Connie Gemson

Tell us what your play is about in 3 sentences or less:
My play is about an elderly woman and her decline. The play highlights the concern of her family members and the importance of home health aides in providing care.

What was the inspiration behind your piece?
My play was based on an incident in my family’s life.

Have you participated in Theaterworks! before and if so how many times?
This is my fifth time participating in TheatreWorks!

Can you share a fun or interesting fact about yourself with us?
I have published my poetry and non-fiction, and I am writing a fictionalized account of living in New York City.

What are you most looking forward to at the final performances?
I look forward to sharing the day with friends and family and seeing my work come alive!

John Dennis David Keane
A Moment of Grace

Tell us what your play is about in 3 sentences or less:
A Moment of Grace is set on a summer evening in the Bronx, where two women from different generations cross paths on a park bench. Their brief encounter turns into a heartfelt exchange about life, faith, and finding strength in hard times.

What was the inspiration behind your piece?
I was inspired to write this after seeing a man praying in the park and reflecting on conversations I frequently have with a woman at work.

Have you participated in Theaterworks! before and if so how many times?
This is my eighth year in TheatherWorks!

Can you share a fun or interesting fact about yourself with us?
I am the son of immigrants.

What are you most looking forward to at the final performances?
I am looking forward to hearing my classmates’ plays, especially those by students experiencing their work performed in front of an audience for the first time.

Valerie Knight
Clotilda

Tell us what your play is about in 3 sentences or less:
My play is about the arrival of the last slave ship, the Clotilda, to Mobile, Alabama in 1860. It explores the motivations of the two men who through a bet, illegally brought 111 slaves from Africa and the manifestations of that bet today.

What was the inspiration behind your piece?
I was inspired by the recent discovery of the ship in Mobile Bay, my personal background, and the astonishing number of factors in the story-slavery, objectification, the building of a town by the former slaves, and the pollution of that town, and the present day family members on both sides that have begun to discuss reparations.

Have you participated in Theaterworks! before and if so how many times?
I’ve participated in Theatreworks since 2018, with 4 readings and one production.

Can you share a fun or interesting fact about yourself with us?
It’s quite possible that my great-great grandmother was on the Clotilda., the slave ship depicted in the play.

What are you most looking forward to at the final performances?
I’m always excited to share with an audience. Finally, whatever were my thoughts and inspiration that were dancing in my head are offered. I am then honored to receive the gift of their response.

Tim Main
Low Tide

Tell us what your play is about in 3 sentences or less:
Low Tide is about a man’s opportunity to gain credit and generosity due from an old friend when the tables have turned in his favor. He bargains in a situation of physical peril where wealth and power are rendered useless.

What was the inspiration behind your piece?
This piece was inspired by fellow students I knew in art school and my love of sailing.

Have you participated in Theaterworks! before and if so how many times?
This is my first time participating in Theaterworks.

Can you share a fun or interesting fact about yourself with us?
Since childhood, I’ve collected old railroad timetables. A favorite one acquired was issued by the Florida East Coast Railway on the eve of the 1935 Labor Day hurricane which destroyed the railroad line across the Keys between Miami and Key West. In this digital age few transit agencies even print schedules now.

What are you most looking forward to at the final performances?
I’m most looking forward to actors bringing stories to life which I’ve heard grow and transform during the course of this workshop.

Pete Mergel

Tell us what your play is about in 3 sentences or less:
The synopsis of my play is things are not always what they seem.

What was the inspiration behind your piece?
The inspiration came from the movie Trading Places.

Have you participated in Theaterworks! before and if so how many times?
This is my 8th year participating in TheaterWorks!

Can you share a fun or interesting fact about yourself with us?
Some of my 10 minute plays have been given stage readings, full productions, and published throughout the country.They were all written and developed in TheaterWorks!

Laura Muneton
The Exit

Tell us what your play is about in 3 sentences or less:
The Exit portrays the final conversation between a clinical director and her employer inside a wellness practice in Manhattan. What begins as a routine “closure” meeting unravels into an exploration of manipulation, burnout, and the quiet violence of professional care work. It’s about reclaiming voice in a space designed to silence it.

What was the inspiration behind your piece?
The play is drawn from a real workplace confrontation I experienced, one that revealed how the language of “wellness” can be used to obscure exploitation. Writing it allowed me to transform an act of powerlessness into documentation and, in some sense, liberation.

Have you participated in Theaterworks! before and if so how many times?
No, this is my first time participating.

Can you share a fun or interesting fact about yourself with us?
I make playlists for everything I write. The Exit has one built around songs about exhaustion, defiance, and small acts of refusal.

What are you most looking forward to at the final performances?
I’m looking forward to hearing the interpretation and to witness a version of myself that can only exist in play form.

