Launched in the 2022-23 season and fully supported by the late Judith Champion, philanthropist and former MTC Patron, this Fellowship provides artistic and financial resources to one playwright each season to write and develop a new commissioned play in residence at MTC. Fellowship recipients will also participate in the life of the institution in a manner tailored to their strengths and interests. In addition to a commission, the recipient will be provided with a living allowance, access to office and rehearsal space, a ticket stipend, and a developmental workshop of at least one play during their fellowship year.

2024-2025 Fellow: Eboni Booth

Eboni Booth is a writer and actor from New York City. Her plays include Primary Trust (Roundabout Theatre, Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Outer Critics Circle Award) and Paris (Atlantic Theater). For television, she has written for Hulu’s “We Were the Lucky Ones” and HBO Max’s “Julia.” As an actor, Eboni has appeared in productions at Playwrights Horizons, LCT3, Manhattan Theatre Club, Ars Nova, WP Theater, Page 73, Soho Rep., Clubbed Thumb, and more. Eboni is a resident playwright at New Dramatists, and the recipient of a Dramatists Guild Horton Foote Award, a Steinberg Playwright Award, a Helen Merrill Award for Playwriting, and a John Gassner Award. She is a graduate of Juilliard’s playwriting program and the University of Vermont.

2023-2024 Fellow: Sanaz Toossi

Sanaz Toossi is an Iranian-American playwright from Orange County, California. Her plays include the critically acclaimed, Pulitzer Prize-winning English (co-production Atlantic Theater Company/Roundabout Theatre Company) and Wish You Were Here (Playwrights Horizons; Williamstown/Audible, released 2020). She is currently under commission at Atlantic Theater Company (Launch commission; Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation grant), Roundabout Theatre Company, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Manhattan Theatre Club, South Coast Repertory, and Oregon Shakespeare Festival (American Revolutions Cycle). In television, Sanaz recently staffed on “Invitation to a Bonfire” (AMC); “A League of Their Own” (Amazon); “Five Women” (Marielle Heller/ Big Beach); and sold an original idea, “The Persians,” to FX with Joe Weisberg & Joel Fields attached as Executive Producers. Sanaz is a member of Youngblood and the Middle Eastern American Writers Lab at the Lark, and an alum of Clubbed Thumb’s Early Career Writers’ Group. She was the 2019 P73 Playwriting Fellow, a recipient of the 2020 Steinberg Playwright Award, the 2022 recipient of The Horton Foote Award and, most recently, the 2023 recipient of the Best New American Play Obie Award. MFA: NYU Tisch

2022-2023 Fellow: Zora Howard

Zora Howard is a Harlem-bred writer and performer. Plays include STEW (2021 Pulitzer Prize Finalist, Drama League nominee for Outstanding Play; Page 73 Productions), THE MASTER’S TOOLS (Williamstown Theatre Festival), AtGN (Oberlin College), BUST (2022 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize Finalist), and HANG TIME. Her work has been developed with SPACE at Ryder Farm, Ojai Playwrights Conference, Primary Stages, and Cape Cod Theatre Project, among others. In 2020, her feature film Premature (2020 Film Independent John Cassavetes Award nominee), which she co-wrote with director Rashaad Ernesto Green, opened in theaters following its world premiere at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival. She was the 2020-2021 Van Lier New Voices Fellow at the Lark and is currently under commission from Seattle Rep, MTC, and Wessex Grove. 

Established in 2000 through a partnership with the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, this program awards commissions for new plays that explore scientific or technological themes and supports productions of plays surrounding these themes. The partnership began with MTC’s production of David Auburn’s acclaimed play Proof, which went on to win the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Since then, over 100 Sloan commissions have been awarded. Click here to learn more about this program.