Alliance/Kendeda National Graduate Playwriting Competition: 2020/2021
Winner: Matt Libby
Data
Matthew Libby is a writer and actor based in Brooklyn, by way of Los Angeles. His play Data won the Alliance/Kendeda National Graduate Playwriting Award, and was adapted as a digital production presented by the Tony-winning Alliance Theatre in May 2021, a production featured in a New York Times review of virtual theatre works that “clear a path toward continued innovation and growth of the form.” Matt is a 2022-2023 Dramatists Guild Foundation Fellow, Theater Masters Visionary Playwright, Neukom Award winner, two-time Princess Grace Award finalist, three-time O’Neill Playwrights Conference semifinalist, and Blue Ink Playwriting Award featured finalist, and his work has been produced and developed by theaters across the country, including Alliance Theatre, Northern Stage, Pioneer Theatre Company, The Kennedy Center, National New Play Network, Theater Masters, The Barrow Group, The Road Theater Company, WNYU’s Theatre-in-the-Sound, and others. With Stanford Repertory Theater, he helped devise and acted in The Many Faces pf Farce, which was nominated for a 2018 Bay Area Critics Award for Best Production. As a TV writer, he is developing a pilot for Hulu with producer Beau Willimon, and his screenwriting work has been recognized by The Black List and Script Pipeline. Matt studied cognitive science and creative writing at Stanford University, and received his MFA in dramatic writing from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, where he was awarded the Chair’s Award for Distinguished Achievement. He is a proud member of the Writers Guild of America and the Dramatists Guild of America.
Kaela Mei-Shing Garvin
Harpers Ferry 2019
Kaela Mei-Shing Garvin (they/she) is a writer, performer, educator, and new work advocate. Kaela's plays include Call Out Culture (2022 O'Neill NPC Finalist, 2021 NADIA Festival, 2019 Ars Nova’s ANTFest), High School Coven (2023 Strand Theatre Baltimore Production, 2017 Corkscrew Festival), Harpers Ferry 2019 (2022 Know Theatre of Cincinnati production, 2021 Alliance/Kendeda Competition finalist), and Tiger Beat (2021 Bay Area Playwrights Festival, 2021 Seven Devils Conference finalist). Kaela has received six Kennedy Center awards and has developed work with Gingold Theatrical Group, Exquisite Corpse Company, The Road’s Under Construction Lab, the Coop’s Clusterf*ck, Playground-NY, and Pipeline Theater Company’s Playlab. Commissions include work with Yangtze Rep (Project YZ), EST/Sloan, Montana Repertory Theater, and College of the Holy Cross. Garvin is the Tank’s 2022 & 2023 Pridefest curator and a founding member of Undiscovered Countries, a Brooklyn-based incubator of new interdisciplinary art. They worked on staff at the Sewanee Writers Conference and as the BAPF Season 45 Play Selection Advisor at the Playwrights Foundation. Kaela has taught playwriting at Cornish College of the Arts, Freehold Theatre, and Indiana University. They currently work as the Programming Associate for the Tank and the Literary Manager for Luna Stage in New Jersey. www.kaelameishinggarvin.com
Jessica Huang
Mother of Exiles
Jessica Huang is a playwright and librettist whose work includes: Blended 和 (Harmony): The Kim Loo Sisters (with composer Jacinth Greywoode - World Premiere in spring 2024), Mother of Exiles (Venturous Award, NNPN Annual Showcase, Rosa Parks Playwriting Award, Paul Stephen Lim Playwriting Award, Alliance/Kendeda Prize Finalist), The Paper Dreams of Harry Chin (History Theatre, Indiana Repertory Theatre, San Francisco Playhouse, New York Stage and Film Powerhouse Season, Barry and Bernice Stavis Award, Kilroy's List), and Transmissions in Advance of the Second Great Dying (2022 EMOS Ecodrama prize). Her audioplay Song of the Northwoods is now available on Audible. She is developing an original television show with WBTV. She is a Venturous Playwright Fellow at the Playwrights’ Center, and was the inaugural 4 Seasons Resident Playwright. She has received awards from the National Alliance for Musical Theatre, the National Theatre Conference, the Jerome Foundation, The Dramatists Guild, and The Bret Adams and Paul Reisch Foundation. She has developed work at Hedgebrook, The Hermitage, The MacDowell Colony, New Harmony Project, New York Stage and Film, and Space on Ryder Farm, among many others. She is a four-time Playwrights' Center fellow, and has been a member of Ars Nova Play Group, Civilians R&D Group, Two River Theatre's Emerging Writers Group and Page 73's Interstate 73. She is a graduate of the Playwrights Program at Juilliard.
Keyanna Khatiblou
2020: a going away party play
Keyanna Khatiblou (she/her) likes dark comedies with good roles for women and frequently writes about queer female friendships, mental health, and the Iranian diaspora. She's been published by Samuel French, produced Off-Broadway as part of Theatre Masters National MFA Playwrights Festival, and was a finalist for the Alliance/Kendeda National Graduate Playwriting Competition. Her plays have been developed with Chicago companies including Theater on the Lake, the New Colony, About Face Youth Theater, Prop Thtr, the Jackalope Playwright's Lab, and the Chicago Women's Theater Alliance. She has been produced and commissioned three times by the Evanston Children's Theater to write female-focused adaptations of classic fairy tales and myths. Keyanna was selected for the Television Academy Foundation Internship Program and spent the summer of 2019 as an original programming development intern at Starz. MFA: Northwestern University.
Jay Stull
The Singularity Play
Jay Stull is a playwright, director, dramaturg, and teacher. Since being a Finalist for the Kendeda, he's collaborated on productions or development work include with David Greenspan and Ken Rus Schmoll as a dramaturg and Associate Director on Gertrude Stein’s libretto Four Saints in Three Acts (Lucille Lortel at Target Margin); with Keenan Tyler Oliphant and Johnny Lloyd as a co-writer on baldwin[GIOVANNI]brando (New York Theater Workshop - Adelphi Residency); and with Crystal Finn and Ken Rus Schmoll as a dramaturg on a piece about Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations, and David Markson’s 1988 postmodern novel, Wittgenstein’s Mistress. He is a 2022 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow in Playwriting from the New York Foundation for the Arts and was the Horton Foote Scholar in playwriting for the 2021 Sewanee Writers’ Conference. He was an artist-in-residence and visiting professor in the Theater, Dance, and Media concentration at Harvard College in the fall semester of 2020 and the spring semester of 2023. In addition to Harvard, he has taught theater at NYU-Tisch and the American Academy of Dramatic Art. MFA: Columbia. www.jaystull.com
