Photo by Duane Michals of Ellen Stewart with La MaMa playwrights Sam Shepard, Leonard Melfi, Ruth Yorcke, David Starkweather, Jean Claude van Itallie, Paul Foster, Robert Sealy, Walter Brown, Lanford Wilson, Ross Alexander, and David Slakin. 1964. Courtesy of the La MaMa Archive.

The Morgan Jenness Experiments
in Playwriting Fellowship

La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club is thrilled to announce a new playwriting fellowship. This fellowship will offer two early career playwrights in the NYC area an artistic home at the legendary La MaMa for the course of one year. The fellowship seeks to encourage playwrights from underproduced communities with an emphasis on members of the LGBTQ+ community, people of color, and people with disabilities. Throughout the course of the fellowship, playwrights will work with playwright and fellowship mentor, Justin Elizabeth Sayre. Fellows will meet with Sayre on a monthly basis to discuss their work and the works of previous La MaMa playwrights such as Maria Irene Fornes, Jackie Curtis, Sam Shepard, Robert Patrick, Adrienne Kennedy, and many more. 

OUR CURRENT PLAYWRITING FELLOWS:

La MaMa houses one of the greatest archives of Off- and Off-Off-Broadway theatre in the world, and the fellows have access to this amazing archive as both inspiration and insight to foster experimentation in their own work. Besides connecting with La MaMa’s past, playwrights receive complimentary tickets to La MaMa’s current season, allowing them to learn from current La MaMa artists and the work created here. At the end of the fellowship, fellows will present an open reading through the Experiments Play Reading Series. Playwrights are awarded a $1,250 stipend for their time. 
 
The fellowship is supported by a grant from the Jerome Foundation. 

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La Mama is a world-renowned New York cultural institution dedicated to the artist and all aspects of the theatre.