R&D Groups
Past 2022-2023
Now in its 12th year, the Civilians’ R&D Group is comprised of writers, composers, and directors who meet throughout a season to develop original pieces of theater through the creative investigation of a pre-selected topic of their choosing. The creative processes may include interviews, community engagement, research, and other experimental methods of inquiry. Led by R&D Program Director Phoebe Corde, the Group shares and discusses their methodologies and the resulting work. This year, the Group will be meeting online. The process culminates in the FINDINGS Series, a works-in-progress reading series.
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A Re-Enactment of the (Imagined) Trial of Daisy the Cow, who (Allegedly) Caused the Great Chicago Fire
A Re-Enactment of the (Imagined) Trial of Daisy the Cow, who (Allegedly) Caused the Great Chicago Fire is a theatrical presentation of a completely fabricated trial where it is debated whether or not Mrs. O’Leary’s cow, Daisy, is guilty of causing the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 and thereby killing 300 people, as the “legend” says she is. The trial itself will be a deep interrogation of our legal and criminal justice systems and what truth, justice, and accountability actually means.
Julia Izumi
Julia Izumi’s (she/her) works include Regretfully, So the Birds Are (upcoming at Playwrights Horizons/WP Theater), miku, and the gods. (ArtsWest), Sometimes the Rain, Sometimes the Sea (upcoming at Rorschach Theatre), and others. Her work has been developed at MTC, Clubbed Thumb, New Georges, Bushwick Starr, Berkeley Rep, SPACE on Ryder Farm, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Ojai Playwrights Conference, and more. Honors for her work include the OPC Dr. Kerry English Award, O’Neill Finalist, Kilroys List Honorable Mention, and KCACTF’s Darrell Ayers Playwriting Award. Current New Dramatists Resident. Current commissions: True Love Productions, MTC/Sloan, Playwrights Horizons, Seattle Rep. MFA: Brown University.
Writer
Blasia
“If dating were an assortment of Halloween candy, Black women and Asian men would be the Tootsie Rolls and candy corn—the last to be eaten, if even at all.” We are the rejects. The unwanteds. The hypersexualized and the desexualized. The cheap thrills and the cheapskates. Blasia will explore racial disparities in dating and the potential of Black-Asian love, celebrate the beauty and power of Black women and Asian men, sing the blues of our perpetual aloneness, and envision the potential of, as Issa Rae writes, “Black women and Asian men join[ing] forces in love, marriage, and procreation.”
Amy Marie Haven
Amy Marie Haven (she/her), an acclaimed director & producer, is a believer in collaborative processes and new forms. She has directed at Magic Theatre, Marin Shakes, African-American Shakespeare, Four Larks, Throckmorton Theatre, The Stonewall Inn and has developed work with American Idol’s Taylor Fagins, The National’s Rachel Menendez, The Quixote Project, We Players and Cutting Ball. She serves as Michael Cassel Group’s Creative Development Manager after being awarded Hugh Jackman and Deborra-Lee Furness’ Producing Fellowship on Broadway’s The Music Man through Black Theatre Coalition. Amy Marie is a co-founder and board member of Tomorrow Youth Repertory; has held artistic leadership positions at Throckmorton Theatre, Oakland School for the Arts and African-American Shakespeare Company; with international experience spanning Australia, Mexico and Honduras. amymariehaven.com
Director
Andrew Saito
Andrew Saito (he/him) was a Fulbright Scholar in Papua New Guinea and Andrew W. Mellon Resident Playwright at the Cutting Ball Theater, which produced his plays Krispy Kritters in the Scarlett Night, Mount Misery, and his translation of Life is a Dream. Other productions: El Río (Brava/BACCE), Stegosaurus (or) Three Cheers for Climate Change (FaultLine), Men of Rab’inal (El Teatro Campesino/La Peña), and Br’er Peach (AlterTheatre/Parsnip Ship). He teaches at SUNY Purchase, was a member of the ViacomCBS 2020-21 Writers Mentoring Program, and a staff writer on The Lost Symbol (Peacock). Residencies: Montalvo, Blue Mountain Center, Djerassi, Arquetopia. MFA: Iowa.
