Ars Nova Announces 2023 Residencies Welcoming 13 New Artists and Groups to its Resident Artist Community

Ars Nova provides a protective environment where risk-taking and collaboration are paramount,

By: Dec. 09, 2022
Ars Nova Announces 2023 Residencies Welcoming 13 New Artists and Groups to its Resident Artist Community
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Ars Nova has announced 13 new artists and groups selected for 2023 residencies. Ars Nova's dynamic slate of artist residencies and commissions supports outside-the-box thinking and encourages innovative, genre-bending work. By providing a protective environment where risk-taking and collaboration are paramount, Ars Nova amplifies the voices of a new generation of diverse artists and audiences.

"One of my favorite things about the Ars Nova community is the expansive diversity of artist voices and styles making work here" says Jason Eagan, Ars Nova's Founding Artistic Director. "Each of these artists has already displayed an extraordinary amount of potential. A goal in bringing them into residency is to foster their singularity, while creating a community of peers who inspire each other through artistic exploration. We're honored to be the incubator for these shining talents."

Designed to foreground Ars Nova's values through the creation of more equitable and power-sharing curatorial practices, the Vision Residency was launched in 2020 with the goal of expanding Ars Nova's artistic vision by inviting artist-curators to program our stages and digital platform with their own work as well as work by artists they champion and admire. Each resident will be given broad support from Ars Nova's full staff in their curation, which will result in events and performances in-person at Ars Nova and online on Ars Nova Supra. The 2023 Vision Residents are Mayte Natalio and Untitled Queen. The Vision Residency program at Ars Nova is made possible by the generous support of the Miranda Family, Diana DiMenna, and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.

Founded in 2007, Play Group is a two-year residency in which members become a part of the Ars Nova Resident Artist community. In addition to biweekly meetings where members share new work and receive feedback from their Play Group peers, members also receive dramaturgical support and artistic match-making advice from the Ars Nova artistic staff; and the opportunity to further develop and showcase one of their plays in a weeklong workshop that can culminate in a public reading. The new members of Play Group are Nkenna Akunna, Lucas Baisch, Lyndsey Bourne, Charlie Oh, Nadira Simone, and ruth tang who join returning members Keelay Gipson, Garrett David Kim, Johnny G. Lloyd, May Treuhaft-Ali, Else Went, and Bailey Williams.

Launched in 2020, CAMP deepens Ars Nova's commitment to early-career comedy artists at a time when their support systems in New York have decreased. CAMP provides an eclectic group of creators with peer support and artistic feedback as they work on developing new comedic work in weekly meetings facilitated by Co-Program Directors Mahayla Laurence and Matt Gehring. The 2023 CAMP resident artists are Catherine Bloom & Sofia Dobrushin, Michelle Chan Bennett & Josh Nasser, Gara Lonning, Natalya Samee, and Chet Siegel.

Ars Nova commissions new work with an eye for artists that work with nontraditional creative processes and projects that often combine generative artists across multiple disciplines to collaboratively create a piece of theater. Their adventurous, process-driven environment allows commissioned projects to develop organically in an artist-focused way by committing to these groundbreaking, form-defying projects for the long haul over several years. Artists currently under commission include Kevin Armento & Sammy Miller, Michael Breslin & Patrick Foley, Manik Choksi, nicHi douglas, Deepali Gupta, Khiyon Hursey, James Harrison Monaco, Antoinette Chinonye Nwandu, Ray Yamanouchi, and Zack Zadek, and On The Rocks Theatre Co. who continue as Ars Nova's Company-In-Residence. nicHi douglas' commission is made possible with support from The NYC Women's Fund for Media, Music and Theatre by the City of New York Mayor's Office of Media and Entertainment in association with The New York Foundation for the Arts. Khiyon Hursey is Ars Nova's 2023 New York Community Trust Van Lier Fellow.

Please visit https://arsnovanyc.com/about-us/ for more information.


About the Vision Resident Artists

Mayte Natalio

is from NYC by way of Dominican parents. She studied at the LaGuardia High School for the Performing Arts and SUNY Purchase (BFA). She has performed and toured with the Parson's Dance Company, Camille A. Brown and Dancers, Kyle Abraham's A.I.M and Darrell Moultrie, Mylene Farmer and Kanye West. Favorite TV & Film credits include NBC's NYE Special 2019, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (Amazon), The Get Down (Netflix), NBC's Jesus Christ Superstar Live and Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (Netflix) Harlem (Amazon). Favorite regional credits include Stagger Lee and Hair (Dallas Theater Center) and Aida (Ogunquit Playhouse). Off-Broadway credits include the immersive hit Queen of the Night and Third Rail Project's The Grand Paradise. Choreography credits include The Winter's Tale (Public Works/ DTC), Red Speedo (Juilliard), Runaways (NYU), Into the Woods (Barrington Stage), Love in Hate Nation (Two River Theater) and Measure for Measure (Public Theater/ Mobile Unit) Hair (The Old Globe) Pippin (UArts), La Hora Santa, Written, Directed and Choreographed by Mayte for Ars Nova's Vision Residency Program, Pyer Moss's Haute Couture Show for Paris Fashion Week 2021, Kiss My Aztec (Hartford Stage), How to Dance in Ohio (Syracuse Stage) and The Tattooed Lady (Philadelphia Theatre Company). Mayte is also the co-founder and executive producer of the production company, MinuteZero.

