Welcome to the NYTW Blog—a resource for behind-the-scenes insights on our productions, share-outs from the classroom penned by teaching artists, community partner spotlights, and a peek behind the curtain to see how work gets made at NYTW.

Taking Orgasms Seriously

Director Leigh Silverman and Playwright Hansol Jung sit down with Merryn Johns from INTO to talk lesbians, orgasms, and why Leigh’s North Star for Merry Me was The Muppet Show.

“Trailblazing director Leigh Silverman ably guides Hansol Jung’s play, which forgoes victimization, trauma, and tropes we have perhaps come to expect from female-centered theater. There is, however, lots of arch wordplay, simulated sex, and — as with the mannered conventions of Restoration comedy — reality flies out the window.”

November 2, 2023 by Merryn Johns for INTO


THE REFUGE PLAYS Hits Close to Home

The Refuge Plays can only be described as an epic, but for it’s two matriarchs, it means so much more. Listen to Nicole Ari Parker (Early) and Jessica Frances Duke (Gail) discuss killing turkeys, playing elderly women, and channeling their ancestors in this world premiere production.

October 26, 2023 by Diep Tran for PLAYBILL


The Refuge Plays Theatre Talk

The Refuge Plays—our first production in the 2023/24 Season—is now in previews at Roundabout Theatre Company’s Laura Pels Theatre! Dive deeper on the production with this episode of “Theatre Talk” with NYTW Teaching Artist Kimberlee Walker and Roundabout Teaching Artist Jeanna Phillips.

September 22, 2023 by NYTW


Worlds Apart on a Shared Stage

You may be familiar with playwright Hansol Jung from Wild Goose Dreams about a lonely man in Seoul. Or maybe from her runaway hit Wolf Play about a puppet child who feels he has more in common with a wolf than his adopted family. Now, Jung is doing something totally different: a lesbian sex farce.

September 8, 2023 by Kally Patz for THE BROOKLYN RAIL


The Refuge Plays In Rehearsal

Rehearsals are underway for The Refuge Plays, an epic tale that follows one black family over 70 years. This also marks the first show in the 2023/24 season, which is the first season programmed by new NYTW Artistic Director, Patricia McGregor. The show also marks the return to the Workshop for NYTW Usual Suspect and former 2050 Artistic Fellow Nathan Alan Davis.

August 23, 2023 by BROADWAYWORLD


THE HALF-GOD OF RAINFALL Study Guide

Get ready to take the court in THE HALF GOD OF RAINFALL with the study guide created by our fantastic education and marketing teams. In addition to seeing the show and participating in a talkback with the cast, our teaching artists went to the partner schools for personalized lessons with each class.

July 21, 2023 by NYTW Education


Meet the 2023/24 Season 2050 Artistic Fellows

Please join us in welcoming the new 2023/24 Artistic Fellows: Emily Abrams, Andrea Ambam, Raz Golden, Celeste Jennings, Ying Ying Li and Nicholas Polonio. NYTW Usual Suspect and former 2050 Artistic Fellow Miranda Haymon will return as advisor to the 2023/24 Fellows, working directly with each fellow to build their individual fellowship experience as well as with the cohort and Artistic Staff to create community.

June 5, 2023 by NYTW


Jupiter Performance Studio joins our Companies-in-Residence

“We’re thrilled to welcome the extraordinary multi-hyphenate Ebony Noelle Golden and her Jupiter Performance Studio into our community as our newest Company-in-Residence. Ebony is a nationally recognized artist and organizer whose expansive practice includes soulful rituals, immersive experiences in the natural world, and rigorous investigations of the intersections between scholarship and activism. Her spirit of collaboration and clarity of purpose rooted in strategies of social justice are inspiring. Her work is both intimate and expansive, vivid and visceral, modern with a sharp eye on how the past influences every inch of our present. We look forward to supporting her visioning and creation during her residency.” –Artistic Director Patricia McGregor

June 5, 2023 by NYTW


Announcing our 2023/24 Season!

“When I dreamed of what this job would be, I visioned being able to say yes to audacious and impactful artists like Hansol Jung, Nathan Alan Davis, Mona Pirnot and Moisés Kaufman’s Tectonic Theater Project company. I’m exhilarated by the range of their work that’s simultaneously intimate and epic, rigorous and filled with love. I am humbled to make my first invitations and provocations to our community alongside these singular artists.” –Patricia McGregor

May 12, 2023 by NYTW


Aleshea Harris Named Pulitzer Prize Finalist

We are thrilled to share that Aleshea Harris has been named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama for On Sugarland, which had it’s world premiere at NYTW in February 2022. The jury described the play as “an ambitious drama, inspired by Sophocles, of a community shaped by the trauma of a nameless war they have been dealing with for generations, and the ancestors they mourn, a solemn but also joyful work.”

May 8, 2023 by NYTW