3rd Annual Emerging Playwright Competition

Put on your tux or gown and crack the champagne! Or curl up in your cozy chair and sweats. Whichever way you choose, enjoy the plays from the safety and comfort of your home. After much deliberation about the lingering pandemic restrictions on live performances, the decision was made to present these six original works as virtual readings.

You will also be treated to a talkback with the playwrights and moderator. There is no charge — simply register to view online.

About the Playwrights

Nick DeSimone is an award-winning writer/actor/filmmaker. He made his Asia debut performing in his play “I Love You” during the International Theatre Festival in South Korea. Other productions include: “Animals” (Ariane Festival); “The Michael Jackson Story” (Nylon Fusion); “You Can See the Duomo from the Bathroom” (13th Street Theater); and “Pieces of a Playwright” (124 Bank Theater). He wrote and directed the award-winning short film “Two Boroughs.” His next film, “Full Throttle Paradise,” is currently in post-production. Nick, a dual citizen of the U.S. and Italy, is a member of The Actors Studio/PDW and Urban Artists Collective.

J.B. Heaps has authored numerous plays performed in black box theaters in New York and elsewhere. These include “Private Disclosure,” set in New York City in the 1960s and inspired by events in the later part of Truman Capote’s life, and “The Immortal Coil,” a humorous look at life and theater. As an executive producer for Showtime Sports, Heaps won five Emmy Awards. He currently lives in Manhattan, where he continues to write.  

Kimberly Kalaja is a playwright, screenwriter and author. Her work includes two award-winning plays, “Night Moths on the Wing” and “The Shooter,” as well as the screenplay “The Lesson,” which won “Best Short Screenplay” at the 2020 Irvine International Film Festival and the 2019 Big Apple Film Festival. In addition, Kimberly is the author of “Reading Games: An Aesthetics of Play,” a nonfiction book published with Dalkey Archive Press. An alumna of The Queen’s University Belfast, she received a PhD from Princeton University.

Jim Moss has authored five full-length plays and more than 100 one-acts. His work has been produced in theaters in London, Chicago, Miami, Tampa, Orlando, San Diego, Albuquerque, Seattle and numerous New York off-Broadway venues, including La MaMa La Galleria, the American Globe and the Manhattan Repertory Theatre. In 2018, his play “Tagged” won three contests: first place in Theatre Odyssey’s One-Act Play Festival in Sarasota, Best Lab Works Production at the Pittsburgh New Works Festival, and the British Theatre Challenge in London.

Adam Richter is a journalist and playwright from West Reading, Pa. He started writing plays in 2017 and since 2018 has had three 10-minute plays produced by the Reading Theater Project for its annual Five-Minute Fringe Festival. His one-act play, “Everybody Hates This Place,” was performed in the Barley Sheaf One-Act Festival in February 2020. He is currently at work on a full-length play and sometimes jokes about writing a musical.

Jeff Stolzer is a playwright and screenwriter whose full-length plays include “Survivors” (Arts Club of Washington Playwriting Award), “Unsportsmanlike Conduct” (Woodward/Newman Drama Award finalist), “Storage Locker” (IATI Theater Mainstage) and “Paralyzed” (Eugene O’Neill Playwrights Conference semifinalist). “Miss Irrelevant,” a short play inspired by the #MeToo movement, was produced in London in November 2018, at the Pleasance Theatre. “Miss Irrelevant” is included among the Best 10-Minute Plays of 2019 (Smith & Kraus). His latest full-length play, “Sam and Rick,” explores the unlikely friendship between Samuel Beckett and Rick Cluchey, a prisoner in San Quentin serving a life sentence without parole.