UPCOMING + NEWS
LETICHE @ VINEYARD THEATRE'S WORK-IN-PROGRESS 2026
by Marissa Joyce Stamps + directed by Josiah Davis
Monday, April 20 at 7pm | Vineyard Theatre | free rsvp here
New York City mother-daughter duo, Imara and Kal, are on a swamp tour on their New Orleans vacation. They find themselves led by a white captain on an all-Black boat of tourists. What are the odds?! In the murkiness of their 90-minute tour, Kal finds herself itching and her psyche morphing in a place full of contradictions and turns to the alligators and their leader—the mighty alligator, Elvis—for some clarity.
DIRECTING KILLING JANET @ NEW YORK CITY FRINGE 2026
by Omalolu "OJ" Fiki + directed by Marissa Joyce Stamps
April 4, 9, 11 + 16, 2026 | The Chain | tickets + info here
Part stand-up, part cultural exorcism, Killing Janet follows a Nigerian-American woman who decides —on live TV— to “kill” her missionary-given name and everything it represents. A razor-sharp solo comedy play about faith, assimilation, and the cost of compliance staged as a surreal game show where the audience helps decide the verdict.
DIRECTING MUD @ THE MAKERS' ENSEMBLE SHORT PLAY FEST 2026
by Megan Ruoro + directed by Marissa Joyce Stamps
April 29, May 1, + May 3 | The Makers' Space | tickets + info here
An urgent tale of reconciliation and rupture unfolds between a daughter and her mother, who has been living alone with a mysterious watchman in an antebellum-era Whitt Hall for the past ten years. As they struggle to piece together the fragments of time, questions about their roots and ties to the past are unearthed on the manor's grounds.
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!
PRESENTING NEW WORK IN THE NEW GEORGES JAMBOREE 2026
new work from The 2024-2026 Jam
May 1 + 3 at 7pm | CPR | tickets here
I will be presenting work with my collaborator, Deepali Mattoo Gupta Zeer! | Are you ready to Jam?! It’s time to JAMboree! New Georges’ artist-led, collaboration-based performance gym presents an evening of brand-new work: proof-of-concept experiments that demonstrate the vision and ambition each team has for their collaborative project. In other words: excerpts of Jam-generated works heading out for a test drive! The Jam is an artistic community in which members forge relationships with deep impact on work and careers. New Jam members are selected every two years in an open application process–new cycle upcoming, watch for that application!
SELECTED AS A CREATIVE DIRECTOR FOR IMMERSIVE DESIGN ACADEMY 2026
It really is a Six Flags day knowing that I've been chosen as a Creative Director for Immersive Design Academy 2026, an "11 month-long educational programme [that] simulates a creative studio environment, whereby ~90 students work virtually in six multidisciplinary international teams to create a themed attraction in response to a client brief." Excited to share more in the coming months!
SELECTED FOR BREAKING & ENTERING'S LINE-UP
AND ARTISTIC PROGRAMMING COMMITTEE
I'm so happy to share that I've been invited by Breaking & Entering Theatre Collective to be a part of their LINE UP (their resident artists program) and their Artistic Programming Committee! B&E is a near and dear org and I'm so happy for more collaboration with them!
SELECTED AS A 2026 CALDERA ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCE
More writing and creating in the woods! This January, I'll be a Caldera Artist-in-Residence working on a new play, Mortal Kombat. The premise is inspired by my experience as a child going to the YMCA’s accessible sleepaway camp in Huguenot, NY for years. | Caldera AiR serves as inspiration to our young learners who can see themselves in adults with a regular creative practice. AiR supports artists, creatives, and cultural workers to build skills, relationships, and projects that inspire growth, combat oppression, and activate change. Residents draw inspiration from the residency community and the natural world surrounding our facilities in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains near Sisters.
SELECTED AS A 2025-2026 MACDOWELL FELLOW
We love writing in the woods! In fall 2025, I was in residency at MacDowell 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.
IN THE KILROYS WEB 2025
I've been included in The Kilroys Web 2025! And it means even more to me to have been nominated by a very dear friend I love very much--the phenomenal Libby Carr (who you should all know)! Here's what they had to say about me: "Marissa Joyce Stamps!!! The epitome of champion of new plays. Marissa is connecting artists to artists! She is sharing her resources far and wide! She is helping everyone self-produce their plays. She is constantly creating opportunities for creatives. She is an incredible advocate for early-career playwrights. And if you've been lucky enough to be in a writers' group with Marissa, you know what an incredible dramaturg she is. She is a caring, attentive, and meticulous excavator of new plays. Marissa was one of the first people I met when I moved to New York, and thank goodness!! She has been an invaluable part of my community ever since."
CO-EDITING LOVE LETTERS FOR QUEER AND TRANS CRIPS
I'm so excited to announce that SAJ, Wendy Moore O'Neal and I are co-editing a book, currently titled Love letters for Queer and Trans Crips—a collection of writings by and for queer and trans crips that documents our love and imagines more love into being. Building on the ideological foundations of [queer] Black feminists and queers of color (especially Audre Lorde, The Combahee River Collective, bell hooks) and disability justice frameworks (especially Sins Invalid's), this collection embraces the erotic bodymind.
