The Playhouse's Arts and Culture Incubator seeks to uplift the work of theatre artists and cultural peers by providing resources and support for their creative efforts. Launched in the spring of 2023, the Arts and Culture Incubator engages local and nationally recognized theatre-makers as well as cultural organizations from our community. The efforts of the incubator fall into two categories:
Our group of Resident Artists is made up of local theatre-makers. The Incubator Partners are small, non-profit cultural organizations based in our community.
The program uses our new state-of-the-art facility to provide resources to a selected group of local artists and cultural organizations to help elevate their work. Partners and Resident Artists have access to Playhouse spaces at no cost for classes, rehearsals, creative work, networking, collaboration with their peers, and public and private events and performances. The Playhouse also provides professional development services crafted to meet each of their unique needs.
From September – June, events and performances are often open to the public and span a wide range of topics and styles. Last season, our partners offered live podcast recordings, panel discussions featuring local Black artists, a choral concert, workshops and performances of new plays, and professional development workshops for artists. These events are usually on Monday evenings and are free or low-cost with proceeds going to the artist or organization. The content of their presentations represents the views and opinions of the partner organization and does not necessarily represent the views and opinions of Playhouse in the Park.
Among the more than 80 world premieres produced since the Playhouse’s founding in 1960 are plays that have been commissioned. Since 2006, our mission to develop new stories and contribute to the American theatre canon has expanded thanks to the Jerome Fey Endowment for New Plays. The funding provided not only pays a playwright to write a new play, it also allows for the readings, workshops and script development necessary to prepare it for full production.
Additionally, the Playhouse invites nationally recognized playwrights the opportunity to workshop or present a staged reading of a work in progress. Staged readings are sometimes open to the public. These important relationships help shape future mainstage programming and heighten the national presence of the Playhouse.
Discover all the exciting events hosted at the Playhouse on our Upcoming Public Events page. From playreadings to events by our Resident Artists, Incubator Partners and New Work Commissions, don't miss out on these unique opportunities to engage with our vibrant artistic community!
Queen City Flash is Director Bridget Leak and Playwright/Composer Trey Tatum. They are committed to:
Creating new plays — critically acclaimed original works, emboldened by experiments with form, augmented with original music and deepened by collaborations with neighbors and partners.
Money in people’s pockets, not on the walls — where a minimum of 51 percent of the budget goes to paying local artists, not sustaining venues or overhead.
Open access — creating experiences that an entire family can afford, enjoyed in transformed and relaxed environments.
Queen City Flash: Bold Stories, Irreverently Told.
An award-winning playwright and AEA actor, Maggie Lou tells epic stories about epic women. After growing up in rural southwest Oklahoma, she attended William Jewell College, Oxford University, and the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire. Her work has been seen off-Broadway in New York, as well as Chicago and Los Angeles, and on Tony Award-winning stages. She’s won the Theater J Patty Abramson Jewish Play Prize with Theatre J in DC and the Notre Dame College New Play Festival and was selected for Utah Shakespeare Festival’s Words Cubed Program and Red Bull Theater’s New Short Play Festival. She’s been a finalist for the Henley Rose Playwrighting Award for Women, Central Florida Community Arts New Play Festival, twice for the Lanford Wilson Festival, a semi-finalist for the Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, The Road Theater Summer Playwrights Festival, the Garry Marshall Theatre New Works Festival, Dayton Playhouse’s Future Fest, and UP Theater's Renewal Reading Series. Her work has been developed at DePaul University, Human Race Theatre, Inkwell Theatre, Skeleton Rep, and Occasional Drawl Productions and seen at Know Theatre, InBocca Performance, Commonwealth Theatre Center, The Marsh, Eclectic Full Contact Theatre, Idaho Shakespeare, Urban Stages, Theatre Pro Rata, and colleges from coast to coast.
Isaiah Reaves is an emerging young playwright whose work explores a spectrum of Black and Queer experiences. A native of Cincinnati, he graduated cum laude from Northern Kentucky University in 2020. His plays have been commissioned and staged by Ensemble Theatre Cincinnati, Cincinnati Shakespeare Company and many others. Isaiah has received five Michael Kanin Playwriting Awards at the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival. He is also a semi-finalist for the Ucross and The Blank Theatre Future of Playwriting Prize, a 2020 finalist of the Jackie Demaline Regional Collegiate Playwriting Competition, an Iowa Arts Fellow, and a recipient of a Cincinnati CityBeat Critic’s Pick.
Curtis D. Shepard is an actor, writer and spoken-word artist, as well as the founder of the grassroots support group for dads, D.A.A.M. (Dads Against Angry Moms), which supports moms with more than money and encourages absent dads to be present dads, present dads to be good dads, good dads to be great dads and great dads to reach out and share their experiences and strengths. In August 2022, D.A.A.M.’s first annual Legacy Letters event showcased daughters, mothers and wives sharing through song, poetry and short stories how the legacy of father figures in their lives (and lack thereof) has shaped and influenced them. Curtis has kept busy touring and perfecting his two, one-man shows, UnMasked and Sidewaze Rain, while also co-starring in Greg Stallworth’s stage play Trapped, which premiered at the Indianapolis Fringe Festival in August 2022. His latest collaboration with Greg Stallworth, A Black Father’s Plea, will make its debut at The Indianapolis Onyx Festival in spring 2023. In 2021, his staged reading of Get Off Of Me was performed at the Pacific Northwest Multi Cultural Readers Series & Film Festival. Curtis was a finalist in the 2021 Breath Project with his production, Ronnie and Vince.
Cincinnati Pride, The Ghostlight Stage Company, Urban Native Collective, and Young Professionals Choral Collective of Cincinnati
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