Untitled Queen

is a Filipinx and Boriquén artist, drag queen, and writer based on the stolen land of the LenapeHoking, (so-called Brooklyn, NY). Through the interplay of drag, sculpture, drawing, and installation, she tells deeply emotional stories on a continuum in a constant flux of construction and deconstruction. In 2020, She presented Untitled (World), the first global LGBTQIA+ digital drag show, with 47 drag artists each representing 1 country, and benefitting 3 HIV/AIDS organizations in honor of World AIDS Day. She has been a fellow at the EFA Project Space Gallery Shift Residency and Urban Glass Residency in NY

About the new Play Group Artists

Nkenna Akunna

is an Igbo playwright and performer from London whose work primarily explores friendship, time, and various dimensions of Black femme life. Plays include Some Of Us Exist in the Future (2022 Bruntwood Prize longlist, 2021 Papatango Prize; 2021 Neukom Institute Literary Award for Playwriting second place; 2021 Women's Prize in Playwriting shortlist; UK audio tour inc. Bush Theatre, Everyman Theatre Liverpool, Theatr Clwyd, Leeds Playhouse, Bristol Old Vic, Lyric Theatre Belfast), cheeky little brown (Bushwick Starr, Brown University), good god (VoxFest, Brown University), Good Fit (2020 Rosa Parks Playwriting Award, 2020 Lorraine Hansberry Playwriting Award second place, Theatre Renegade, The Dare Tactic), a meal (Polaroid Theatre). Nkenna is a member of the 2022/23 Soho Rep Writer Director Lab cohort and a recipient of an MTC Sloan commission for her play Pure Water. Other honors include an upcoming residency at Hedgebrook, 2022/23 DGF finalist, and a Playwriting Fellowship at Sewanee Writers' Conference. She has a BA in Economics and African Diaspora Studies from Dartmouth College and is completing an MFA in Playwriting from Brown University, where she is the recipient of the Lucille Lortel Playwriting Fellowship. Nkenna is also co-director at Skin Deep, a collective that makes space for Black creatives and creatives of color through cultural production. Nkennaakunna.com

Lucas Baisch

is a playwright and artist from San Francisco. Select plays include: Dry Swallow (Brown University), 404 Not Found (2022 O'Neill NPC Finalist), REFRIGERATOR (First Floor Theater), On the Y-Axis (The Bushwick Starr Reading Series), import speech_memory (Cutting Ball's Variety Pack), and co-writing on The Arrow Cleans House (The Neo-Futurists). Lucas is a recipient of the Steinberg Playwright Award, the Princess Grace Award, the Kennedy Center's KCACTF Latinx Playwriting Award, the Chesley/Bumbalo Playwriting Award, and a Jerome Fellowship from The Playwrights' Center. He has taught writing at Brown University, Rhode Island School of Design, Macalester College, The Playwrights' Center, and through the Chicago Public Schools. His plays have been published by Bloomsbury/Methuen Drama and Yale's Theater Magazine. Outside of writing for theater, Lucas' artwork has been presented at Elsewhere Museum, the Electronic Literature Organization, gallery no one, and the RISD Museum. He has held residencies through ACRE, Millay Arts, the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation, The Goodman Theatre's Playwrights Unit, and as a Lambda Literary Playwriting Fellow. MFA: Brown University. lucasbaisch.com

Lyndsey Bourne

(she/they) is a queer Canadian writer, teacher and a birth/abortion doula working with The Doula Project. Her plays have been developed with The Tank, Dixon Place, La MaMa, New Georges, Judson, Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, Brooklyn College, Williams College, Theatrelab, Playwrights Horizons, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Ojai Playwrights Conference, New York Stage and Film and Ars Nova. They have been a resident artist at The Barn Arts Collective, Stillwright (Erik Ehn's Silent Writing Retreat), Judson and SPACE on Ryder Farm. Lyndsey teaches at Playwrights Horizons Theater School (NYU) and previously taught at Williams College. They are a New Georges affiliated artist, a member of the New Georges Jam, a 2022 New Georges Audrey Resident, A 2022 Writer in Residence at The Ojai Playwrights Conference, a member of EST/Youngblood and the recipient of a 2020 NYC Women's Fund for Media, Music and Theater Grant. BFA NYU, MFA Brooklyn College (studied with Mac Wellman and Erin Courtney)

