What's Happening!
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SUMMERWORKS 2025'S SOLD-OUT CRITIC'S PICK COLD WAR CHOIR PRACTICE RETURNS FOR SIX WEEKS - TICKETS ON SALE NOW!
Tickets for Ro Reddick’s COLD WAR CHOIR PRACTICE are on sale now! The Summerworks 2025 Critic’s Pick, directed by Knud Adams, will return for an extended run co-produced by MCC Theater, Clubbed Thumb and Page 73. Friends of Clubbed Thumb have access to $45 tickets throughout the run – CLICK HERE FOR TICKETS & INFO
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MEET OUR NEW GROUP COHORTS!
A very warm welcome to the incoming writers and directors taking part in Clubbed Thumb’s Early-Career Writers’ Group and New Play Fellowship!
Directors Terrence I Mosley, Liz Peterson and Hanna Yurfest will work on newly commissioned plays by Max Mooney, jose sebastian alberdi and Emma Horwitz respectively – stay tuned for a Winterworks announcement.
And we’re looking forward to getting to know Alyssa Haddad-Chin, Doug Robinson, Dylan Guerra, Jan Rosenberg, Jen Diamond, Nadja Leonard-Hooper, Sarah Grace Goldman and Yulia Tsukerman in this year’s writers’ group!
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THANK YOU FOR MAKING OUR GALA A GREAT SUCCESS
Thanks to everyone who joined us to honor Crystal, Susannah, and Miriam, and to everyone who contributed to make it a truly special night.
We were moved by the warmth and generosity in the room on Monday October 6th — lots of hugs, laughter and a even few happy tears. These three are the real deal and we are lucky to know them; we’re excited to keep celebrating them and working with them for many years to come.
Actors are at the heart of what we do, and it’s not too late to support them with a gift to our 2025 gala! DONATE HERE
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THANK YOU FOR COMING TO SUMMERWORKS 2025
Whether it was your first Summerworks or your 28th, we are so pleased you could join us. CLICK HERE for some photos and essays from this season.
We’ll be spending the summer incubating and planning for the fall, but we have lot of news to share, so watch this space!
In the meantime, we’re pleased to announce that our outgoing board chair will match donations up to a total of $25,000 to support future remounts of Summerworks shows (like this season’s Deep Blue Sound). He wants us to keep it up – and so do we! CLICK HERE TO JOIN THAT EFFORT
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ANNOUNCING SUMMERWORKS 2025
Due to overwhelming demand, we’re adding performances this year – but Summerworks shows always sell out, so lock in your seats with a pass!
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THANK YOU FOR A GREAT RUN!
Spending the last two months with Deep Blue Sound has been a joy and a balm. We are deeply proud of the work, and humbled by the talent and dedication of this company of artists.
The show played for six sold-out weeks and we added as many shows as we could – but sadly, we closed this weekend. Thank you to the over 4,000 people who came to visit our island. And thank you to all the artists, staff, funders and friends who made it possible. This was a special one.
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NOW PLAYING: DEEP BLUE SOUND
Our “devastatingly beautiful” production from Summerworks 2023 returns for a limited engagement, in residence at the Public Theater. Now playing! CLICK HERE FOR TICKETS
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WINTERWORKS 2025 HAS COME TO A CLOSE
Thank you to the hundreds of people who joined as at Playwrights Downtown for the 10th annual Winterworks. We were so proud of the work these amazing artists made — and we managed to cram everyone in to share it. Congratulations especially to Directing Fellows Iris McCloughan, NJ Agwuna and Laura Dupper – read more HERE
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OUR NEW ANTHOLOGY - ON SALE NOW
We’ve been eager to put out a second anthology since Funny, Strange, Provocative was published in 2007, and the last year finally provided us with the time to take on this long-awaited project. We are thrilled to announce that Unusual Stories, Unusually Told, published by Bloomsbury/Methuen, is now available!
In it you’ll find seven Clubbed Thumb plays that span 18 years of our history, as well as essays and interviews about the work, and the often atypical processes that led to their productions.
Read more about the book and get your discounted copy (and our first anthology) HERE
CLUBBED THUMB’S 25/26 NEW PLAY DIRECTING FELLOWSHIP
We’re excited to introduce you to the incoming cohort of artists for the New Play Directing Fellowship. These directors and playwrights will soon begin developing their new plays with with a company of emerging actors assembled for the program. In January, they’ll present these pieces during Winterworks.
This year’s fellowship features: Terrence I Mosley directing Jonathan Journals Spontaneously Combusted at Midnight in Bed by Max Mooney; Liz Peterson directing Maestra by jose sebastian alberdi; and Hanna Yurfest directing the last wish or, buffie vanquishes the giant squid by Emma Horwitz.
Directors Anne Kauffman and Tara Ahmadinejad will mentor all three directing fellows.

