UPCOMING + NEWS
LETICHE AND THE [WONDROUS] PURSUIT OF ELVIS
SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2025 YALE DRAMA SERIES PRIZE
I'm so excited to share that Letiche was chosen by judge Pultizer-Prize winning playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins as one of three Shortlisted plays for The 2025 Yale Drama Series Prize! Congrats to this year's winner, Ariel Stess, and to fellow Shortlisters Carolina Đỗ and Malena Pennycook!
ROLLBACK NAMED A FINALIST FOR THE
2025 O'NEILL NATIONAL PLAYWRIGHTS CONFERENCE
I'm happy to announce that Rollback is a finalist for the 2025 O'Neill National Playwrights Conference. I'm honored to be in such great company of the amazing finalists, many of whom are good friends!
SELECTED AS A 2025-2026 MACDOWELL FELLOW
We love writing in the woods! This fall, I'll be a MacDowell Fellow working on a new play, Cadalydic Converduh, inspired by my surreal visit to an underground, luxury(?) startup rental car business' parking garage to get my rental to Syracuse, NY for the April 2024 total eclipse.
PURVIEW IN 3VIEWS FOR MILO CRAMER'S
BUSINESS IDEAS AT CLUBBED THUMB'S SUMMERWORKS
Check out my Purview with 3Views on Milo Cramer's play, Business Ideas (directed by Laura Dupper), part of Clubbed Thumb's 2025 Summerworks. It recently closed on May 27 at The Wild Project.
INTERVIEWED ON WRITERS' RETREAT PODCAST + CHAR AS AUDIO PLAY
Let's get cozy cabin in the woods on this Writers Retreat podcast episode with Producers and Co-Hosts Tyaela Nieves and Katie Walenta where I "talk Afro-Surrealism, spirituality, and the power of procrastination. Then, hear an excerpt from [my short play], Char. The audio play was directed by Nieves; has a cast featuring Christina Mings, Mickalia Forester-Ewen, and Nate Shelton; and was audio produced by Hunter Lewis at Bon Home Audio.
SELECTED FOR ROUNDABOUT'S DIRECTORS GROUP (COHORT 6)
I'm happy to share that I was selected for Roundabout's Directors Group (Cohort 6). RDG was created to offer resources and provide career assistance to the next generation of directors for the American Theatre... RDG creates an RDG creates an artistic community for directors at similar stages of their work, fostering camaraderie, lateral mentorship, access to expanded professional networks, and insight into the workings of a large not-for-profit institution.
MORTAL COMBAT SELECTED FOR LUCILLE LORTEL'S 2024-2025 ALCOVE COMMISSION
I'm happy to share that I was selected for Lucille Lortel's Alcove Commission (Year 3). For this commission, selected playwrights are asked to think and reflect on the current climate crisis and to imagine possible futures. | In Mortal Combat, it’s Counselor Training Week, and a sleepaway camp is swarmed with 20somethings ready to make their summer coin. One cabin of trainees finds themselves to be quick besties in the midst of team-building exercises’ forced kumbaya. But once their training ventures out of the safety net of the pristine, state-of-the-art man-made grounds into the real wilderness of the rugged and hostile Mortal Combat [with Lions, Tigers, and Bears, Oh My!], their faux niceties are nowhere to be found and beasts are unleashed.
SELECTED FOR NEW GEORGES THE JAM 2024-2026
I'm happy to share that I was selected to join New Georges The Jam 2024-2026! | The Jam is a collaboration-based “performance gym” for theatermakers in all disciplines. The Jam is artist-driven and artist-led. Artists meet bimonthly to talk, eat, build community, and share work made in collaborative groupings.
JOINING TAG @ THE TANK
I'm happy to share that as of November 2024, I've joined TAG, a resident group at The Tank! |TAG is an artist-led collaboration group. We workshop new material, hear from guest speakers, and participate in group-led talks/discussions about collaboration. TAG is a place to foster new connections with other theater artists, develop new plays, and form a community. It’s really fun!
CONTRIBUTOR TO THE 53RD STATE OCCASIONAL NO. 3
Wow! In the wake of Kingda Ka, here's another opportunity to publicly express my obsession with rollercoasters this year in The 53rd State Occasional No. 3! | For each edition of the Occasional, guest editors invite artists, thinkers, and members of our community to consider questions that we have and topics that move us. For Occasional No. 3, playwrights Lucas Baisch and Emma Horwitz have invited theatre artists to respond to the question, “What are you obsessed with? And how are you holding it?”
CONTRIBUTOR TO FUCKED AND JOLLY:
TEN YEARS OF THE EXPONENTIAL FESTIVAL
Catch me in dialogue with Nic Adams in Fucked and Jolly, discussing the downtown theatre, movement and stillness, legacy, and all that jazz! | Fucked and Jolly is a reflective compendium of artist-to-artist interviews commemorating a boffo decade of The Exponential Festival. Squinny at the banters between playwrights, choreographers, and clowns as they encounter one another’s work and discuss prevailing trends of performance in the new millennium, the radical experiments being conducted to bring online onstage (and vice versa), and the post-Downtown performing arts ecosystem.
