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Festival of New Works

March 17 – 20, 2026

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The Alliance Theatre is pleased to present the four finalists of the Alliance/Kendeda National Graduate Playwriting Competition in free, staged readings, as part of the 2026 Alliance/Kendeda Week celebrating new works. RSVPs are requested.

The Words of Ants

By Xiaoyan Kang, University of Iowa
Directed by Avital Shira
Tuesday, March 17 // 6:00 PM
Rehearsal Hall A at Alliance Theatre
Memorial Arts Building, 3rd Floor

The visit of an uninvited woman changes Yan’s life forever. As the last natural inheritor, Yan is pulled into a journey to preserve an almost extinct language—but at what cost?

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Xiaoyan Kang

Born and raised in China, Xiaoyan Kang started to write plays in English while studying under Philip Gotanda at Berkeley. Her plays include The Words of Ants (Playwrights Realm Scratchpad Series, Great Plains Theatre Commons New Play Festival, Jane Chambers Award runner-up), The Obituary (Sewanee Writers’ Conference Horton Foote Scholarship, KCACTF V Julie Jensen Playwriting Award honorable mention), and Bound(BBC International Radio Playwriting Competition Regional Winner, O’Neil Semifinalist, KCACTF V Paul Stephen Lim Playwriting Award). Some of her short plays were developed at 24 Hour Plays: Nationals and KCACTF V. Xiaoyan is finishing her MFA at the Iowa Playwrights Workshop.

Mira & Dill

By Ally Merkel, New York University
Directed by Caitlin Hargraves
Wednesday, March 18 // 6:00 PM
Rehearsal Hall A at Alliance Theatre
Memorial Arts Building, 3rd Floor

A kaleidoscopic comedy about sibling love and the internet, this piece asks when should you trust the ones you love to protect themselves?

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Ally Merkel

Ally Merkel is a Brooklyn-based playwright. She writes funny language-obsessed plays for fast talkers. Ally has developed plays with the Under Construction Playwrights Group at The Road Theatre Company and with The COOP’s Clusterf**ck vol 3 working group. Ally is an alumna of Theater Masters’ National MFA Playwrights Festival “Take Ten” (2024) and of the 24 Hour Plays: Nationals program (2022). She is a 2024 National Playwrights Conference semi-finalist and a 2023 Seven Devils Conference finalist. Her short play Carrots, about a teenage boy who wants his best friend to bite off his finger, has a forthcoming publication with Concord Theatricals. Ally’s work has also been seen at The Tank, The Fled Collective, New Perspectives Theatre Company, and The 24 Hour Plays Viral Monologues. She has a BA in political science from Kenyon College and is currently pursuing an MFA in dramatic writing at NYU.

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By Alex Lin, The Juilliard School
Directed by Candy Mclellan
Thursday, March 19 // 6:00 PM
Rehearsal Hall A at Alliance Theatre
Memorial Arts Building, 3rd Floor

The story of two sisters navigating two entirely different fates in finding, creating, and embracing family.

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Alex Lin

Alex Lin is just a girl from Jersey. Plays seen at Roundabout, Second Stage, NYTW, MTC, Primary Stages, the O’Neill, Rattlestick, Working Theater, Ojai, South Coast Rep, New Harmony, Two River, Playwrights Realm, Cape Cod Theatre Project, Central Square Theatre, Amphibian Stage, and Theater Mu. Guest lectures at CMU, Rutgers, and Union College. As an actor, she has performed at NYTW, Actors Theatre of Louisville, New Victory, Fault Line, HVSF, Ma-Yi, Jewish Plays Project, Amphibian Stage, Cape Cod Theatre Project, Ojai, and Commonwealth Shakespeare. Stavis Award winner, Susan Smith Blackburn Prize finalist, and Weissberger Award nominee. Colt Coeur Resident Artist, Rattlestick Van Lier Fellow.  Juilliard.

Moe is a Dick

By Ida Cuttler, Yale School of Drama
Directed by Alexis Kulani Woodard
Friday, March 20 // 3:00 PM
Rehearsal Hall A at Alliance Theatre
Memorial Arts Building, 3rd Floor

This loose adaptation of “Moby Dick” asks us to consider what it means to sail the unsteady waters of family  and how to forgive the madness of those who raised us.

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Ida Cuttler

Ida Cuttler is from San Francisco, California. She received her MFA in playwriting from the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale (‘25) where she wrote Moe is a Dick and Running Play. Other writing and performing credits include Comfortable Shoes, The Infinite Wrench and WILDCATS, the last of which was nominated for a Chicago Jeff award in 2023. Ida was a company member of The Chicago Neofuturists from 2015 to 2021.
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