K Nicolini
The Treasures that Bind Us

Tell us what your play is about in 3 sentences or less:
My play, The Treasures that Bind Us, explores the relationship between a mother and son amidst the treasures that entangle their lives.

What was the inspiration behind your piece?
This play is inspired by the women and men who simultaneously feel joy, love, distress, anxiety, and grief with the material memories in their lives.

Have you participated in Theaterworks! before and if so how many times?
This is my second year participating in Theaterworks. I am grateful for the opportunity to have fun writing plays with Director Joe White and my talented peers!

Can you share a fun or interesting fact about yourself with us?
I speak Spanish fluently and am learning Italian.

What are you most looking forward to at the final performances?
I want my play to touch audience members in a way that brings understanding, hope, and compassion while shedding light on the feelings and burdens of more than 1 in 40 Americans who experience clutter and hoarding disorder in their lives.

Shaun Ortiz
Brown Suede Vinyl

Tell us what your play is about in 3 sentences or less:
Brown Suede Vinyl is about a makeup artist that works on a popular television show who seeks justice.

What was the inspiration behind your piece?
Two songs: “U.N.I.T.Y.” by Queen Latifah and “Keep Ya Head Up” by 2PAC.

Have you participated in Theaterworks! before and if so how many times?
This my second time joining this class.

Can you share a fun or interesting fact about yourself with us?
I don’t have any interesting facts to share because I’m still learning.

What are you most looking forward to at the final performances?
I’m looking forward to listening and watching each actor bring our words to life.

Genesis Taina Luciano

Tell us what your play is about in 3 sentences or less:
My play is about bureaucracy as a barricade. It follows Indigo, a twenty something trying to get a form for her job. This seemingly easy task spirals into a series of silly steps, stopping her from receiving the help she needs.

What was the inspiration behind your piece?
I was inspired by a meme of Jesus handing out loaves of bread and baskets of fish, and the caption read “everyone take out your proof of income”. The hoops we have to go through to receive help and support from our government is infuriating, and that’s what birthed the ideas that are in my play.

Have you participated in Theaterworks! before and if so how many times?
This is my first time in Theaterworks!

Can you share a fun or interesting fact about yourself with us?
A movie I worked on went to the Tribeca Film Festival this year! It’s called The Travel Companion by Travis Wood and Alex Mallis. I was a production assistant and the costume assistant.

What are you most looking forward to at the final performances?
I am looking forward to getting to hear my classmates’ plays.

José Terrero

Tell us what your play is about in 3 sentences or less:
My play is about a prosecutor and a defense lawyer in a courtroom. A young woman is on trial accused of letting her 2-year-old daughter burn to death while she was in the bathroom getting high and drinking. Both the lawyers come from homes with an alcoholic father.

What was the inspiration behind your piece?
The inspiration was that I wanted a counterpoint to my previous play. The former leads were men. In the latter women are the leads. I had already come up with the story before last year’s performance. After I saw Dawn and Kit performance, last year, I was suitably impressed. I created two new characters, in the new play, just for them.

Have you participated in Theaterworks! before and if so how many times?
Yes

Can you share a fun or interesting fact about yourself with us?
I love singing in the shower.

What are you most looking forward to at the final performances?
I am looking forward to superb acting and the audience’s reactions.

Christian Toro

Tell us what your play is about in 3 sentences or less:
My Play is about a man who has given up on life and decides to stay still about it while another friend is trying to help him.

What was the inspiration behind your piece?
My inspiration for the piece is of a thought I had when I was going through a crisis.

Have you participated in Theaterworks! before and if so how many times?
No, this is my first time.

Can you share a fun or interesting fact about yourself with us?
I can be pretty good at beatboxing.

What are you most looking forward to at the final performances?
Seeing the actors portray my characters.

Joe White (Director, Teaching Artist) graduated Cum Laude from The University Of Rhode Island with a BA in English and a BFA in Theatre. He has been an active member of the theatre community in New York City for 38 years, performing in off-Broadway theatres, including So-Ho Rep, The Public Theatre, West Side Arts Theatre and Ensemble Studio Theatre. He has performed at the Edinburgh Theatre Festival, toured India and acted in Regional Theatre. Joe’s film and television acting credits include Goodfellas directed by Martin Scorcese, and numerous episodes of TV’s Law and Order and Blue Bloods. As a director, Joe has worked at the Ensemble Studio Theatre, Lincoln Center Institute and The Williamstown Theatre Festival, to name a few. He is an Acting Coach at Fordham Law School and teaches playwriting for The Working Theater. He is a Teaching Artist for Manhattan Theatre Club and Theatre Development Fund. Joe has spent many years volunteering for The 52nd St Project (a program which brings theatre professionals together with the underserved children in Hell’s Kitchen). Joe is a member of Actors & Writers, a theatre company in the Catskill Mountains of New York, where he maintains a home.