Terrence I Mosley is a narrative-based director and educator who sometimes performs and writes. His directing credits include Everything You Love, Smart People, Sender, Everybody, Unentitled (2024 AUDELCO Best Revival), and Milo Imagines the World (Associate Director). He has performed at Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Northlight Theatre, Court Theatre, and Nancy Manocherian’s the cell. He has supported the work of directors and writers at Steppenwolf Theatre Company, the Goodman Theatre, Mabou Mines, Primary Stages, Irish Repertory Theatre, and the BBC. He has been a guest artist at Syracuse University, Rutgers University, SUNY Purchase, and Fordham College at Lincoln Center, where he also served as Interim Head of Directing. He was recently a Kenny Leon Fellow at the Alliance Theatre. He is the writer of the plays One and Gilbert, or Frank, and the co-writer of Deep Killer Brown with Helen Hayes Award winner Melody A. Betts. His work encourages people to take ownership of their thoughts and actions. MFA: John Wells Fellowship @ Carnegie Mellon University

Max Mooney is a Queer writer, director, producer, theater educator and dramaturg based in Brooklyn. Max develops new work in joyfully collaborative settings that find the intersections between poetry and visual/maximalist theater. Max’s directing and writing work has been seen and workshopped at The Wild Project, The Tank, Dixon Place, Concrete Temple Theatre, Rooted Theater Company, Fresh Fruit Festival, the Brick Aux, Paradise Factory & many Brooklyn rooftops and friends’ living rooms. She was a 2023 semifinalist for the Terrence McNally New Works Incubator, a 2025 semifinalist for The O’Neill’s National Playwrights Conference and a 2025 semifinalist for Clubbed Thumb’s Biennial Commission. Max serves as the Assistant Producer at En Garde Arts, Associate Producer at Concrete Temple Theater and is an affiliate artist of Trove Theatre/Live Arts Collective. She was the curator of The Tank’s 2025 Pridefest. Remixed Classics, a theater education handbook co-authored by Max, won a 2023 Vattemare Award. Max has a BFA from NYU Tisch’s Playwrights Horizons Theatre School, specializing in directing and playwriting.

Liz Peterson is a multidisciplinary performance-maker whose work spans theatrical, site-specific and iterative projects that explore the chaotic intimacies between gesture and words. Liz was born in Manchester, UK to a Mancunian mother & Anglo-Indian/Burmese father, and grew up tethered to St. John’s, Newfoundland and Melipilla, Chile. She has worked internationally with leading artists including Oliver Husain, Peter Hinton, Jordan Tannahill, Anne Bogart, and Rugilé Bardziukaité. Her work has been presented at IAP (St. Mark’s Church), the Art Gallery of Ontario, SummerWorks Festival, OFFTA, Tiger Dublin Fringe, Dancemakers and the Harbourfront Center. She is a former Associate Artist with Public Recordings and a 2021 Roundabout Theatre Archive Fellow. Select directing credits: ਆਦਤ / the Ādat (United Solo Festival – Best Musical Award), Sheltered (the cell theatre), Urinetown, the Musical (Fisher Center Bard College), The Beautiful Lady (LaMama, Assistant Director), Sun and Sea (Santiago-A-Mil, Assistant Director). Directing MFA – Columbia University. lizpeterson.org

jose sebastian alberdi is a Brooklyn-based playwright originally from sunny San Diego. Writing developed with: the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center (National Playwrights Conference), MacDowell (Fellowship), Page 73 (Fellowship, Writers’ Group), Clubbed Thumb (Early Career Writers’ Group), Ensemble Studio Theatre (Youngblood), Colt Coeur (Company Member, Residency), The Orchard Project (Greenhouse Lab, Episodic Lab, Homegrown x Sony TV Lab), Fresh Ground Pepper (BRB Eco-Week), South Coast Repertory (Pacific Playwrights Festival, Elizabeth George Commission, NewSCRipts), Denver Center for the Performing Arts (New Play Summit), the Huntington Theatre Company (Dream Boston), Exquisite Corpse Company (Writer’s Lab), Lambda Literary (Writer’s Retreat) and more. MFA: NYU. @milk_jello on (most) social media.

