PlayPenn New Play Development

Calling all Philadelphia-based playwrights! Applications are now open for The Foundry! Apply at /apply The Foundry is a free three-year playwrights’ workshop at PlayPenn for Philadelphia-based writers, guided by lead artists L M Feldman and R. Eric Thomas. Members meet twice a month to share work, exchange feedback, and engage in meaningful artistic dialogue within a supportive and rigorous creative community. ​ The primary objective of the Foundry is to help emerging playwrights hone their skills through self-directed writing and revision. After completing the initial three years, writers continue as ongoing members, remaining active participants in The Foundry community. The Foundry has cultivated a remarkable community of playwrights and artistic leaders who began their careers in Philadelphia. Alumni include Chris Davis, Emma Goidel, Sarah Mantell, MJ Kaufman, R. Eric Thomas, Erlina Ortiz, MK Tuomanen, Iraisa Ann Reilly, Chaz T. Martin, Lex Thammavong, and Zahra Patterson along with the more than 60 playwrights who have participated in the program since 2012. Current members of The Foundry at PlayPenn include Rayne, Siddarth Anand, Monica Flory, Natyna Bean, Lulu Duffy-Tumasz, Aly Gonzalez, August Hakvaag, Nick Jonczak, and Pravin Wilkins.

What are you doing this summer? We have some big news to share in the coming days. Make sure you're on our mailing list!

BIG NEWS FOR 2027! The Foundry at PlayPenn, Philadelphia’s preeminent playwright collective, launches its inaugural festival in 2027, spotlighting new work by the next generation of theater artists, produced in association with @philatheatreco . The 2027 Festival will feature readings of new work by Lulu Duffy-Tumasz, Aly Gonzalez, and August Hakvaag. March 12–14, 2027 at The Louis Bluver Theatre at The Drake March 20 and 21, 2027 in NYC! The Foundry at PlayPenn is a tuition-free three-year playwrights’ workshop for emerging/early career Philadelphia-based writers, guided by lead artists L M Feldman and R. Eric Thomas. Writers meet regularly to share work, exchange feedback, and engage in meaningful artistic dialogue within a supportive and rigorous creative community. Its alumni include Chris Davis, Emma Goidel, Sarah Mantell, MJ Kaufman, R. Eric Thomas, Erlina Ortiz, MK Tuomanen, Iraisa Ann Reilly, Chaz T. Martin, Lex Thammavong, and Zahra Patterson along with the more than 60 playwrights who have participated in the program since 2012. Current Foundry Members include Rayne, Siddarth Anand, Natyna Bean, Lulu Duffy-Tumasz, Monica Flory, Aly Gonzalez, August Hakvaag, Nick Jonczak, Pravin Wilkins. Lead Photo @jameskernphotography

We’re still reeling after spending time with PlayPenn staff, our Foundry playwrights, and board members during our events spree in late March. Community matters! P.S. - We saw “Miz Martha” at Wilma Theater that night. It was everything. More events to come!! Are you on PlayPenn’s mailing list? Get on the list now!!

Hey Blackboard fam! If you’re in New York on Monday, April 6 at 7:30pm, we have a special FREE TICKET offer just for you! 🎟️ 🙌🏾 Join us at @dramabookshop for an intimate conversation with #PulitzerPrize winning playwright @jwijames , presented in partnership with @playpenn in anticipation of the world premiere of his new play WILDERNESS GENERATION at Philadelphia Theatre Company @philatheatreco James Ijames, best known for FAT HAM, will be joined by Nancy Boykin and Kimberly S. Fairbanks, with the conversation moderated by PlayPenn Artistic Director Che’Rae Adams. 👉🏾 Free tickets are available on our Patreon or in our latest newsletter. Click the link in our bio! 👆🏾 If free seats are gone, a $10 ticket 🎟️ 🔗 link is also on our website. See you Monday! ✨ #jamesijames #freetickets #playpenn

