2022/23 L.A. Writers' Workshop
Since 2005, more than 100 playwrights have had their work fostered through Center Theatre Group’s L.A. Writers’ Workshop and more are set to join. This new cohort for the L.A. Writers’ Workshop includes six local playwrights who will spend a year researching and writing a new work with the feedback of their fellow writers and Center Theatre Group’s artistic staff. These playwrights are Amy Berryman, Inda Craig-Galván, Isaac Gómez, Ramiz Monsef, Christopher Oscar Peña, and Jasmine Sharma.
AMY BERRYMAN is a playwright, screenwriter, actor, and teaching artist originally from Seattle by way of West Texas. Her play Walden, produced by Sonia Friedman and directed by Ian Rickson, premiered on London’s West End in May 2021. Walden was also produced at TheaterWorks Hartford in August 2021 (New York Times Critic’s Pick) and was published by Faber & Faber. Other full-length plays include God's Flesh (MTC/Sloan Commission), The New Galileos (O’Neill Finalist 2019); Three Year Summer; Epiphany, Or What Would You? (finalist for Shakespeare’s New Contemporaries, O'Neill Semi-Finalist 2020); and The Whole of You (commissioned for Rising Phoenix Rep). Her work has been developed at Premiere Stages, Kitchen Dog, Caltech, East 15, Portland Stage, Great Plains Theatre Conference, Valdez Last Frontier Theatre Conference, and AMiOS, among others. Amy has a television project in development at Warner Bros and was awarded a MacDowell Fellowship 2023. amy-berryman.com
INDA CRAIG-GALVÁN is a Los Angeles-based playwright and television writer, born and raised on the South Side of Chicago. Her work explores conflicts and politics within the African-American community, grounded in reality, and with a touch of magical realism. Upcoming: A Jumping-Off Point (Round House Theatre, April 2024), Welcome to Matteson! (Orlando Shakes, Fall 2024). Other plays: The Great Jheri Curl Debate (East West Players), Black Super Hero Magic Mama (Geffen Playhouse), a hit dog will holler (Playwrights’ Arena/Skylight Theatre), I Go Somewhere Else (Playwrights’ Arena). Awards: Kesselring Prize, Jeffry Melnick New Play Award, Blue Ink Prize, Jane Chambers Award, Kennedy Center’s Rosa Parks Award for plays focused on social justice and/or civil rights. Commissions: The Old Globe, Round House Theatre. TV: Co-Executive Producer of ABC’s Will Trent. Previous: The Rookie, How to Get Away with Murder, Demimonde, Happy Face. Inda is an Adjunct Professor at University of Southern California’s School of Dramatic Arts, where she received her MFA in Dramatic Writing.
ISAAC GÓMEZ (they/them) is an award-winning Chicago and Los Angeles based playwright and screenwriter originally from El Paso, Texas/Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. They identify as na’wi–the third gender marker of the Rarámuri, a Mexican Indigenous community in northern Chihuahua, of which they’re a direct descendent. They’re currently under commission with LCT3, Steppenwolf Theater Company, South Coast Repertory, Denver Center for the Performing Arts, and IAMA Theatre Company. Their plays have been produced by Audible Theater, Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Primary Stages, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Goodman Theatre, the Alley Theatre, Seattle Rep, and many others. Their television credits include the Netflix Original Series Narcos: Mexico, the upcoming Apple TV+ Limited Series The Last Thing He Told Me, the second season of Paramount TV+’s Joe Picket, amongst others. They currently have a series in development with Stacey Sher and FX as well as a full-length feature in development with Focus Features.
RAMIZ MONSEF is an alumni of The EPG at Circle X as well as The Writers’ Room at the Geffen Playhouse, where his play The Ants was developed, and will be produced later this year. It also was developed at The Ojai Playwrights Conference in 2021. Ramiz is co-author of the musical The Unfortunates produced at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and ACT in San Francisco. He wrote that show’s accompanying graphic novel as well. He also co-wrote The Many Deaths of Nathan Stubblefield, which premiered in the 2017 Humana Festival at Actors Theatre of Louisville. His play 3 Farids was part of The Bushwick Starr reading series and selected to be in the New Works Festival at TheatreWorks Silicon Valley, the DNA New Work Series at La Jolla Playhouse, and at Playwrights Horizons. Ramiz is an actor and has appeared in major theatres across the country, most recently playing the title role in Rajiv Joseph’s Letters of Suresh Off-Broadway at SecondStage, numerous television series including NCIS, SWAT, SEAL Team, Kidding, Shameless, Modern Family, and Young Sheldon. He is also in the film SYNCHRONIC.
