ARS NOVA ARTISTS IN RESIDENCE

THE DEBATE SOCIETY: The Debate Society is a Brooklyn based company that creates new plays through the collaboration of Hannah Bos, Paul Thureen (writer/performers) and Oliver Butler (director/developer). The company specializes in creating unexpected stories set in supremely intricate, vividly theatrical worlds. The Debate Society’s plays include Buddy Cop 2 (Ontological-Hysteric Incubator; published by Samuel French), You’re Welcome (The Brick; published by Playscripts), Cape Disappointment (PS122; published by Samuel French and in PLAY A JOURNAL OF PLAYS), The Eaten Heart, The Snow Hen and A Thought About Raya. The Debate Society trio are recipients of a 2012 Obie Grant, Sundance Institute Fellows, winners of a 2010 “Village Voice Best of Award” for “Best Argument for Devised Theater” and the 2012 Ars Nova Company in Residence. The company is currently developing three new full-length plays: Blood Play (supported by The Six Points Fellowship), Untitled World’s Fair Play (supported by The Sundance Institute) and a third brand new work commissioned by Ars Nova.

NIKOS TSAKALAKOS is a composer-lyricist whose production credits include Pool Boy (New York premier at NYU Steinhardt, 2012; world premier Barrington Stage Company [BSC], 2010), Litter (American Conservatory Theatre, 2011), Duck for President (co-writer TheatreworksUSA, 2010–2011), Driving West (reading Ars Nova, 2012), Songs of a Night Owl (Ars Nova, 2009; BSC, 2008), and Late Nite with Niko (BSC, 2007). His original scores include Rock, Paper, Scissors: The Way of the Tosser (Alliance Films, 2007). His songs have been heard at New York venues such as Joe’s Pub, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and Birdland. In Los Angeles, his band Saint Friday performed at venues such as The Viper Room, The Roxy and The Troubadour. He is a two-time recipient of UCLA Barry Manilow Scholarship, sponsored by Barry Manilow and Concord Records, for “excellence in the art and craft of lyric writing.” He is also an inaugural artists of the Rhinebeck Writers Retreat (2011) and recipient of the NAMT Writers Grant (2012). B.A. in English Literature from Rutgers University. M.F.A. in musical theater writing from New York University in 2008 under the mentorship of William Finn.

PETER SINN NACHTRIEB is a San Francisco-based playwright whose works include boom (TCG's most produced play 2009-10), BOB, (2011 Humana Festival for New American Plays at Actor’s Theatre of Louisville, Barrie and Bernice Stavis Award),  T.I.C. (Trenchcoat In Common), Hunter Gatherers (2007 ATCA/Steinberg New Play Award, 2007 Will Glickman Prize), Colorado, and Litter: The True Story of the Framingham Dodecutuplets. His work has been seen off-Broadway and across the country including at Ars Nova, SPF, Woolly Mammoth, Seattle Repertory, Actors Theatre of Louisville, San Diego Rep, and in the Bay Area at  A.C.T., Encore Theatre, Killing My Lobster, Z Space, Marin Theatre Company, Impact Theatre, and The Bay Area Playwrights Festival.  Currently he’s working on a commission through the National New Play Network and New Dramatists Full Stage USA program, as well as an original musical .  Peter holds a degree in Theater and Biology from Brown and an MFA in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University.  Peter is a member of New Dramatists. He likes to promote himself online at www.peternachtrieb.com.

ISAAC OLIVER: Hailed as a “monstrous new talent” by New York Magazine, Isaac Oliver’s plays include Electra in a One-Piece, Eddie Goshen is Dead, Long Dirty Jokes, Slim, Dancing Joy, and “Come Here” (2011 New York Innovative Theatre Award, Outstanding Original Short Script). His poetry has been published in The Full Spectrum: A New Generation of Writing About Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Questioning, and Other Identities, a Knopf anthology. His blog, He Who Laughs, or The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Intimacy, can be read at www.hewholaughs.com. Isaac regularly performs a solo storytelling show, Isaac Oliver: Intimacy Idiot, at Ars Nova. He is a graduate of Carver Center for Arts and Technology in Baltimore and Fordham College at Lincoln Center. 

RACHEL BONDS: Originally from Sewanee, TN, Rachel Bonds is a playwright and performer currently living in Brooklyn.  Her plays have been developed at New Georges, Ars Nova, Ensemble Studio Theatre, LaMaMa, The Flea, Playwrights Horizons, The Greenpoint Division, The Sewanee Writers’ Conference and The Atlantic Center for the Arts.  She is an Affiliated Artist with New Georges; a member of Youngblood, Ensemble Studio Theatre’s company of emerging professional playwrights; and a proud member of Ars Nova’s Play Group.   She was a 2011 Associate Artist in Residence at The Atlantic Center for the Arts and the Father William Ralston Fellow at the 2011 Sewanee Writers’ Conference.  She is currently a finalist for the Lila Acheson Wallace Playwrights Program at Juilliard and is a new playwriting mentor in the Pen American Center's prison writing program.  Rachel is a graduate of Brown University.

PORTIA KRIEGER: Recent projects include Samuel D. Hunter's When You're Here (Williamstown), Too Much Too Soon (Lesser America), Kathryn Walat's This Is Not Antigone (New Georges), Florencia Lozano’s BUSTED (Rising Phoenix) and Eager to Lose and The Wii Plays (Ars Nova). Portia was the 2011 Boris Sagal Fellow at the Williamstown Theater Festival. She’s an alumna of the Drama League Directors Project and the Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab, and is a co-founder of the New Georges Jam. She is Ars Nova’s 2012 Director-in-Residence.

SHAINA TAUB is a Vermont-raised, New York-based performer/songwriter and Ars Nova’s 2012 Composer-in-Residence. She writes for and performs in Political Subversities, a long-running hit weekly musical sketch show at the People’s Improv Theater, whose music video of her song, "Political Wife," was featured on Huffington Post Comedy. She has also performed in Ars Nova's Uncharted series. Her original folk-funk opera, The Daughters, has been produced at CAP21 Theatre Company and the Yale Institute of Music Theater. She’s currently writing a new musical commissioned by the Tony-Award winning Oregon Shakespeare Festival. shainataub.com