When you are among one of the Greats...you just have to be still & take it in. @cannonballfest & @playpenn , two of Philly's unique theater outlets, gave us a night with THEE Roger Q Mason. This was a reading of the first 20 pages of their VERY new play 'Bill'. But it was a night of So Much More. If you have ever met Roger or seen any of their work, you know that it is a transcending experience. Wise & and generous beyond their years. They are so in tune with the art of storytelling that even at this stage in the playwriting process they're calling it a prayer. 🫰🏾🫰🏿🫰🏾 They are another of our FAVORITE playwrights. 🫶🏾🫶🏾 Roger speak life in their pages and in person. The Duet, in 2024, was our introduction to @rogerq.mason 🔥🔥🔥. Our respect & love has only grown. Philly has embraced Roger & we are so grateful that we get to share in their process. Watching Philly Playwrights like @raynetheplaywright , @a.hakvaag , @the_nancy_marie & a host of others supporting but also always working & learning from one another, filled our hearts with HOPE!! 🙏🏾🫶🏾🙏🏾 PlayPenn & Cannonball create space for the Arts & the Artist. We Love it, as you can tell. We know the Arts was one of the FIRST to 'lose' funding. Think of supporting. Maybe make a donation. /donate /donate Shoutout to @interacttheatreco for always sharing #SupportTheArts #tothemomentsbetween #Philly #demBruceGals

March 31, 7pm tickets at playpenn.org Democracy is dead, to begin with. And Taffeta, a Black, queer femme of impossible brilliance, refuses to be this country’s janitor once again. Instead, she appoints herself freedom’s only mourner, digging its grave. As she honors a system that feasted on her people’s rights, three crusty yet resplendent Founding Muthafuckaz (Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, and Thomas Paine) drag their ghostly essences onto the scene and try to enlist Taffeta to build them a new nation for free, brick by brick. But a stranger forces Taffeta to confront whether the country she’s inherited is worth fighting for, or whether it deserves to be rebuilt at all, forcing her to choose a louder, riskier dream built on our rage, our care, and our refusal to succumb to the status quo in silence. Bill, a sequel to Miss Mason’s Lavender Men, excavates Constitutional history and asks who was intentionally excluded from the founding vision of “We, the People.” @playpenn @cannonballfest @rogerq.mason @philatheatreco #gay #play #theater #art #writing

Tickets are still available!! Join us for an intimate and necessary conversation about craft, courage, and the long road from imagination to production. See you all on Monday!

Are y’all ready? Got your tickets yet? Playwright James Ijames joins PlayPenn, Nancy Boykin, and Kimberly Fairbanks for a rare, can’t-miss conversation happening in two cities. 📍 March 30 — Philadelphia, Wilma Theater 📍 April 6 — NYC, The Drama Book Shop If you love theatre, make theatre, study it, or just want to see how a play comes to life, this is your backstage pass into the mind and process of one of today’s most exciting voices. This moment is historic for Philadelphia. Three major companies, Arden Theatre Company (Good Bones), Wilma Theater (Miz Martha), and Philadelphia Theatre Company (Wilderness Generation), are all presenting Ijames’s work in the same season. One playwright. Three stages. Don’t miss your chance to experience it all and hear directly from the artist behind it. 🎟️ Get tickets now: /events ✨ Pay What You Want tickets available 🎓 @templetheaters , @templeu_fma and @templeuniv students attend for free Presented with @ardentheatreco , @philatheatreco , @thewilmatheater , and @blackboardplays

Let us tell you a story. March 31 at The Proscenium Theatre at The Drake. Presented by @cannonballfest and playpenn. Pay What You Want tickets still available.

One stage. One microphone. One playwright sharing pages of a new bold play in development. PlayPenn and @cannonballfest present Queer Works In Progress: “Bill” by Roger Q. Mason March 31 at 7:00pm Join us for an exciting evening of new work as 2026 PlayPenn Conference Playwright Roger Q. Mason (they/them) shares excerpts from their newest play about democracy and the founding of America told through a #queer perspective of love, desire, exclusion, and forgiveness. Following the artist sharing, PlayPenn Foundry Member, @raynetheplaywright joins Roger Q. Mason for a conversation on America, liberation, and otherness, asking what it means to be whole in a country still negotiating the boundaries of belonging. Get your tickets at /events. Pay What You Want tickets are available.

Bonus episode alert! 🎭 We sat down with Nancy Boykin, board president of @playpennphilly — and the woman who handed James Ijames his first real shot at being heard as a playwright. From Shakespeare in the Park in 1970s New York, to the halls of Temple, to shaping the next generation of Philadelphia playwrights, Nancy’s story is a must listen. We’re talking about the Playwright Entrepreneur Program, the Foundry, and why PlayPenn is one of the last play development organizations in the country still standing strong. 💪 Plus: catch the PlayPenn-sponsored talk with James Ijames at the Wilma on March 30th. Don’t sleep on it. 🔗 New episode out now — link in bio. #phillyhasheart #PlayPenn #phillytheater #JamesIjames #podcast