Menu
Max Garcia is a 24 year old Playwright, Director, & Filmmaker from The Bronx, New York City. Past writing credits include a staged reading of his play “Fly” for The People’s Theater. His first film “Deli” is currently going on an award winning Film Festival run.
Brian Francis Pickett has worked as a teaching artist, adjunct instructor, program coordinator, and carpenter. Currently, Brian teaches English at A. Philip Randolph Career and Technical High School in Philadelphia, and is a member of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers. His past theater projects include: Debs ‘08, a political cabaret co-written and performed with Sulu LeoNimm, various community-based shows with The Romero Troupe (Denver), and Caryl Churchill’s “Seven Jewish Children” (Theaters Against War/Brecht Forum, in support of Alrowwad Cultural Center in Bethlehem, Palestine.) Brian is happy to be a recipient of the Mark Plesent Commission Fund, and looks forward to writing with the support of the Working Theater.
Martyna Majok (Max’s mentor) was awarded the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for her Broadway debut play, Cost of Living, which was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Play. Other plays include Sanctuary City, Queens, and Ironbound, which have been produced across American and international stages, and the libretto for Gatsby: An American Myth, with music by Florence Welch and Thomas Bartlett. Other awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship, The Steinberg Distinguished Playwright Award, Arthur Miller Foundation Legacy Award, The Obie Award for Playwriting, The Hull-Warriner Award, The Academy of Arts and Letters’ Benjamin Hadley Danks Award for Exceptional Playwriting, The Sun Valley Playwrights Residency Award, Off Broadway Alliance Best New Play Award, The Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding New Play, The Hermitage Greenfield Prize, as the first female recipient in drama, The Champions of Change Award from the NYC Mayor’s Office, The Francesca Primus Prize, two Jane Chambers Playwriting Awards, The Lanford Wilson Prize, The Lilly Award’s Stacey Mindich Prize, Helen Merrill Emerging Playwright Award, Charles MacArthur Award for Outstanding Original New Play from The Helen Hayes Awards, Jean Kennedy Smith Playwriting Award, ANPF Women’s Invitational Prize, David Calicchio Prize, Global Age Project Prize, NYTW 2050 Fellowship, NNPN Smith Prize for Political Playwriting, and Merage Foundation Fellowship for The American Dream. Martyna studied at Yale School of Drama, Juilliard, University of Chicago, and Jersey public schools. She was a 2012-2013 NNPN playwright-in-residence, the 2015-2016 PoNY Fellow at the Lark Play Development Center, and a 2018-2019 Hodder Fellow at Princeton University. Martyna is currently adapting Ray Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451” for the Broadway stage, and has developed TV projects for HBO and written feature films for Plan B, Pastel, and MGM/Orion.
Naomi Wallace (Brian’s Mentor) Naomi’s plays have been produced in the United States, the U.K., Europe and the Middle East and include One Flea Spare, The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek, In the Heart of America, The Breach, Things of Dry Hours, The Fever Chart: Three Vision of the Middle East, And I and Silence, Night is a Room, The Return of Benjamin Lay (co-written with Marcus Rediker) and an adaptation of Returning to Haifa by Ghassan Kanafani and The Corpse Washer by Sinan Antoon (both adaptations co-written with Ismail Khalidi).
Awards include the MacArthur Award, Obie Award, Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, Fellowship of Southern Writers Drama Award, Horton Foote Award, Arts and Letters Award in Literature, and the inaugural Windham Campbell prize for drama. In 2025 Wallace was inducted into the Kentucky Writers Hall of Fame. Wallace is currently writing the John Mellencamp musical Jack and Diane.
Known for bridging the access gap to theater, Mark leaned into work that reflected the racial, cultural, class, and economic differences of his constituency (what he called his beloved audience). He accepted that these differences would sometimes be divisive, but he always believed that ‘what makes us different is the most interesting thing about us’.
Conceived with Mark Plesent before his passing in February 2021, The Mark Plesent Commission Fund supports the commission and development of new plays by working people– in particular, those who have not had the privilege or the resources to self-identify or support themselves professionally as artists, but who have shown extraordinary talent, consistency of practice and a commitment to writing within the mission of Working Theater. Mark recognized that many within the communities that Working Theater serves are storytellers themselves. The Fund will support five years of annual new play commissions, providing mentorship, financial support, and developmental support to writers who are deserving of an audience.
Learn more about Mark Plesent by reading the tribute to Mark in American Theater written by Co-Artistic Director, Tamilla Woodard.
Take a look at previous recipients and mentors from the program here.