Theater News

Roundabout Theater Company Announces Artist Selections for 2025 Refocus and Underground Programs

The programs recognize new and marginalized playwrights.

Linda Buchwald

Linda Buchwald

| New York City |

January 7, 2025

Migdalia Cruz
Migdalia Cruz

Roundabout Theatre Company has announced 2025 artistic selections for the newly revamped Refocus Project and Roundabout Underground programs. Both projects are dedicated to recognizing outstanding playwrights; Refocus by restoring formerly marginalized plays and writers to the American canon, and the Underground by elevating new artists with development opportunities.

Building on three years of offering readings from the Black American, Latinx, and AAPI communities, the Refocus Spotlight Artists will concentrate on two artists, Migdalia Cruz and William S. Yellow Robe Jr. Roundabout will explore Cruz and Yellow Robe’s work through readings, panels, and in-depth resource guides, which will be shared with theaters, schools, and audiences in NYC and nationwide, with the goal of encouraging more productions of their work and placement on theater syllabi.

Cruz is a Bronx-born playwright, lyricist, translator, and librettist with over 60 works performed in 150 venues across 40 cities in 12 countries. Her awards include the NEA, McKnight, NYSCA, and TCG/Pew, and she was named the 2013 Helen Merrill Distinguished Playwright. Yellow Robe (1960-2021) was a playwright, actor, director, and teacher who wrote over 70 plays, poems, and monologues.

Roundabout Underground produces the debuts of emerging writers and this year’s Roundabout Underground Residencies will be introduced to provide two playwrights, Vichet Chum and Nikki Massoud, scheduled time at a desk in a shared workspace, a multi-day workshop of the play, and access to Roundabout resources and staff.

Chum is a New York-based writer from Dallas, Texas, whose plays have been workshopped and produced at Steppenwolf Theatre, the Alley Theatre, Merrimack Repertory Theatre, Ars Nova, Page 73 Productions, TheatreWorks Silicon Valley, and more. He is currently a Usual Suspect at New York Theatre Workshop, a Sun Valley Writers’ Conference Fellow, a board member for the New Harmony Project, and a steering committee member for the Obie Award and Tony Award-winning organization, AAPAC (The Asian American Performers Action Coalition).

Massoud is an Iranian-Canadian-American writer and performer based in New York City. She is a 2050 Artistic Fellow at New York Theatre Workshop and a commissioned playwright with Atlantic Theater Company, Noor Theater, and the Acting Company. Her credits as an actor include Succession and Sanaz Toossi’s Wish You Were Here.

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