).