Announcing PlayList: Cover to Cover
We are pleased to announce the third annual cycle of PlayList, a short play development series. Each participating playwright will complete the project with a submission-ready 10-minute play and the project will culminate in a public presentation of the play collection. PlayList is for writers of any background, identity, education or experience level who are interested in honing their work on a short script with a room full of artists experienced in new play development. Applicants need to be local to the NYC area to participate, and CRY HAVOC is especially seeking artists from underrepresented communities for this project. No fee to apply or participate, and writers are paid a stipend for the use of their work in the public presentation.
The CRY HAVOC Company believes that writing a script doesn’t have to be a solitary experience. Feedback at key points in the writing process can bring you closer to your goals. Our approach to script development places your writing goals at the center of the workshop discussion, ensuring that collaborators are offering feedback in service of the play you are trying to write.
If you are interested in seeing how our structured feedback process can support your work, apply to be one of our PlayList writers!
PlayList participants will write new 10-minute scripts inspired by creative prompts linked by a theme. The 2025 theme is Cover to Cover; each writer will draw inspiration for a two-character play from a cover song and an album cover.
What’s the Process?
SELECT: Playwrights apply to the project, sharing a writing sample and a cover song and album cover to serve as inspiration for a ten-minute play.
SHUFFLE: The songs and album covers are reassigned randomly among the five selected playwrights.
CREATE: Each PlayList writer drafts a ten-minute, two-character play inspired by another playwright’s prompts.
COLLAB: Writers develop their drafts over several feedback sessions in the CRY HAVOC Workshop.
PLAY: Actors and directors join the process to present the PlayList collection as a public Equity 29-Hour Reading of the plays.
How does the collaboration work?
Each writer works with a facilitator—a CRY HAVOC artist to confer with before/after each feedback session. Facilitators moderate each session in support of the playwright and their goals. The feedback sessions will include our roster of artists with years of new play dramaturgy experience, the other PlayList writers, and their invited guests and colleagues.
PlayList applicants are asked to commit to participation in a preliminary welcome meeting via Zoom, six in-person workshop sessions in NYC, two final-draft Zoom workshop sessions, and the public reading in NYC. See schedule below (all sessions will be in the evening):
Wed. 8/20: Welcome Zoom meeting
Tue. 9/2 and Thu. 9/4: In-person workshops, 1st drafts
Mon. 9/8 and Wed. 9/10: In-person workshops, 2nd drafts
Mon. 9/15 and Wed. 9/17: In-person workshops, 3rd drafts
Wed. 9/24 and Thu. 9/25: Zoom workshops, rehearsal drafts
Wed. 10/8: Public presentation
Who is PlayList for?
This program is for writers of ANY background, especially if you are:
- looking for tools to support the development of new work
- searching for a community to serve as a “home base” for creative feedback and support
- not sure what you are going to write next
- an artist at any stage of your career, from emerging to established, who is looking for new collaborators
What are we looking for?
CRY HAVOC is looking for artists who are interested in:
- discussing their work and their goals
- supporting the work of others
- exploring a system for structured feedback
How can I apply?
If you are interested in participating in PlayList, please submit:
- a 10-page writing sample and brief description why/how is this sample representative of your work?
- a cover song that has particular significance to you and brief explanation - why this song?
- an album cover and brief explanation - why this album cover?
Applications are open through June 23rd. Submissions can be made to THIS FORM.
PlayList-developed plays have received numerous productions and awards, including twice being selected for the Samuel French Off-Off Broadway Short Play Festival, and PlayList alumni playwrights have gone on to prestigious commissions, residencies, and recognition. Read about some of their successes below!
SMJ’s PlayList-developed play sundays in the park with clay & cher was a Top 30 Selection for the Samuel French Off-Off Broadway Short Play Festival, 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 Top 30 Selection for the Samuel French Off-Off Broadway Short Play Festival, 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.
Since participating in PlayList, Mik Berry has been awarded the Ensemble Studio Theatre/Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Science & Technology Project Commission. SMJ has completed the Dramatists Guild Foundation Fellowship, become Co-Artistic Director of Andy’s Summer Playhouse (Wilton, NH), been an Ars Nova CAMP Resident, and a Finalist for the Princess Grace Award in Playwriting/Fellowship at New Dramatists. Bailey Jordan Garcia and fellow PlayList alumnus Roni Ragone have co-founded Fresh Binder Productions, a theatrical home for emerging trans/non-binary/genderqueer playwrights. Bailey has also had three commissions since PlayList, two with PlayGround NYC and one with Appalachian Center for the Arts, and they have been selected as a member of Purple Light Productions' Pallet Cohort. Roni has had numerous full productions of other work since PlayList, with Boone Community Theatre, Time2Shine, House of Rooted Festival, Out/Play Summer Shorts Festival, among others. Marcus Scott has won the Chesley/Bumbalo Award for Playwriting, which came with an artist residency with the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation. He has been a semifinalist for the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center National Playwrights Conference, a finalist for the Dramatists Guild Foundation National Fellows Program, a Top 30 finalist for the 2025 Lambda Literary's 2025 Writers Retreat for Emerging LGBTQ Voices, and selected as an artist-in-residence with The Outrage - A Queer Writer’s Residency. He has also had a screenplay designated as a semifinalist for the ScreenCraft Virtual Pitch Competition, and a full length play advanced to the Second Round in the Stage Play category at the Austin Film Festival Playwriting Competition. He has had full productions of his work by the Black Theatre Troupe of Upstate NY and the Black Men Talk Play Festival (upcoming), a reading with the Garden State New Play Festival, and a publication in OBSIDIAN. Matty Mahoski has completed their year-long fellowship with write it out! through New World Foundation that culminated in a reading at The Dramatists Guild, and participated in Fresh Binder’s writers’ cohort. They have also been named a semifinalist for Rattlestick Theater’s Terrence McNally New Works Incubator, La Mama’s Experiments in Playwriting Fellowship, and Fault Line Theatre Company’s Irons in the Fire. Veda Kumarjiguda has had full-length readings at the Dramatists Guild Foundation and Lab86, been selected for the Playwright Residency at Nancy Manocherian’s the cell theatre, and been awarded the ESPA Mary Louise Scholarship. Cherise Kimoy has completed her MFA in dramatic writing at NYU Tisch and been asked to be a commencement speaker at graduation. She has a debut solo showcase and a reading of her thesis play coming up soon. Gaurav Mishra has joined the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theater Writing Workshop and composed and sound designed for shows in FL, NY, and CA. He has also been invited to Drama Club Productions's writing residency, "Camp".