Staff

Co-Artistic Directors: Matt Cowart & Jennifer Curfman
Managing Director: Jerzy Gwiazdowski
Associate Artistic Director: Katelin Wilcox

About the Company

CRY HAVOC is a not-for-profit, new play development company based in New York City. Since its founding in 1997, CRY HAVOC has developed hundreds of new plays, screenplays, and musicals through its Workshop program. In that time, CRY HAVOC has also produced world premieres of more than a dozen new plays. Projects developed with CRY HAVOC have been published, made into award-winning films, and produced in major venues in New York, across the United States, and all over the world.

Success Stories

Publications, awards, production reviews and other cool stuff about CRY HAVOC-developed scripts

  • Lincoln Center

    CRY HAVOC was commissioned by Lincoln Center to create an evening of short plays inspired by the events of the Lincoln Center campus and the environment of the Atrium. The evening was part of the Lincoln Center Originals series and featured three new plays by CRY HAVOC playwrights, lead performances by six CRY HAVOC actors, and ensemble work from our collaborating artists and apprentices.

  • Best Worst Thing

    Award-winning documentary feature film Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened, about the (in)famous Stephen Sondheim/Hal Prince flop Merrily We Roll Along, was workshopped multiple times with CRY HAVOC. Our artists had roles as a writer, co-producer, producer, and production assistants.

  • PlayList Project

    SMJ’s PlayList-developed play sundays in the park with clay & cher was a Sam French Festival Finalist, was a Finalist & Honorable Mention for the David A. Einhorn Prize, and was performed at the Special 10th Edition of Fucked-Up Play Fest. Roni Ragone’s PlayList-developed play Left Overs was a Sam French Festival Finalist and had two full productions, one with Queer Voices Festival and one with Precarious Nights, Precarious Theatre. Bailey Jordan Garcia’s PlayList-developed play The We Heart Christopher H. Mahoney Through Time and Space Forever Club had a full production with Bite-Sized Spooktacular and a staged reading with Pioneer Productions. Veda Kumarjiguda’s PlayList-developed play Welcome to New York had a reading with Sour Grapes Productions. 

  • Worldwide Festival

    Theaters around the world joined together to celebrate the 15th anniversary of CRY HAVOC with a Worldwide Festival. Performances of plays developed by the company, totaling 39 productions of 25 plays by 12 playwrights in four languages on every continent - including a reading by scientists at a research station on Antarctica!

  • Reviews

    “Splendid! Kiki Baby should be required viewing for anyone trying to understand the country’s current economic crisis.” -Backstage review of Kiki Baby by Lonny Price, Kitt Lavoie, and Grant Sturiale. Kiki Baby was also the winner of the 2011 Theater for the American Musical Prize.

    Reviews of The Pawnbroker, by Katelin Wilcox: “A tidy, insightful, and provocative piece of storytelling.” -Theatre is Easy “Well written and passionate” -NY Theater Now

  • Sam French Festival

    realer than that by Kitt Lavoie was a Sam French Off-Off Broadway Short Play Festival winner.

    The Cooking King and Stalled by Sharon E. Cooper, Good Enough by Kitt Lavoie, Hot Air by Katelin Wilcox, sundays in the park with clay & cher by SMJ, and Left Overs by Roni Ragone were Sam French Festival finalists.

  • Playwright Incubator

    Through CRY HAVOC’s Workshop and Apprentice programs, we are proud to be the company where dozens of artists wrote their very first plays.

  • Publications

    Hot Air by Katelin Wilcox is published in the Stage Partners collection Ten(ish): Holidays

    Believin' by Sharon E. Cooper is published in the Smith and Krause collection The Best 10-Minute Plays, 2019.

    Good Enough by Kitt Lavoie is published in the Vintage Books collection Plays for Three.

    Painting Seventeen by Sharon E. Cooper is published in the Smith and Krause collection The Best Ten-Minute Plays, 2014.

    Bank & Trust by Kitt Lavoie is published in the Vintage Press collection Plays for Two.

    The Cooking King by Sharon E. Cooper is published in The Best Ten-Minute Plays, 2010.

  • Award-winning Short Films

    The Seven Men of Hanukkah and Believin', both by Sharon E. Cooper, were made into award-winning short films. The Seven Men of Hanukkah was a winner of the Boston Jewish Film Festival. Believin' was a winner of the Chain Film Festival's Filmmaker's Favorite Award.

    Rainbow Rabbit Reliant, a screenplay by Kitt Lavoie, won multiple awards on the festival circuit.

501c3 Mission Statement:

The CRY HAVOC Company develops new plays and reinvestigates existing plays in an environment that demands that artists challenge the boundaries of their talent and technique. We approach all plays as conflict between individuals struggling to do what each desperately believes is right. CRY HAVOC provides a critical resource for new play development in the form of a community rich in artists devoted to and practiced in the development of new work. We are dedicated to maintaining a resident company of actors, writers, and directors committed to sharing the fruits of our rigorous development process through the immediate power of live performance.