RECENT
YOU CAN TELL FROM THE TWISTED JUNIPER
@ EST/YOUNGBLOOD BLOODWORKS READING SERIES
by Marissa Joyce Stamps
Monday, May 19th @ 7pm | Ensemble Studio Theatre | free rsvp + info here
I'm so hype to share this play—my first full-length play and first love—publicly for the first time ever! | Joelli and Darrell's San Diego vacation is detoured because of intense monsoons and they get trapped in the middle of Sedona, AZ. Amongst vortexes, strangers, and strange beings, Joelli finds herself on a desert quest that makes her question what's right in front of her.
DIRECTED THE FATE OF THE ONLINE COW @ THE CHAIN THEATER
by kanishk pandey + directed by Marissa Joyce Stamps
April, 25-27, 2025 | The Chain | tickets + info
The Cow spends her life in front of a camera, playing Minecraft for an active chat, earning money for her owners, Mud and Hue. Up until this point, her life has been simple but fulfilled. However, when the game leads her to consider her own predicament, she must come to terms with the oppressive conditions she exists under and the act of earned revolution.
LETICHE AND THE [WONDROUS] PURSUIT OF ELVIS NAMED A FINALIST FOR
2024 O'NEILL NATIONAL PLAYWRIGHTS CONFERENCE
I'm happy to announce that Letiche and The [Wondrous] Pursuit of Elvis is a finalist for the 2024 O'Neill National Playwrights Conference. I'm honored to be in such great company of the amazing finalists. View the complete list of finalists here.
DIRECTED IS CRY YOU CRY'N? @ BROWN UNIVERSITY'S
MFA PLAYWRITING'S WRITING IS LIVE FESTIVAL 2025
by Dhari Noel + directed by Marissa Joyce Stamps
March, 6-9, 2025 | Leeds Theater @ Brown University (Providence, RI) | tickets and info here
Grace is staging a green-card wedding at her house: Tashie–who recently came from Trinidad with her son Likkle–is marrying her Americanized ”cousin” Nap, who brings his “friend” to the wedding. Many years later, four fraternity pledges are experiencing their last night of hell week before becoming full-fledged brothers: they make dances, crack jokes, and test one another’s love. Both stories take place in the same basement, with double-cast actors blurring the lines of identity. “If cat mek kitten in an oven does that make it bun?” is a Trini saying our mothers might tell us if we dare suggest we are not really Trini. Is Cry You Cry’n? is about the dream this proverb aspires to make real.
DOUBLE COLUMN @ WILD PROJECT x SFX FESTIVAL 2025
written + directed by Marissa Joyce Stamps
featuring Marissa Joyce Stamps, Deja Rion, + Robot X
One Night Only: January 11, 2025 @ 7:00pm | Wild Project | info here
I've been dreaming this one up for a while and I'm so happy that Lisa Clair was so generous to give me to space to get it out of my head and into real space! | double column is a performance piece with text and live music that looks to strings—those of the heart, those of rope and shibari, and those of stringed instruments—to explore Marissa’s relationship to love (in all of its forms). The harmonies. The dissonance. The knots. The tuning. The rigging. The surrendering.
DIRECTED NECK DOWN @ WE ARE HERE x EXPONENTIAL FESTIVAL 2025
by Nic Adams + directed by Marissa Joyce Stamps
January, June 9-12, 2025 | We Are Here | tickets and info here
Full circle moment here directing my buddy Nic Adams' new play, Neck Down, which made its start during our time in Brooklyn College's MFA Playwriting program! | It’s the morning before an ancient coin auction in NYC and early-career artist Ciel is stuck working yet another menial temp assignment. An old money collector arrives early to inspect the legal tender he wants to bid. So begins a daydream about lottery winnings, caskets, sex fantasies, delulus of grandeur, and Big Oil Banks. Inner thoughts take center stage, mounting a tragicomic class stand-off and a toast to the relentless spirit of artists living on the brink of precarity.
REVIEW IN 3VIEWS FOR DOMINIQUE MORISSEAU'S
BAD KREYÒL AT THE SIGNATURE
Check out my review with 3Views on Dominique Morisseau's newest play, Bad Kreyòl (directed by Tiffany Nichole Green), currently playing at The Signature until December 1st.
DIRECTED AT BROOKLYN COLLEGE'S MFA PLAYWRITING'S
WEASEL FEST 2024 @ BAM
September 14-15, 2024 | BAM | info here
I had the pleasure of directing 2024 graduates Madison Wetzell's Choreomania and Leslie Gauthier's Proverbs of The Mojave in the HELL Program | This year’s plays are all inspired by The Marriage of Heaven and Hell by the 18th century poet, artist, and iconoclastic visionary William Blake, common source material suggested by program directors Sibyl Kempson and Dennis A. Allen II.
