Current Students

The combined playwriting programs of The Department of Theatre and Dance and The Michener Center for Writers is very proud of the professional activities of our students. Just a snap shot of our current group reveals an astonishing level of accomplishment. The eleven grad students in the combined MCW and T&D programs have had their works produced all over the country and at all professional levels, from fringe festivals to off-Broadway premieres. Some have international credits with productions in Belgium, England, Germany, and Canada. They have collectively received six fellowships from the prestigious Playwrights' Center in Minneapolis: four have won Jerome Fellowships, with one writer receiving it twice, and one has earned a McKnight Advancement Grant. Our students are the recipients of commissions and grants from Soho Repertory, the National Endowment of the Arts, and Theatre Communications Group.

Our students have been finalists or have won the Actors Theatre of Louisville's Ten-Minute Play Contest, the Heideman Award, the Princess Grace Award, the Alliance Theatre's Graduate Playwriting Competition, and the Playwrights' Center's Playlabs Play Development Workshop. Our current students are performing at the level of professionals with many years of experience. At the 2004 Humana Festival of New American Plays at the Actor's Theatre of Louisville, one of the most prestigious new play events in the United States, three of the twelve plays were written by former UT students or faculty.

Gabriel Dean

Gabriel Dean is a multi-disciplinary artist and a first-year Michener fellow in playwriting and poetry. Gabriel hails from Atlanta, GA. His plays have been produced and read at Dad's Garage Theatre, Actor's Express, Horizon Theatre, Aurora Theatre, Relativity Theatre Concern, Stage Door Players, The Process Theatre, Emory University and Oglethorpe University. His adaptation of Beowulf is published by PlayScripts and has been produced in Canada, Georgia, New Jersey, Wisconsin and New York. Gabriel's poetry, fiction and journalism has been published in Snake Nation Review, The Tower, Eclectica Magazine, The Melic Review, South E-Zine, Creative Loafing and ARTlanta Magazine. Gabriel is the recipient of several distinctions for his writing including the City of Atlanta Bureau of Cultural Affairs Playwriting Award, the Porter Flemming Prize for Fiction, the Sidney Lanier Prize for Poetry, and the Horizon Theatre Young Playwright's Festival. As an actor, he's performed in over 40 plays and musicals. As a singer, Gabriel debuted professionally at the age of 18 at Carnegie Hall singing the solo in Kirby Shaw's jazz arrangement of “God Bless America.” He studied the interdisciplinary art of Musical Theatre at CAP21 at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts and earned his B.A. in Playwriting from Oglethorpe University where he also studied theatre criticism abroad at the University of Manchester in England. Gabriel founded and facilitated the Odyssey Program, a drama/creative writing workshop for Morry's Camp, a non-profit camp for underprivileged inner city kids in New York. He is a co-founder of Relativity Theatre Concern in Atlanta, a member of the Dramatist's Guild of America, a member of Theatre Communications Group and the former Marketing Director and Playwriting instructor at Actor's Express Theatre.

Holli Gipson

Holli Gipson is a Texas native, born and raised in Fort Worth, now a resident of Austin where she is a first-year M.F.A. candidate at the University of Texas in Austin's Playwriting Program. She received a Bachelor's degree in English and Theatre Arts from Cornell College. Her play Peach Blood was rewarded a full production on the main stage series at Cornell. Riverside Theatre in Iowa City sponsored a public reading of her latest play, Her Brilliant Sway of the Moral Hinge. Holli spent this past year in Chicago, where she co-founded The Inch Worm Playreading Series, an organization dedicated to developing reading opportunities for young playwrights and their revision process. She has worked with theatres across the Midwest and New York City, such as: Chicago Dramatists, Minneapolis Playwrights' Center, Riverside Theatre, and The 52nd Street Project.

Diana Grisanti

Diana Grisanti, a native of Louisville, Kentucky, is a first year Michener Fellow. She received her B.A. from the University of Iowa, where she had productions of several short plays and a workshop of Hunger, a full-length. After graduating, she served as literary intern at the Actors Theatre of Louisville. During the 2007 Humana Festival, she worked on plays by Sherry Kramer, Alice Tuan, and Carlos Murillo. Also at Actors, Diana's play Sunday Ballooning, a Heideman Award finalist, was produced, and, in collaboration with the Apprentice Company, she wrote the community-based piece, Gathering Note. Her adaptation of 1,001 Nights was commissioned and produced by Walden Theatre, a conservatory for young actors. For the last two years, Diana lived and Cuernavaca, Mexico, where she had many odd and not-so-odd jobs. Her short plays Of Heavenly Bodies and Spitting in Ashes are published by Heuer Publishing.

