After receiving over 70 submissions to our Open Call we are thrilled to announce this year’s cohort!
Colt Coeur's 2023-2024 Residents (clockwise from top left):
Jose Sebastian Alberdi (playwright), Brittany K. Allen (playwright), Sarah Dahnke (director/choreographer), C.A. Johnson (playwright), Eric Norbury (designer), Lia Romeo (playwrights), Danny Tejera (playwright), Liba Vaynberg (playwright)
Read more about these exciting artists below!
jose sebastian alberdi (he/him) is a Mexican-Basque-American playwright (with TV aspirations). Originally from San Diego, CA, he now lives in New York & writes about queerness, faith, power, & other things he finds interesting &/or important. He has developed his work with/at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center, The Orchard Project, INTAR, the Huntington Theatre Company, SpeakEasy Stage, Exquisite Corpse Company, Breaking & Entering Theatre Collective, Fresh Ink Theatre, & Teatro Chelsea. He has received commissions from SpeakEasy Stage for their annual Boston Project & he is currently under commission at INTAR as their inaugural Max Ferrá Playwriting Fellow. MFA from New York University, BA from Northeastern University.
Brittany K. Allen (she/her) is a Brooklyn-based writer and actor. Her plays have been staged and developed at Portland Center Stage, Jungle Theater, Manhattan Theater Club, The Public, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Clubbed Thumb, Studio Theatre, and KC Rep, among other places, and she currently holds commissions from Playwrights Horizons and Clubbed Thumb. Recognitions include the Daryl Roth Creative Spirit Award, the Dramatists Guild Foundation Comedic Playwriting Prize, and a Van Lier New Voices Playwriting Fellowship. She is a member of the Dorothy Strelsin New American Writers Group at Primary Stages, and her writing has been supported by a MacDowell fellowship, and scholarships to Bread Loaf, and the Sewanee Writers Conference, where she now teaches on faculty. brittanykallen.com/
Sarah Dahnke (she/her) is a choreographer, director and arts educator deeply committed to empowering communities to use movement to reclaim narratives stripped away by colonialism. She was the Crane Directing Fellow at Opera Columbus for 2022-2023, a MAP Fund awardee, an NEA Our Town-funded resident artist, and a former awardee of fellowships from Gibney’s Moving Toward Justice, Target Margin Institute, New Victory LabWorks, and Culture Push. Dahnke has received commissions from PEN America and A Studio in the Woods and has been in residence at Abrons Arts Center and Brooklyn Studios for Dance. As a practitioner, Dahnke specializes in devised performance and site-specific dance film. Her dance film work has been screened through the Dance Films Association, Tiny Dance Film Festival, DanceBarn Collective, BRIC, and Movies By Movers. SarahDahnke.com
C.A. Johnson (she/her) is a Brooklyn-based playwright originally from Metairie, Louisiana. Her plays include ALL THE NATALIE PORTMANS (MCC Theater), THIRST (2017 Kilroys List, CATF), THE CLIMB (Cherry Lane Mentor Project), AN AMERICAN FEAST (NYU Playwrights Horizons Theater School), I KNOW I KNOW I KNOW, and SOMEBODY’S BODY. Most recently she was the Tow Playwright in Residence at MCC Theater. She was previously the 2018 P73 Playwriting Fellow, The Lark's 2016-17 Van Lier Fellow, a Dramatists Guild Fellow, a member of The Working Farm at SPACE on Ryder Farm, A Core Writer at The Playwrights Center, a member of The Civilians R&D Group, a Sundance/Ucross Fellow and a 2018 Sundance Theatre Lab Fellow. Her work has been commissioned by Manhattan Theatre Club, Seattle Rep, Page 73, and Chatauqua Theater Company. C.A. also has an active career in film and television, with several projects in development, including at ABC Signature, Netflix and New Line. She has written for a number of television series, including projects helmed by Drew Goddard, Marielle Heller, and more. BA: Smith College MFA: NYU