CHRISTOPHER OSCAR PEÑA is a storyteller originally from California, now splitting his time between New York and L.A. In 2019, with Sean Daniels’ he co-directed the world premiere of Daniels’ adaptation of Jack Kerouac’s “lost novel” The Haunted Life at Merrimack Rep. The production marked the first time the Kerouac Estate had ever sanctioned an official theatrical adaptation of Kerouac’s work and solidified the artistic partnership between peña and Daniels. Shortly after, Daniels was appointed artistic director of Arizona Theatre Company, where he invited peña to become an artistic associate, as his first hire. As a playwright, the Clarence Brown Theatre commissioned and produced the world premiere of his play The Strangers. In New York, the Flea Theatre produced the world premiere of his play, a cautionary tail. He collaborated with actress Solea Pfeiffer on her solo show You Are Here which was commissioned by Audible, and played to sold-out acclaim at the Minetta Lane Theatre Off-Broadway, and is now available on Audible. Most recently, his critically acclaimed play, how to make an American Son had its world premiere at Arizona Theatre Company. For the next two years, Profile Theatre in Portland, Oregon, will produce a season of his work: the second production of how to make an American Son, the world premiere of his Goodman Theatre commissioned play awe/struck, and the world premiere of a new Profile Theatre commission. His work has been developed by Playwrights Horizons, the Goodman Theatre, Public Theater, Two River Theater, INTAR, Ontological Hysteric Incubator, Playwrights Realm, Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, Old Vic, Orchard Project, Naked Angels, and New York Theatre Workshop, among many others. A two-time Sundance Institute Theater Fellow, he has also held fellowships with the Lark Play Development Center, was a recipient of the Latino Playwrights Award, an Emerging Artist Fellow at New York Theatre Workshop, Playwrights Realm Writing Fellow, and was a part of the US/UK Exchange (Old Vic New Voices). A proud member of New Dramatists, he was named one of “The 1st Annual Future Broadway Power List” by Backstage, and has been published by Methuen, No Passport Press, and Smith and Krauss. He has an extensive relationship with the 24-Hour plays where he has written for their plays on Broadway and Musical Benefits, and written viral monologues for Hugh Dancy, Bonnie Milligan, Cory Michael Smith, John Gallagher Jr., Raviv Ullman, Evan Jonigkeit, and many more. In television, he was a writer on the Golden Globe nominated debut season of the CW show Jane the Virgin, the critically-acclaimed HBO show Insecure (in which he also appeared as the character Gary), as well as the STARZ show Sweetbitter, Motherland: Fort Salem on Freeform, and the ABC/Hulu series Promised Land. He produced the BET+ holiday film A Jenkins Family Christmas and co-wrote this year’s BET+ holiday film The Cookoff. He is currently a Supervising Producer on an upcoming Disney + show, and developing original series for HBO (with filmmaker Crystal Moselle and artist Derrick B. Harden), and STX (with Omar Sharif Jr.). He received his BA from UC Santa Barbara and his MFA from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.
JASMINE SHARMA (she/her) is a South Asian-American performer/writer/activist, and thrilled to be working on PIGEONHOLE with Center Theater Group. She aims to focus her work at the intersection of race/femininity/Americanness. Recent acting includes the west coast premieres of Wives and Calvin Berger: A Musical, The Wolves (McCarter Theater), and a lot of new work development (ASCAP, NYTW, The Public, The New Group, Ma-Yi, etc). Upcoming: Much Ado About Nothing (OSF). Her writing has been recognized/developed/produced by The Kilroys, The O’Neill, The Kennedy Center, Shattered Globe Theatre, Goodman Theatre, Jackalope Theatre Company, IAMA Theatre Company, The Entertainment Community Fund, Moxie Arts NYC, Ashland New Plays Festival, The Road Theatre, The 24 Hour Plays, AlterTheater Ensemble, Valdez Last Frontier Theatre Conference, The Blank Theatre, and Lime Arts Productions, among others. As a screenwriter, her short film “Conflicted Cuties of Color” is currently in post production, releasing spring 2024, and she is a 2022-2023 Reel Sisters Fellow. Jasmine has also contributed to @iWeigh. Northwestern University. jasminesharma.org | @jasminesharmaa