Writer
Inshallah
Diwali, the festival of lights, started with a dice game; the Partition of India and the arbitrary drawing of a line was a game of chance; medieval politics was intertwined with games of Pachisi as depicted by the paintings in the Ajanta caves (480 CE) - what are the ripple effects of these gambles? Inshallah explores how games of chance have influenced historical and mythological events from the Mahabharata to the Mughal era and the Partition in South Asia.
Divya Mangwani
Divya Mangwani (she/her) is a theatre artist from Pune, based in New York. She creates reimaginings that question our perception of global narrative truths and shared mythologies. Divya was the founder and Artistic Director of Moonbeam Factory Theatre and wrote, directed, and produced plays in India, Singapore and the UK. In New York, she has developed work with UNICEF, Soho Rep, NYTW, Rattlestick, Mabou Mines, GTG, Hypokrit, The Flea, APAC, Project Y, Pipeline, Rising Sun, LMCC and Governors Island. Divya is a recent fellow of Soho Rep’s Writer/Director Lab and Gingold Speakers Corner and was a NYTW 2050 Artistic Fellow, Hypokrit Theatre Tamasha playwright, Project Y Writers Group playwright and Playlab fellow at Pipeline Theatre.
Writer
untitled nursing home project
An artist enters a nursing home, tasked with devising a work for the home’s residents. As their project progresses, destabilizing truths are revealed. This meta-theatrical interview-based musical will explore memory, usefulness, and fantasy as palliative care.
Adam Chanler-Berat
Adam Chanler-Berat (he/him) is known for his performances in the original companies of Broadway’s Next to Normal and Peter and the Starcatcher as well as Off-Broadway in Assassins, Rent, Fly By Night and Fortress of Solitude among others. Most recently, he was a writer in residence at the 2022 New York Stage and Film festival. His play with music, Contra, has been workshopped at Ars Nova, was a finalist for Space on Ryder Farm 2018, and a semi-finalist for the 2020 O’Neill Festival New Music Theater Conference. Adam has developed other pieces at Barrington Stage and the Rhinebeck Writers Retreat (where he met his Civilian's R&D collaborator, Julian Hornik).
Writer
Julian Hornik
Julian Hornik (he/him) is a composer/lyricist and librettist whose work has been performed at, amongst others, the Kennedy Center, New York City Center, Ars Nova, Symphony Space, Carnegie Hall, the Yale School of Drama, and every Gay Men's Chorus in the country. He has developed shows at Rhinebeck Writer’s Retreat, Vineyard Arts, Orchard Project, Johnny Mercer Songwriter’s Project, and the ASCAP Musical Theatre Workshop. Film and TV include Share (HBO), and animated series Helluva Boss. Recipient of the 2017 Lucille and Jack Yellen Award and the 2018 Sammy Cahn Award from the ASCAP Foundation; 2020 Jonathan Larson Grant finalist.
Music
Ursa Major
It is simultaneously New York in 2020 and Stalin-era Soviet Russia and Ukraine. A mother writes a book on crystallography while her daughter explores genderqueerness. A scientist studies properties of clay minerals while falling in love with her female colleague’s girlfriend. Inspired by the stories of three real Soviet women and with a live soundtrack of Russian and Ukrainian folk songs, Ursa Major is a story of heritage, perspective, defiant love, and the work that often gets overlooked in the historical record. Commissioned by The Ensemble Studio Theatre / Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Science & Technology Project.