Charlie Oh

Charlie Oh's plays have been developed at Manhattan Theatre Club, South Coast Rep, The Lark, Second Stage, The Goodman, the BMI Lehmen Engel Musical Theatre Workshop, and the American Music Theater Project. His play LONG won the Kennedy Center's Paula Vogel Award In Playwriting, placed second for the Mark Twain Prize for Comedic Playwriting, and was a 2019 Honorable Mention for The American Playwriting Foundation's Relentless Award. His play Coleman 72 won the Kennedy Center's Paul Stephen Lim Playwriting Award and will premiere at South Coast Rep spring 2023, directed by Chay Yew. Commissioned by Manhattan Theater Club and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and developing projects for television with Amazon Studios and Universal. A recent graduate of The Juilliard School's Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwrights Program. BA: Northwestern University.

Nadira Simone

is the proud daughter of immigrants, Jamaican and Panamanian descent raised in Queens/Brentwood, NY. She is a Storyteller, Playwright, Poet and self-taught Illustrator/Graphic Artist. She has studied Film/Theater at Cornell University. Is a National Theater Institute Alum - Advanced Playwright '20. A Semi-Finalist for the Eugene O'Neill National Playwrights Conference (2021, 2018). Henley Rose Playwright Competition - First place Winner. An Austin Film Festival Second Rounder, Broadway Bound Theater Festival Finalist. Brave New Works Finalist. A Top 10 finalist Warner Bros./HBO Chase Your Dreams Filmmaker Competition. Her play The Killing of Kings (part one) received a virtual reading (Brave New World Repertory Theatre). Her full Length Plays include: Here In Vain, The Killing of Kings (part one), The Barings of Blood (part two). She is currently finishing her 3-part series of Black Tragedies, in addition to her collection of short plays that 'kinda go together' - PLAY HERE [some plays].

ruth tang

writes plays & poetry and makes weird internet experiments out of Brooklyn, NY. Their play FUTURE WIFE was selected for the 2022 Theatertreffen Stückemarkt in Berlin. They are a member of the New Georges Jam, under commission from Long Wharf Theatre + NAATCO, and a recipient of The Sundance Institute Interdisciplinary Program Grant. In the recent past, they've been part of Clubbed Thumb's Early Career Writers' Group & NYTW's 2050 Fellowship. Their past work includes FUTURE WIFE: Party in A Google Sheet (New Georges; Corkscrew Festival 4.0), Bad Chinese (Samuel French Off-Off-Broadway Festival), and Building A Character (Wild Rice Singapore). MFA: The New School of Drama. ruthtang.com

About the CAMP Artists

Catherine Bloom

(she/her) is a Brooklyn based actor, writer, and comedian. She is originally from Carlisle, Pennsylvania where she won "most witty" as her high school senior superlative alongside the only other Jewish kid in her class. In 2018 she graduated Bard College with a BA in theater and has since shown original work at Second City, iO Chicago, Brooklyn Comedy Collective, Williamstown Theater Festival, The PIT, The Fisher Center, and other places. You can stalk Catherine on instagram at @yeast_queen, or simply visit her website catherinebloom.org.

Sofia Dobrushin

(she/they) is an actor, director, musician, and only child which is why she does all of these things. She has acted in TV shows like Apple TV's WeCrashed and HBO's High Maintenance. Her theatrical work includes: On the Rocks production of Edelweiss at Ars Nova and César Alvarez' The Elementary Space Time Show. Some of their directing work has been official selections of Brooklyn Women's Film Festival, Austin Comedy Short Film Festival, New Filmmakers Festival, and Nobudge. Her music consists of romantic harmonies inspired by The Roches and comedic verses echoing the style of Bo Burnham or Whitmer Thomas. To keep up with her projects and life you can find her on the app that runs our lives aka Instagram @_neonbabushka_

Michelle Chan Bennett

(she/her) is an NYC-based writer and actor whose work has been featured in Vulture, New York Sketchfest, Montreal Sketchfest, and Chicago Sketchfest. Most recently, you could find her starring as Cheryl Locke in the play The Art of Killin' It. She was an actor on UCB's Maude Night and continues to perform around North America with the team, Yes Chef! She writes and produces digital sketch with Hatched NYC. She also performs original characters on Characters Welcome and around the city.

Josh Nasser

(he/him) is an NYC based comedian/musician. His comedy has been featured on Comedy Central's YouTube Channel. Vulture and onmogul.com have both named Josh as one of the best up and coming comedians in NYC. Josh previously co-hosted the NYTimes recommended comedy show, "Oh, Such a Good Show, Oh!" Currently he's a member of the Webby Award winning writing team behind Story Pirates Podcast, which adapts children's stories into musical comedy sketches. You can find his previous work at joshnasser.com. And of course his favorite food is plain cheese pizza. He knows that's a boring choice and he will work on it.

