Judith Champion Launch Commissions for 2023

Atlantic Theater Company Announces the
Judith Champion Launch Commissions
for 2023

with commissions from
Isabelle Barbier, Shayan Lotfi &
a.k. payne


Atlantic Theater Company (Neil Pepe, Artistic Director; Jeffory Lawson, Managing Director) is proud to announce its Judith Champion Launch Commissioning Program writers for 2023, Isabelle Barbier, Shayan Lotfi and a.k. payne. The Judith Champion Launch Commissioning Program offers early career playwrights, support of writing a new play and facilitating relationships in the theater industry.

Launch Commission Program Underwriter Judith Champion sadly passed away last year. She was a fierce advocate for theater and wanted to leave a legacy of support for new voices so that American theater will thrive for generations to come.
Atlantic’s Artistic Director, Neil Pepe added, “We are very excited about this round of commissioned playwrights who came to us in a variety of ways: Isabelle is an alumna of Atlantic Acting School, Shayan wrote a short play commission for our recent First Gen MixFest, and we were introduced to a.k.'s work by both an Atlantic alumnus and an Atlantic produced playwright. Building this kind of artistic community ensures a vibrant theater for the future as Judith Champion envisioned it.”

All of Atlantic’s new play and musical development activities are made possible, in part, by leadership support from the Howard Gilman Foundation and The Tow Foundation, with additional funding from the Axe-Houghton Foundation, the Barbara Bell Cumming Charitable Trust, the Max and Victoria Dreyfus Foundation, the National Alliance for Musical Theatre, and the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation. Atlantic productions and programs are also supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council, as well as the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Hochul and the New York State Legislature.

BIOGRAPHIES:

ISABELLE BARBIER (she/her) moved to New York City to study theater at the Atlantic Acting School. After graduating she realized that there was a major lack of compelling parts for women out there, so she decided to write some of her own. Her plays have been featured at Dixon Place, A.R.T., and The New York Fringe. Most recently Isabelle starred in the feature film CRSHD which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and can now be streamed on Hulu. She is currently working on a draft of Guts- a screenplay that was a finalist for the WIF Blacklist Residency, Quarter Finalist for the Academy Nicholls Fellowship, and WINNER at SF Indie Fest. A workshop of her play Rip Her to Shreds premiered at Ars Nova Ant Fest in June 2022, and she is beyond excited to be reunited with Atlantic Theater Company now as a playwright.

SHAYAN LOTFI (he/him) has written some plays and thankfully still wants to write. He's been fortunate enough that a number of wonderful institutions have supported and developed his work, including MacDowell, The Working Farm at SPACE on Ryder Farm, Atlantic Theater, Roundabout Theatre, South Coast Repertory, The Lark, Marble House, Millay, and Boston Court. In addition to writing, he also works as an urban planning consultant.

a.k. payne (she/they) is a playwright, artist-theorist, and theatermaker with roots in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Her plays love on and engage Black lives and languages beyond the confines of linear time to find/remember stories that might create conditions for our collective liberation(s). They hold a B.A. in English and African-American Studies from Yale College and are currently pursuing an MFA in Playwriting under Tarell Alvin McCraney from Yale School of Drama. Their work has been finalist for the L. Arnold Weissberger New Play Award, winner of the David Mark Cohen National Playwriting Award, and 3x semi-finalist for the O'Neill National Playwriting Conference. She is the current recipient of the Kemp Powers Commission Fund for Black Playwrights and their work has been developed with the New Harmony Project, Great Plains Theater Conference, and Manhattan Theater Club's "Groundworks Lab." In February 2023, a.k. makes their Off-Broadway debut with: Amani produced by National Black Theatre and Rattlestick Playwrights Theater. They are a proud graduate of public schools; grandchild of the Great Migration; descendant of a music teacher and a carpenter, who both march every year with their unions in Pittsburgh’s Labor Day parade; a queer & non-binary abolitionist affected by the ‘New Jim Crow;” and of a great lineage of Black women storytellers and living-room archivists; all of which deeply informs, uplifts and amplifies their work as a playwright, community organizer and spacemaker.