Alliance/Kendeda National Graduate Playwriting Competition: 2007/2008

Winner: Tarell Alvin McCraney 

In the Red and Brown Water 

Tarell Alvin McCraney is the Artistic Director of the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles. He is also a member of Teo Castellanos/D-Projects Theater Company in Miami, a member of the Steppenwolf Theatre Ensemble, and co-wrote the 2016 film Moonlight, based on his own work In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue, for which he received an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. His numerous awards include the Whiting Award, Steinberg Playwright Award, Doris Duke Artist Award, Windham-Campbell Prize, London Evening Standard Award for Most Promising Playwright, New York Times Outstanding Playwright Award, the Paula Vogel Award, and a 2013 MacArthur Fellowship. 

He received his BFA in acting from The Theatre School at DePaul University. In May 2007 he graduated from Yale School of Drama's playwriting program, receiving the Cole Porter Playwriting Award upon graduation. He also is an Honorary Warwick University Graduate. 

Merri Biechler 

Confessions of a Reluctant Caregiver 

Merri Biechler is the Director of the School of Theater and an Associate Professor of Instruction of playwriting at Ohio University. She’s the recipient of an Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award and a Boomerang Fund for Artists award. Her plays include Tammy Faye’s Final Audition (Tantrum Theater, Dublin, OH; Centenary Stage Company; Cincinnati Fringe 2015 – Best of Fringe; Washington DC Capital Fringe 2015 – Best of Fringe); An Appalachian Christmas Carol (Brick Monkey Theater Ensemble world premiere; Woodford Theatre, KY); Occupation (Hollywood Fringe 2016 – Dozen Best; Seven Devils Playwrights Conference semifinalist; P73 Playwriting Fellowship semifinalist; Perishable Theatre’s International Women’s Playwriting Festival finalist); Real Girls Can’t Win (Centenary Stage Company Women Playwrights Series winner; Stavis Award nominee; David Mark Cohen Award finalist); Bombs, Babes and Bingo (Mortar Theatre Company world premiere; New Orleans Fringe Festival; Artist’s Laboratory Theatre workshop; P73 Playwriting Fellowship semifinalist; Clubbed Thumb biennial commission finalist); and Confessions of a Reluctant Caregiver (Northern Light Theatre in Edmonton, Alberta, world premiere canceled due to COVID; Princess Grace Award finalist; Jane Chambers Student Playwriting Award winner; Kendeda Graduate Playwriting Competition finalist; WordBRIDGE Playwrights Laboratory participant, and the recipient of grants totaling $40,000 to use the play as a teaching tool for medical students). Her latest project, with co-creator Samuel Dodd, is The Healthy Village: Immersive Healthcare Theater. It uses fine arts techniques and methods to teach healthcare students to work in partnership with their patients. Merri received her MFA in playwriting from Ohio University. As an actor, Merri played Della in Tantrum Theater’s production of The Cake, written by Kendeda Graduate Playwriting Competition finalist Bekah Brunstetter.  

Bekah Brunstetter 

Green  

Bekah hails from Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and currently lives in Los Angeles. As a TV writer and producer, she has written for Switched at Birth, American Gods, This is Us, and Maid.  She has developed pilots for FX, Hulu and Apple. As a playwright, her work has been staged and developed by The O’Neill Playwright’s conference, the Atlantic Theater, Portland Center Stage, The Old Globe, the La Jolla Playhouse, Naked Angels, South Coast Repertory, The Echo theater, and Ojai Playwright’s conference. Her play The Cake has been produced over 80 times worldwide, as ran off Broadway at  Manhattan Theater Club. She is currently working on Commissions for South Coast Rep, Manhattan Theater Club, Barrington Stage, and Playmaker’s Rep. Her musical adaptation of The Notebook with Ingrid Michaelson will open on Broadway in Spring 2024.  She is an alumni of the CTG Writers Group, Primary Stages writes group, Ars Nova Play Group, The Playwright’s Realm, and the Women’s Project Lab, and the Echo Playwright’s Group.  BA UNC Chapel Hill; MFA in Dramatic Writing from the New School for Drama. 

Ross Maxwell 

Blind, Bleeding, Drugged & Drunk 

Ross Maxwell was born in Scotland and raised in Oregon. He is a member of Youngblood, the playwrights collective through the Ensemble Studio Theatre. Maxwell is also a member of the Partial Comfort Theatre Company. Productions include: Pedestrians and Suicidal Fags and the Death of God, both in Vital Theatre Company's Vital Signs New Works Festival. Pedestrians was selected for the Samuel French Competition. His full-length play, His Occupation, was commissioned by Purdue University and was produced in March 2005.  

Recently he has worked as a television producer and writer, and is known for his work on Riverdale (2017-2018), Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (2018-2020), Teen Wolf (2016), and Glee (2011-2015). 

Josh Tobiessen 

Election Day 

Since being a part of the Kendeda Competition, I returned to the Alliance in 2011 for a production of my play, Spoon Lake Blues.  My other plays, including Election Day (my Kendeda finalist play), Red State Blue Grass, Crashing the Party, Lone Star Spirits and Stinkers and have been produced or developed at such places as Crowded Outlet, New York City; The Jungle Theater, Minneapolis; Mixed Blood Theatre, Minneapolis; Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Ashland; Pioneer Theatre Company, Salt Lake City; Second Stage Theatre, New York; Slant Theatre Project, New York; and AiShangChu Theatre, Hong Kong.  My most recent play, The Yankfield Yeti, was a finalist for the O’Neill New Play Conference and received a finalist award as part of the 2023 New Jersey State Council on the Arts Individual Artist Fellowship program.