Gara Lonning

(they/them) is a performance artist, writer and comedian based in NYC. They started performing in the New York City nightlife scene at 19 and now, 6 years later have shared their stories on many different iconic stages like MoMa PS1, LaMama, The Edinburgh Fringe Festival and more!

Natalya Samee

(she/her) is officially 5'6, but when you get to know her, she's more like 5'8. She is currently workshopping her Off-Broadway one woman show, Saturn Return, at Ars Nova in New York City, premiering in Spring 2023. In addition, she is an artist-in-residence in SFFILM's 2022 Filmhouse Residency for her project, DOHA GIRLS, an original TV series based on her adolescence in the Middle East. She was formally trained in improv and sketch as a member of Off-Off Campus (originators of The Second City) at The University of Chicago. She previously performed at Leela in San Francisco, and now at Brooklyn Comedy Collective in New York. Born in Pakistan but raised in oil-rich monarchies, Natalya is interested in telling stories that illuminate the world she grew up in. She is currently represented by Colleen Washington and Bella Bagatelos at Fourth Wall Management.

Chet Siegel

(she/her) is an actress, comedian, and cook. Performing credits include - Uncle Peckerhead, Alternatino (Comedy Central), Search Party (HBO), Chicago Med (NBC), and many independent projects that have appeared in Sundance, SXSW, Palm Springs Film Fest, NY Fringe, ANT Fest and other really cool festivals. She directed, wrote, performed, and taught improv and sketch comedy at UCB theater and Magnet Theater, and was the artistic director of Magnet's Sketch Comedy program. She is the co-creator and co-host of the food podcast, Nibbles And Bits, available on Spotify and Apple podcasts!

Mahayla Laurence

(they/she) is a multidisciplinary artist engaging in work that creates space for conversations around mental and spiritual health, joy, humor, stewardship, and community. Credits include: HBO, Clubbed Thumb, Pioneer Works, Gimlet. mahaylalaurence.com

Matt Gehring

(he/him) is a performer, writer and director of comedy. He's been on Amazon, Netflix, Comedy Central and has spent years on the UCB stage. Check out the Broadway-Meets-Sketch show, SHIZ he created with Shaina Taub.


About Ars Nova

Ars Nova exists to discover, develop, and launch singular theater, music and comedy artists in the early stages of their professional careers. Our dynamic slate of programs supports outside-the-box thinking and encourages innovative, genre-bending new work. Dubbed by The New York Times as a "fertile incubator of offbeat theater," Ars Nova blurs genres and subverts the status quo. With our feverish bounty of programming, we are the stomping ground and launching pad for visionary, adventurous artists of all stripes. By providing a protective environment where risk-taking and collaboration are paramount, Ars Nova amplifies the voices of a new generation of diverse artists and audiences, pushing the boundaries of live entertainment by nurturing creative ideas into smart, surprising new work.

Ars Nova has been honored with an Obie Award and a Special Citation from the New York Drama Critics' Circle for sustained quality and commitment to the development and production of new work. Notable past productions include: three-time Lortel Award-winner Oratorio for Living Things by Heather Christian, directed by Lee Sunday Evans; "Outstanding Musical" Lortel Award-winner and The New York Times' "Best of 2018," Rags Parkland Sings the Songs of the Future, created by Andrew R. Butler, directed by Jordan Fein; The Lucky Ones, created by The Bengsons and Sarah Gancher, directed by Anne Kauffman; "Outstanding Musical" Lortel Award-winner KPOP, created by Jason Kim, Max Vernon, Helen Park, and Woodshed Collective, directed by Teddy Bergman; "Best New American Theatre Work," Obie Award-winner and "one of the best new plays in the last 25 years" (The New York Times), Underground Railroad Game by Jennifer Kidwell and Scott R. Sheppard, directed by Taibi Magar ; The New York Times' and New York Post's "Best of 2015," Small Mouth Sounds by Bess Wohl, directed by Rachel Chavkin; the Tony Award-winning smash-hit Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812 by Dave Malloy, directed by Rachel Chavkin; the world premiere of the 2009 season's most-produced play boom by Peter Sinn Nachtrieb, directed by Alex Timbers; the show that put Bridget Everett on the map, At Least It's Pink by Everett, Michael Patrick King, and Kenny Mellman, directed by King; and Lin-Manuel Miranda and Thomas Kail's first New York production, Freestyle Love Supreme by Anthony Veneziale and Miranda, directed by Thomas Kail (Broadway 2019).

Please visit arsnovanyc.com to learn more.



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