Thank you to all of those who have already responded to our invitation to participate in an open and free discussion about playwrights so producing. Our convening (after that night’s performance of HONOR at the Gene Frankel Theatre, 24 Bond Street in Manhattan) is a follow-up to the T.J. Elliott’s online series of brief essays, 13 Ways of Looking at Self-Producing, published in March 2024.
If you haven’t signaled your attendance yet, you can so by clicking here for this discussion on Playwright Self-Producing taking place 8:30 PM Wednesday September 25 th after the 7PM performance of HONOR at the Gene Frankel Theatre in Manhattan.
(There is NO fee for attending this playwright community gathering. If you wish to attend HONOR at 7PM that evening, go to our tickets site here and enter the discount code ‘playwright’ for $10 off the ticket price.)
We feel extraordinarily fortunate to have the folks below on our panel. The whole point of the session is to share knowledge and offer encouragement to playwrights who either are already self producing or contemplating taking that journey. The experiences of others putting up their work and the conversations arising from these thoughtful exchanges should prove fruitful to all playwrights.
Our Panel
Alinca Hamilton
Alinca Hamilton is a New York born and bred actor, writer, and creator. Select acting credits include To All the Black Girls Who’ve Waited (Ars Nova AntFest); Clyde’s (Alabama Shakespeare Festival); Mud Row (Premiere Stages); Audelco Award-nominated Gong Lum’s Legacy (New Federal Theater); Julius Cesar (Classic Stage Company). After obtaining her MFA in Acting from Columbia University, Alinca doubled down on making her Jamaican immigrant parents happy, and added writing to her artistic pursuits. Under the guidance of the Sundance Collab Program, her first pilot “Rinse. Repeat.” was a semi-finalist for the 2021-2022 NYSCA/NYSFA Artist Fellowship Program and 2021-2022 Fresh Voices Competition. alincahamilton.com
John Mark Lucas
John has an undergraduate degree in painting from Guilford College in Greensboro, NC, and a Masters in painting from New York University, in NYC and Venice, Italy. He lives and works in New York City. Diva Therapy is his first play. For tickets to this fun and affecting play running in November at to Theater for the New City, click here
Claude Solnik
A playwright in residence at Theater for the New City, Claude Solnik has written plays seen by thousands, earned favorable reviews and brought memorable characters and stories to life. His work also has been performed Off Broadway, in Paris, Philadelphia and on regional stages.
Janani Sreenivasan is a writer, director, actor, composer, and musician originally from Corvallis, Oregon. She has prioritized art since her early training as a classical violinist (both solo and orchestral repertoire) and pianist. In 2006, while earning an M.F.A. in nonfiction at the University of Iowa, she wrote and directed nearly 40 comedy sketches for the late-night showcase No Shame Theatre. In NYC, she has directed for the Tank’s Rule of 7×7 and the Chain Theatre’s One-Act Festival, as well as acting with Rule of 7×7, Manhattan Repertory, WOW Café Theatre, and Living Room Theater. Short films have screened in the L.A. Comedy Festival and the Iron Mule Short Film Festival (Audience Award w/Lee Jutton) and her jokes have appeared in Reductress and The New Yorker. Her short play “Get Leo” depicted her hunger for Leonardo DiCaprio to portray her onstage and was staged and published by the Bechdel Group. At Under St. Marks Theatre, Janani’s recently directed and produced The Importance of Being Earnest and A Midsummer Night’s Dream infused with Indian classical dance and music and featuring Odissi dancer Jeevika Bhat.
T.J. Elliott (moderator)
An actor and produced playwright in the 1980s (Lazy Eye, Captive Audiences), T.J. spent the next three decades away from theater making sure his children always had food and clothes – well, most of the time — before returning to Off-Broadway as co-writer with Joe Queenan of the SRO hit play Alms in 2019. In those lost years, he produced, directed, and performed among casts of thousands in a mélange of corporate telenovelas and tragic, comic, melodramatic, and absurd organizational performance art. Since his playwrighting re-emergence, T.J. and Queenan have penned three other problem comedies produced by Knowledge Workings Theater: Grudges, Genealogy (at Broom Street Theater in Madison Wisconsin), and The Oracle. His recent solo works include the mostly fake Swedish screwball comedy Keeping Right, the September 2023 premiere in New York City of The Jester’s Wife and most recently HONOR presented in 2024. Born in the Bronx, T.J. now lives in Princeton, NJ with his wife, Marjorie Phillips Elliott.
Sign up by clicking here for this discussion on Playwright Self-Producing taking place 8:30 PM Wednesday September 25 th after the 7PM performance of HONOR at the Gene Frankel Theatre in Manhattan.
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