Tom Horan

Tom Horan is a first-year M.F.A. candidate in Playwriting at the University of Texas at Austin. He is a graduate of DePaul University in Chicago where he received his B.F.A. in playwriting. In Chicago he worked with Sansculottes, a theater company committed to original work. There he served as Artistic Director and then Literary Manager, premiered two of his plays, Invisible Bob and 13 Dead Husbands, as well as oversaw a handful of other productions including two short play festivals and participation in Suzan Lori-Parks 365 Days/365 Plays project. Other productions include The Tooth Thief at Theater of the World Festival in San Diego and Curious Dangerous, which premiered at the Fritz Theater in San Diego and was remounted in Chicago by Collision Theater Company.

Meghan Kennedy

Meghan Kennedy is a first-year Michener Center fellow in playwriting at UT. She holds a B.F.A. in Dramatic Writing from the Tisch School of The Arts at NYU. Her play Keep was produced in Dublin and Galway, Ireland. Upon arriving back in the U.S., she began working and writing for television networks including Comedy Central and Nickelodeon. The Greenest Month was a semi-finalist for the 2007 Princess Grace award, a finalist for The 2009 Bay Area Playwrights Festival and received a staged reading at The National Comedy Theatre in New York City. Her newest piece, Foodstuff, was produced as part of The University Co-op Presents: The Cohen New Works Festival this spring at UT.

Kimber Lee

Kimber was born in South Korea, grew up in Idaho and Seattle, and now resides in Austin where she is a 1st year graduate student in the University of Texas at Austin MFA Playwriting Program. Before returning to school, Kimber worked as a professional actor, theatre administrator, and director. Acting credits include work with A Contemporary Theatre, Seattle Repertory Theatre, California Shakespeare Festival, Intiman Theatre, Seattle Children's Theatre, and Indiana Repertory Theatre; and her writing has been published nationally in KoreAm Journal and Audrey Magazine. Her plays have been produced in Seattle, Aspen, and San Diego, where she also served as Associate Director for Mo`olelo Performing Arts Company.

Steve Moulds

Steve Moulds is a first–year Michener Center fellow in playwriting at UT. He has premiered plays at the Illusion Theater in Minneapolis and the Minnesota Fringe Festival, as well as short plays for Actors Theatre of Louisville and the Chicago Avenue Project at Pillsbury House. In addition, he has directed new plays for the Humana Festival and History Theatre, and assisted at the Guthrie and the Children's Theatre. He has served in the literary office for several organizations, including the Playwrights' Center.

Download Steve's resume (pdf – download adobe reader.)

Erin Phillips

Erin Phillips is originally from the bay area and holds a B.F.A. in acting from Cornish College of the Arts. She was the 2006 joint recipient of the Corwin Award for best One Act Play, and the 2007 recipient of the Corwin award for best full length play. She received a meritorious achievement award from the Kennedy Center for The Well. Erin holds a Masters degree in Dramatic Arts from The University of California at Santa Barbara. She is currently working on her M.F.A. in Playwriting at the University of Texas at Austin. She is also her Mom's favorite Playwright.

Ben Snyder

Ben Snyder is a playwright and educator. His plays have been produced at Center Stage New York, PS 122, The Harry DeJour Playhouse, Crossroads Theatre, The Apollo Theater, The Vineyard Theater, New York Stage and Film, The Public Theater, New York Theater Workshop, and at HBO's U.S. Comedy Arts Festival. Ben is a longtime artist with the New York City Hip Hop Theater Festival and his play, In Case You Forget, is currently being published in Across All Lines: A Critical Anthology of Hip–Hop Theatre. Ben's play History of the Word continues to tour the United States since it premiered in 2004. He is a graduate of the Tisch School of the Arts, a former Julliard Graduate Playwriting Fellow, and is currently a first-year M.F.A. Playwright at UT Austin. As a Teaching Artist for the last ten years, Ben has used theater to explore social issues with high school and college-aged students throughout New York City's five boroughs. Additionally, he has been a guest director at New Africa Theatre Association (NATA) in Cape Town, South Africa, a guest artist with Arts–in–Action at the University of the West Indies (UWI) in Trinidad, and an invited guest lecturer at the University of Rio de Janeiro (UNIRIO) in Brazil. Most recently, Ben took part in a Leadership Conference in Tel Aviv, Israel and an Advocacy and Education Institute in the West Bank of Palestine.

Martin Zimmerman

Martin Zimmerman is a second-year MFA Candidate in Playwriting at the University of Texas at Austin. He is a graduate of Duke University where he received degrees in Theater Studies and Economics. He is a recipient of a Core Apprenticeship at the Playwrights' Center, has been a finalist for the Drama League's New Directors/New Works Grant, has received The Louis Sudler Award in the Arts, The Benenson Award in the Arts, The Dasha Epstein Award in Playwriting, and has been in residency at both New York Stage and Film and Steppenwolf Theatre Company. His work has been produced on Theatre Row (NYC), by MNCPPC's Teen Performance Ensemble, and at Duke University. His play Phoenix Unforgiven was produced this April in the COOP / COHEN New Works Festival, and his play Seven Spots on the Sun will be workshopped in 2009 at the Playwrights' Center. Martin has also assistant directed for Steven Dietz at Austin's Zachary Scott Theatre.