New York City’s The Lark has named its five 2017–2018 Rita Goldberg Playwrights’ Workshop Fellows. The fellowship, now in its 19th year, brings together emerging and established playwrights to explore new material without commercial pressures.

The five fellows are Rae Binstock, who received The David Ross Fetzer Foundation for Emerging Artists 2017 Theatre Grant for her play land of no mercy; Nick Gandiello, whose play The Blameless received a production at The Old Globe San Diego subsequent to being developed through The Lark’s Playwrights’ Week program; Tony nominee Lucas Hnath (Red Speedo and A Doll’s House, Part 2); C.A. Johnson, a 2016-17 Van Lier New Voices Fellow at The Lark whose play Thirst was included on the 2017 Kilroys’ List; and Susan Soon He Stanton, a staff writer for the HBO series Succession, and whose play Today Is My Birthday will soon debut Off-Broadway.

The fellows will meet twice a month to share new pages from plays-in-progress with a community of actors, designers, directors, writers, and other industry players.

“Playwrights’ Workshop is structured to support both the creation of new plays and the playwrights who write them. We're so excited that these five singular writers will all be sharing the same space and engaging one another in communal conversation over the course of this year as they generate new work,” said Krista Williams, Roundtable and Casting Director at The Lark in an online statement. “These writers each investigate shared and urgent questions about humanity, history, society, and identity with sincere curiosity and a joyful sense of play. Together they make for a wickedly talented, rigorously thoughtful group who have risen to the challenge of tackling some of the most significant questions of our time. We are thrilled they’re joining us this year.”

The program is led by Arthur Kopit and a rotating group of playwrights that includes David Henry Hwang, Tina Howe, Kimber Lee, Terrence McNally, Dominique Morisseau, José Rivera, and Doug Wright, among others.

For more information visit TheLark.org.