Xandra Nur Clark
Xandra Nur Clark (they/she) is a playwright, performer, journalist, and community-builder. Their plays include POLYLOGUES (2021 Colt Coeur Production, 2020 Kilroys List); EVERYTHING YOU’RE TOLD (2021 Chesley/Bumbalo Award, 2019 La MaMa Reading); SEPARATED (2021 O’Neill NPC Semi-Finalist); and ANTHOLOGY: CROWN HEIGHTS (2016 Weeksville Heritage Center Production). They’ve received funding from NYSCA/Brooklyn Arts Council, Brooklyn Community Foundation, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, and Stanford Arts; and residencies from MASS MoCA, the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation, and Blue Mountain Center. Xandra is a 2018-19 Queer|Art Fellow, a Member Artist of Ensemble Studio Theatre, a singer with Ukrainian Village Voices, and a certified volunteer counselor for the Anti-Violence Project’s LGBTQ hotline. BA Theater, MA Journalism: Stanford University. www.xandraclark.com
Writer
Yoko’s Husband’s Killer’s Japanese Wife, Gloria
Did Yoko Ono really break up The Beatles? Was Gloria Abe Chapman somehow responsible for John Lennon’s murder? Why do all these egotistical white guys have Asian wives? That’s weird, right? These are the questions that keep Ruby Okamoto up at night—literally. She wants answers, and she’s gonna find them. Even if she has to summon every Asian woman she’s ever met in a lawless, insomniatic fever dream.
Yoko’s Husband’s Killer’s Japanese Wife, Gloria is a musical about the invisible connections between human beings of a shared identity. Spurred by Ruby’s sleeplessness, a group of Asian American women from all different backgrounds find themselves in a fantastical dreamscape where their hopes, fears, insecurities, and questions manifest as real-life rockstars and movie monsters. They push and pull each other through the enchanting, treacherous territory of their collective subconscious in hopes of understanding their own hard-to-define-but-definitely-there connection to other Asians in America.
Brandy Hoang Collier
Brandy Hoang Collier (she/her) is a queer Vietnamese-American writer from San Antonio, TX. Selected works include The Blazing World (Polyphone Festival of New and Emerging Musicals 2021) with music by Sean Eads and Yoko’s Husband’s Killer’s Japanese Wife, Gloria (The 5th Avenue Theatre “First Draft” Commission 2021) with lyrics by Clare Fuyuko Bierman and music by Erika Ji. Collier also runs Root Beer Occasion Theatre Company with co-founder Jessie Field and works as a professional properties master. Off-Broadway credits include Mrs. Warren’s Profession (Gingold Theatrical Group), The Panic of ‘29 (Less Than Rent Theatre), and Belfast Girls (Irish Repertory Theatre). brandyhoangcollier.com
Book
Clare Fuyuko Bierman
Clare Fuyuko Bierman (she/her) is a playwright and lyricist raised in a Japanese-Jewish home with some rabbits, a snake, and a bunch of finches. Current commissions include Yoko’s Husband’s Killer’s Japanese Wife, Gloria (Book by Brandy Hoang Collier, Music by Erika Ji, Winner of 5th Avenue Theater’s First Draft Commission), and Theseus and the Minotaur and the Other Six (Music by Joshua Vranas, Youth Theater Northwest). She has participated in the Johnny Mercer Songwriting Project, Broadway’s Future Songbook Series, and the Samuel French Off-Off Broadway Play Festival. Originally from Los Angeles, she received her MFA from New York University. clarebierman.com
Lyrics
Erika Ji
Erika Ji (she/her) is a cross-genre composer-storyteller who loves soaring melodies, dream worlds, and stories that challenge our preconceptions about what is true, good, right, or worth wanting. Her works, including Yoko's Husband's Killer's Japanese Wife, Gloria (5th Avenue Theatre First Draft Commission) and VISARE (immersive circus fantasia, 2021 New Voices Project Winner), have been featured Off-Broadway and around the world at Lincoln Center, the Public Theater, the Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, and the Nadia Boulanger Institute. The proud daughter of Chinese immigrants, Erika studied computer science & philosophy at Stanford and built products at Dropbox before deciding to follow the music. MFA: NYU Tisch. erikaji.com
Music
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