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!
MORTAL COMBAT SELECTED FOR LUCILLE LORTEL'S ALCOVE CLIMATE CRISIS COMMISSION
I'm happy to share that I was selected for Lucille Lortel's Alcove Climate Commission. 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 Staff 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.
RECENT
MOVEMENT DIRECTED 108 NOTES @ LPAC ROUGH DRAFT FESTIVAL 2026
written + directed by kanishk pandey | movement direction by Marissa Joyce Stamps
March 13, 2026 | LaGuardia Performing Arts Center | info here
Eve and Ava are currently testing to see if they can figure out what it means to know a person, with the help of some index cards. You're gonna help them too.
CURATED + CO-PRODUCED CENTER AT WEST PARK'S
FEBRUARY 2026 LAUNCHPAD READING SERIES
QUADRIA... by Brent Thomas Whiteside (February 27), SUNSET by Katryna Alexis (February 27), and PARIS. by Dhari Noel (February 28)
St. Paul + St. Andrew | info here
This has been a brainchild of mine for over a year and I'm so happy it's now a reality! This collaboration with Center at West Park’s Launchpad is focused on fostering a mentor/mentee relationship with Black playwrights at different stages of their careers, and to host these playwrights work together. I'm always invested in finding ways to create community and to break away from gatekeeping practices, especially for a community that is often left behind or is artistically confined collectively. And, I hope this is one of the many ways I can do that: giving mentee playwrights one of, if not their first, professional NYC reading, knowing that this is often a hard step without access to institutional support when you're an emerging artist (I know it was for me!). My hope with this program is that participating playwrights walk away with a sense of knowing that their work is absolutely necessary in this world (without having to prove their worth) and that their artistic community—new and old—can hold them abundantly. More to come with this series!
PERFORMED DOUBLE COLUMN AT CATCH 80
by Marissa Joyce Stamps
December 6, 2025, doors open at 6pm | Life World | $20 at the door | info here
I told yall that I do, in fact, be performing! Catch me at CATCH performing an excerpt of my performance piece, double column! | double column is a performance piece with text and live music that looks to strings—those of the heart, those of rope play, 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. | Klondyke ! The Rubin ! Jenn Kidwell ! Wonderful Cringe ! Ilana Harris-Babou ! Hannah Kallenbach ! Tatyana Tenenbaum ! Marissa Joyce Stamps ! RED & Jeremy Kadetsky/doxies !
DIRECTED A READING OF LOVE IS RESPECT @ BREAKING & ENTERING'S 2025 DISORDERLY CONDUCT SERIES
by Emani Brielle Simpson + directed by Marissa Joyce Stamps
November 23, 2025 @ 4pm | The Tank | rsvp + info here
When Carmen, a high schooler, finds herself in a hospital room once again due to her boyfriend’s physical abuse. Her friends intervene giving her support through tough conversations, friendship and Christianity. This play is about seeing the signs and responding as a collective community to domestic violence. | Join Emani Brielle Simpson and the artists of Breaking & Entering for a community event to promote domestic violence awareness. Presented in partnership with LADIES AT LUNCH and WOMANKIND.
DIRECTED A READING OF MOURNING DOVES @ BREAKING & ENTERING'S 2025 ROOFTOP READING SERIES
by Imani Russell + directed by Marissa Joyce Stamps
August 23, 2025 @ 7pm | The Yard | rsvp + info here
After the death of her grandfather, Güendis finds herself missing out on her last year of high school to take care of her grieving mother, grandmother, and sister. Forced to grow up too soon, she tries to cope in her own way... with the help of a familiar and possibly otherworldly friend. Mourning Doves (or, the bird play) explores the decay/regeneration of a family, the pressures of being an eldest daughter, and asks: "Who has the right to grieve?"
INTERVIEW WITH NAZARETH HASSAN FOR BOMB MAGAZINE
Very honored to have interviewed my good friend and collaborator, Nazareth Hassan for BOMB Magazine. In this interview, we discuss Blackness, spectacle, skateboarding, rap, and queer love collide in Naz's new play, BOWL EP (which closed on June 22, 2025 at The Vineyard).
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.
DIRECTED A STAGED READING OF ROUND @ FRESH GROUND PEPPER'S PLAYGROUND PLAYGROUP'S 2025 READING SERIES
by Taylor Steele + directed by Marissa Joyce Stamps
June 22, 2025 @ 7pm | Open Jar Studios | rsvp + info here
Round is a whimsically complex play following a fat Black woman’s journey through a liminal space where she is forced to confront her doubts, her fear, and herself. Guided by [redacted]—a humorously irreverent stand-in for God-knows-who—this woman is shown how others see her and must decide if what they see is her true reflection.
YOU CAN TELL FROM THE TWISTED JUNIPER
@ EST/YOUNGBLOOD BLOODWORKS READING SERIES
by Marissa Joyce Stamps + directed by Lamar Perry
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 | info here
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.
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) | 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.
