New Play Series

Brand new, unpublished plays are read by local Austin actors in our New Play Series! Producers, influencers, lovers of art – check it out on our youtube channel! Online for a few weeks only are Red Refrigerator by Amina Henry and Plastic Nest by Tracy Held. NOTE: These were originally live events. So you’ll need to pull a 1985 and fast forward to about minute 4 or 5 to skip the technical difficulties section. There was also a live talkback after each read (which is why the readings look so long).

Amina Henry is a Brooklyn-based playwright. Productions include: Hunter John and Jane at JACK, Ducklings at JACK, The Animals at JACK, Happily Ever at Brooklyn College, An American Family Takes a Lover at Theater for the New City, Water produced by Drama of Works, The Minstrel Show, produced as part of the 2013 Bring a Weasel and a Pint of Your Own Blood Festival at 13th Street Theater/CSC (NYC), and Bully at Interrobang Theater, Clubbed Thumb, Mirror BoxTheatre, and SUNY Purchase. She is currently working on commissions from The New Group, HERO Theater, and Project Y Theatre. Her work has been developed by, produced, and/or presented at: The New Group, The Flea, Ars Nova, Clubbed Thumb, Page 73, National Black Theater, Barefoot Theater, Little Theater at Dixon Place, HERE Arts Center, Oregon Shakespeare Festival (Ashland, OR), Kitchen Dog Theater (Dallas, TX), Interrobang Theatre (Baltimore, MD), National Winter Playwrights Retreat (Creede, CO), Black and Latino Playwrights Conference (Texas State) among other theaters and venues. She has been a participant in Clubbed Thumb’s Early Career Writers group, Ars Nova’s 2017-2018 PlayGroup and Page 73’s Interstate 73 writers group and is currently a New George’s Affiliate Artist. She was a 2017-2018 recipient of a Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC) Space Grant and a 2018 Dixon Place Space Residency. Bully was on the 2015 Kilroy List and her play Burned was Honorable Mention for the 2016 Kilroy List.

Tracy Held (she/they) is a hapa Asian American writer who creates stories for both stage and screen. Originally from the San Francisco Bay Area, she moved to Los Angeles after completing an MFA in Dramatic Writing at Carnegie Mellon University with Rob Handel. She founded and served as the Artistic Director of All Terrain Theater, acted as Executive Director of Play Cafe, and Co-Founded the 31 Plays in 31 Days project. She is a member of the Dramatists Guild, the Writers Guild of America, and is an alum of the National Winter Playwrights Retreat. Her produced work includes stage plays, a web series, political musical film shorts, operas, and super indie comics.