Eric Norbury (he/him) Lighting Designer - Select credits include Hong Kong Mississippi (La MaMa ETC), Dodi & Diana (Colt Coeur), The Prom (WPPAC), Footloose (Argyle Theatre), Xerxes (Detroit Opera), Blue (Seattle Opera, Pittsburgh Opera, Dutch National Opera), Only Human: A Musical (Theatre St. Clement’s), Till: A Musical (NYMF), Nimbus Dance at BAM Fisher,. Previous work: LaMama ETC, NYTW, Playwrights Horizons, Barrington Stage Company, La Jolla Playhouse, New School of Drama, Washington National Opera, 5th Avenue Theatre, The Glimmerglass Festival, Seán Curran Dance Company, De Funes Dance, Second Avenue Dance Company and many others. MFA NYU/Tisch. Member USA829. ericnorburylighting.com
Lia Romeo (she/her) was a recent playwriting fellow at Juilliard. Her plays have been developed at the O’Neill, La Jolla Playhouse, the Lark, and elsewhere, and have been produced off-Broadway at 59E59 and ART/NY as well as regionally at venues such as Dorset Theatre Festival, Laguna Playhouse, Unicorn Theatre, New Jersey Repertory Theatre, and others. Four of her plays have been recognized by the Kilroys List. Her plays are published by TRW, Broadway Licensing, and Broadway Play Publishing. She is the associate artistic director with Project Y Theatre Company and the co-founder of the Parent-Caregiver Playwrights Group, and she teaches playwriting at Primary Stages/ESPA and in the M.A. program in creative writing at Fairleigh Dickinson University. www.liaromeowriter.com
Danny Tejera (he/him) is a writer, actor and teacher from Madrid. His play TOROS was produced at Second Stage Uptown and received a New York Times Critic’s Pick. He is a member of EST/Youngblood and a Colt Coeur Resident Artist, and has received fellowships from MacDowell, Millay Arts, Stillwright, and Tofte Lake Center. He has received commissions from Second Stage Theater and EST/Sloan. Short plays include SCARY FACES HAPPY FACES (Samuel French OOB Short Play Festival, The Best 10 Minute Plays 2023) and TWO TWO WOMEN (Ensemble Studio Theatre). He teaches with The Bushwick Starr’s Senior Storytelling program and previously taught at UT-Austin, The School of the NYTimes, and Breakthrough NY. He got a B.A. from Columbia University and a Playwriting M.F.A. at Hunter College/UT-Austin, where he was mentored by Annie Baker and Branden Jacobs-Jenkins. He’s represented by WME and 2AM.
Liba Vaynberg (she/her) is a bilingual first-generation American artist whose work reimagines canonical text by centering contemporary questions of gender, progress, and God (or lack thereof). The daughter of Ukrainian and Azeri Jewish refugees, she studied Molecular Biology at Yale before receiving her MFA at Columbia. Plays: The Matriarchs (Eugene O'Neill Playwrights Conference, Civilians R&D, Theater J Abramson Finalist, Blue Ink finalist), The Gett (Rattlestick, Princess Grace Semi-Finalist, Colorado New Play Festival), Round Table (59E59, Fault Line, Times Square Chronicles 10 Best Plays of 2019), Scheiss Book (United Solo Festival: Best One-Woman Show & Backstage Magazine Audience Choice Award, Dixon Place, Wild Project, Kitchen Theater), The Blue Parts with Dina Vovsi (Working Theater, NYSCA Grant). Her work as an actor includes “The Soap Myth” (PBS) opposite Ed Asner, Oregon Trail at the Women's Project, Lost In Yonkers opposite Marsha Mason (CT Critics' Circle nom.) and Golem of Havana at La Mama. Fellowships include LABA, COJECO Blueprint, and Sewanee Writers’ Conference. She writes for Lilith Magazine. libavaynberg.com