Hanna Yurfest is a director and producer of performances and events from Richmond, MA. She has worked with/at The Tank, The Exponential Festival, and New Georges, amongst others. She co-founded and leads The Tank’s artist group, TAG, and creates work with her company, Needy Lover. needylover.com, @yurfest0 on instagram.

Emma Horwitz is a writer of plays, fiction, and zines from New York City. Recent productions include Two Sisters Find a Box of Lesbian Erotica in the Woods (written & performed w/ Bailey Williams, dir. Tara Elliott, with Rattlestick Theater and New Georges, Spring 2025; with The Exponential Festival in collaboration with New Georges, Winter 2024) and Mary Gets Hers (dir. Josiah Davis, with The Playwrights Realm, Fall 2023.) Emma was the 2024/2023 Page One Resident and a 2022/2021 Writing Fellow with The Playwrights Realm, and has further developed work in theater with the O’Neill National Playwrights Conference (Bogdonoff, 2024), the William Inge Center for the Arts, Stillwright, Mercury Store, The Brick, The Hearth, and the Williamstown Theater Festival, among others. Audrey Resident and Affiliated Artist with New Georges. Alum of Clubbed Thumb’s Early-Career Writers’ Group (2023/2022). MFA: Brown University. For more: emmahorwitz.com.
PREVIOUS NEW PLAY DIRECTING FELLOWS (click their names to learn more!):
2024/25
Iris McCloughan directing Il Bunkerini by Sam Bell
NJ Agwuna directing Origen Story by Nina Ki
Laura Dupper directing A Necessary Killing by Jeana Scotti
2023/24
Lauren Zeftel directing My Six Therapists by Julia Izumi
Carsen Joenk directing Watch Me by Justice Hehir
Miranda Cornell directing Chairs by Hayley Stahl
2022/23
Kedian Koehan directing Button Lake Band Camp by Elijah Guo
Nemuna Ceesay directing Reply All by Jahna Ferron-Smith
Dara Malina directing Coach Coach by Bailey Williams
2021/22
Blayze Teicher directing Travel/Turn Step by Mary Elizabeth Hamilton
Tara Elliott directing The Joy of Painting by Brittany K. Allen
Josiah Davis directing Ms. Lily by Crystal Finn
2020/21 (short performances on various platforms)
Leonie Bell (“Honey I’m Home”)
Nana Dakin (“Love Letter to a Seed”)
Michaela Escarcega (“Indefinite Draft”)
Estefanía Fadul (“Passage Through”)
Rachel Gita Karp (“Temporary Occupant”)
Arpita Mukherjee (“A Portal”)
Keenan Tyler Oliphant (“Kyk Hoe Skyn die Son”)
Joan Sergay (“Roost”)
2019/20
Caitlin Sullivan directing Panopticon by Gracie Gardner
Andrés López-Alicea directing Business Ideas by Milo Cramer
Emma Miller directing Usus by T. Adamson
2018/19
Kate Eminger directing Rats! by Bryna Turner
Tara Ahmadinejad directing Lunch Bunch by Sarah Einspanier
Sarah Blush directing Bully by Amina Henry
2017/18
Sarah Hughes directing A Walrus in the Body of a Crocodile by MJ Kaufman
Lily Riopelle directing Twenty-Five to White by Xavier Galva
Taylor Reynolds directing Plano by Will Arbery
2016/17
LA Williams directing Richard in 9 Poses by Sarah Delappe
Christina Roussos directing Hippos of the Eastern Enclosure by Jen Silverman
Caitlin Ryan O’Connell directing The Messenger by Olivia Dufault
2015/16
S.B. Tennent directing Everything is Here by Peggy Stafford
Jay Stull directing As Far As the Day Goes by Jenny Schwartz
Kate Hopkins directing The Pool Skimmer by Kate E. Ryan
Lillian Meredith directing The Barber and the Farmer by Ethan Lipton