CLUBBED THUMB’S 26/27 NEW PLAY DIRECTING FELLOWSHIP

Cricket Brown is a theater and film maker based in New York City. She has collaborated with The Bushwick Starr, Oye Group, Half Straddle, SoHo Rep., Signature Theatre, Vineyard Theatre, TFANA, Clubbed Thumb and more. Cricket was an inaugural member of Mercury Store’s Emerging Director Lab,  a co-founding member of the Brooklyn performance artist collective IDon’tWannaSeeThat?!!?!, and a member in The Orchard Project’s Greenhouse Lab. They received a NYSCA grant to produce their play Nun Play and are in pre production for their first feature film Mt. Troy. www.cricketbrown.com

Daniel Holzman is a playwright and artist from San Francisco. His work has been developed, read, and produced at Ars Nova, Clubbed Thumb, The Brick, The Tank, Fresh Ground Pepper, The Cell Theatre and more. Recent work includes BERLINDIA! (The Tank), HKBP…LIVE (Ant Fest), Middle School Play (The Brick), and Jerry Day (2026 O’Neill NPC Finalist). He frequently collaborates with his sister Neena, who illustrates his plays. MFA: Brooklyn College

Marissa Joyce Stamps is a Black, Haitian-American NYC-born and based director, writer, and performer who creates vortexes through an Afrosurrealist lens, often in dialogue with landscape dramaturgy. Currently, she is a New Play Directing Fellow at Clubbed Thumb, a Van Lier New Voices Fellow at Rattlestick Theater, and a Baldwin for the Arts Fellow. Previously, she won the Princess Grace Playwriting Award and was a Finalist for the Yale Drama Series Prize. She has been a MacDowell Fellow and a Caldera Artist-in-Residence. She is also featured in The Kilroys 2025 Web. Current Memberships and Affiliations: EST/Youngblood, Lucille Lortel Alcove, Breaking & Entering’s Line Up, New Georges Affiliate Artist. Past: Clubbed Thumb’s ECWG, Roundabout’s Directors Group, The New Georges Jam, Mercury Store Lead Artist. Marissa has directed and assistant directed productions and workshops of new work of playwrights and of herself with The National Black Theatre, Vineyard Theatre, MCC Theater, Ars Nova, New Dramatists, Mercury Store, The Brick, Exponential Festival, Breaking & Entering Theatre Collective, CATCH Performance Series, Brown University, Brooklyn College, Seven Devils, Conch Shell Productions, and more. MFA Playwriting: Brooklyn College. marissajoycestamps.com @marissajoycestamps

Aaron Ricciardi: Clubbed Thumb debut! Plays and musicals include The Star Killers, Only Child, A Bushel and a Peck, Nice Nails, The Travels, and Hanukkah Harriet. Productions and development: Clubbed Thumb, Theater Latté Da, the Playwrights’ Center, NYMF, and the BMI Workshop. Training: B.A. Northwestern University (mentor Laura Schellhardt) and M.F.A. Indiana University (mentor Peter Gil-Sheridan). Teaching: Manhattan School of Music’s Musical Theater program and has taught at SUNY New Paltz, the Playwrights’ Center, 92Y, and artsINSIDEOUT in South Africa. Latest: a musical version of the Greg Mottola film The Daytrippers with composer-lyricist Alex Bechtel. www.aaronricciardi.com

Jillian Jetton (she/her) is a director, maker & curator of new performance. Raised in the Bay Area and based in New York by way of Philadelphia, her background spans scripted, devised and physical theater, video art, and experience design. She is a 26/27 Clubbed Thumb New Play Directing Fellow and a member of the 2024 Mercury Store Directing Lab. This season Jetton will Associate Direct Motherhood, An Artist Lecture by Suzanne Bocanegra, which premieres at the Texas Performing Arts Center in November 2026, followed by a tour to the Walker Arts Center, ICA Boston, and The Met. She will also direct the world premiere of SEE/UNSEE, a music-theater composition inspired by painter and mystic Hilma af Klint, at HERE Arts Center. Written and composed by acclaimed folk musician Lila Blue, SEE/UNSEE has received support from OPERA America and NYSCA, and been shown/developed at Ars Nova, Z Space, The Brick, and the Lake Lucille Project. Most recently, she directed the sold out run of my utopias, a play/potluck by Jay Stull, in the 2026 Exponential Festival. Alongside Matthew Antoci, Jetton stewards and co-curates SalOn!, a quarterly gathering of micro-acts founded by Theresa Buchheister in 2014. MFA Sarah Lawrence College, BA Brown University, Headlong Performance Institute. jillianjetton.com

Nikhil Mahapatra is a multi-disciplinary writer based in Brooklyn. A Dramatists Guild Foundation Fellow, O’Neill National Playwright’s Conference Finalist, SPACE at Ryder Farm Creative Resident, Yaddo Resident, Hi-ARTS Critical Breaks resident, Colt Coeur Resident Artist,  Clubbed Thumb Early Career Writers Group member, and a finalist for a bunch of other important-sounding stuff. Their work has been showcased/developed at The Road theater company, Living Room Playlabs, Gingold Theatre Company, The Tank, Cherry Lane Theatre, The Lark, The Brick, The Wild Project and more. Latest theatrical works include SWEETFISH!, Love You More, American Hunger, Bali Babes and etc. Other media includes the short film SPF (NYITFF 2019), and select short stories and poems published in America and Singapore.