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Working Theater’s Playwright-in-Residence program brings today’s most talented and dynamic writers into our creative home to develop daring new work that explores the rich, complex lives of working people. Joining us for a season and receiving support and development, our resident playwrights craft stories rooted in the realities of labor, community, and resilience. Their work centers voices too often left out of the spotlight of NYC theater and celebrates the dignity and drama of everyday working life.
“Working Theater’s mission is so fundamentally ethical and humanistic. I feel really inspired by the company’s political and philosophical heart. Being part of Working Theater feels like an opportunity to continue my education, and to push my work in a new direction.” -Kallan Dana.
As part of her residency, Kallan will explore the work of air traffic controllers and examine the pressures and humanity of those who keep our skies safe.
Kallan Dana has developed or presented work with Clubbed Thumb, New Georges, The Hearth, The Tank, Bramble Theatre Company, Dixon Place, Northwestern University, and Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute. She is a New Georges affiliated artist and 2025 Audrey Resident, and co-founder of the artist collaboration group TAG at the Tank. She received the 2025 National Theatre Conference Paul Green Award. MFA: Northwestern University.
In conjunction with this residency, Working Theater is thrilled to join The Action Lab as an Anchor Partner. In doing so, we are able to offer our Playwright in Residence more resources towards development while reaching new audiences to ignite conversations and spark change in our communities.
In addition to being a Playwright-in-Residence at Working theater, our Playwrights will be an Artist in Action Fellow at The Action Lab. The Artists in Action Fellowship aims to further cultivate the relationship between art and social justice by connecting artists to organizers and organizers to artists. This allows our Playwrights in Residence to play a more tangible role in our push toward liberation as well as provide organizers with new creative tools for their arsenal.
The Action Lab is a strategy center for social movements that sparks political and personal liberation. They provide rigorous and joyful spaces for organizers, leaders and artists to learn, to create and to strengthen our capacity to win. They strive to build a powerful culture that lifts us out of the immediate and enables us to envision and realize a just future. https://www.actionlabny.org/