Sound Lab

SOUND LAB is a new, yearlong residency in which playwrights create new fiction podcasts.  We are embarking on a journey into a new frontier that derives from many established practices and demands new ways of thinking, developing and collaborating.   Sound Lab was inspired by a diner conversation between old friends, Harrison David Rivers and Theresa Buchheister. They are joined by new collaborator, River Donaghey, in this inaugural year.

MORE INFORMATION ABOUT EACH SOUND LAB ARTIST:


Harrison David Rivers

Harrison is the winner of the 2018 Relentless Award for his play the bandaged place.

His produced plays include: When Last We Flew (GLAAD Media Award, NYFringe Excellence in Playwriting Award, NYFringe, Diversionary Theatre, TheatreLAB, Real Live Theatre), Sweet (AUDELCO nomination for Best Play, National Black Theatre), And She Would Stand Like This (20% Theatre Company, The Movement Theatre Company), Where Storms Are Born (Berkshire Theatre Award nomination for Best New Play, Edgerton Foundation New Play Award, Williamstown Theatre Festival), A Crack in the Sky (History Theatre), Five Points (MN Theatre Award for Exceptional New Work, Lavender Magazine citation for Outstanding New Playwriting, BroadwayWorld Minneapolis Award for Best New Work, Inclusion in MinnPost’s year-end “Best” List, Theatre Latte Da) This Bitter Earth (MN Theatre Award for Exceptional New Work, Lavender Magazine citation for Outstanding New Playwriting, Joseph Jefferson Award nomination for Best Production, New Conservatory Theatre Center, Penumbra, About Face), To Let Go and Fall (Theatre Latte Da) and
Broadbend, Arkansas (Transport Group/Public Theater).

Harrison was named a Runner-up for the 2018 Artist of the Year by the Star Tribune and a 2017 Artist of the Year by City Pages. He has received McKnight and Many Voices Jerome Fellowships, a Van Lier Fellowship, an Emerging Artist of Color Fellowship and residencies with the Bogliasco Foundation, the Siena Art Institute, the Hermitage and Duke University. Harrison was the 2016 Playwright-in-Residence at the Williamstown Theatre Festival. Harrison is an alum of the Public Theater’s Emerging Writers’ Group, Interstate 73, NAMT and The Lincoln Center Directors’ Lab. He is a NYTW Usual Suspect and a member of the Playwright Center’s Board of Directors.

Theresa Buchheister

Theresa is the Artistic Director of The Brick Theater, Co-Artistic Director of Title:Point, Founder and Co-Curator of The Exponential Festival. In addition to writing, directing, performing and producing theater, Theresa works as a voice over director, performer, engineer and teacher. Theresa has directed hundreds of audiobooks (How Music Works by David Byrne, Leaving the Sea by Ben Marcus, The Short Stories of Lydia Davis, The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky) and some fun cartoons (BoyGirlDogCatMouseCheese, Pokemon, Winx Club, Denver), as well as narrating spicy novels and voicing villains. Theresa teaches at HB Studio.

River Donaghey

River is an Oregon-born writer, filmmaker, and podcast producer based in Los Angeles.

As a documentary host and producer for VICE, he has raced horses in Guatemala, trained as a firefighter with prison inmates in California, and interviewed Obama’s climate advisor at the White House. He is currently in development on an original TV series with Peter Dinklage’s production company, Estuary.

He co-produced the story “Ken Kesey’s Acid Quest” for the award-winning radio show, On the Media, and was a featured guest on NPR’s All Things Considered. His work has been featured on NPRWNYC, the AtlanticJezebel, and more. A Japanese fashion magazine once called him a “promising novice.”


Mariam Bazeed

Mariam is a nonbinary Egyptian immigrant, writer, and performer living in a rent-stabilized apartment in Brooklyn. An alliteration-leaning writer of prose, poetry, plays, and personal essays, Mariam received an MFA in Fiction from Hunter College in 2018. M’s work has been supported by fellowships from the Asian American Writers Workshop, the Center for Fiction, the Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics at NYU, the Lambda Literary Foundation, and Trans Lab; and with residencies from Hedgebrook, Marble House Project, the Millay Colony, and the Kimmel Nelson Harding Center for the Arts. M’s first play, Peace Camp Org—available in anthology from Oberon Books, UK—has been presented at La Mama Theater, NYC (2017) in the Squirts Festival of Queer Performance Art; the Arcola Theatre, London (2018), in its inaugural festival of International Queer Playwrights; and The Wild Project, NYC (2018), in the Fresh Fruit Festival, where it won the festival’s Spirit Award. 
To procrastinate from facing the blank page, Mariam curates and runs a monthly(ish) world-music salon and open mic in Brooklyn, and is a slow student of Arabic music.


Allyson Dwyer

Allyson is a playwright from New Jersey who writes to dismantle and challenge the internal and external discomfort felt by women  whether physically or online. Her full-length plays include The Myth of the Tree, The Hub (Princess Grace Fellowship Semi-Finalist), and her most recent play, Nothing Remained But Voice and Bones (NAP Reading Series Semi-Finalist, New American Voices Semi-Finalist). BFA: The New School. MFA: Augsburg University. Website: www.allysondwyer.comNPX: https://newplayexchange.org/users/20196/allyson-dwyer


Justin Gates and Celine Snippe – 

Justin is a Brooklyn-based songwriter, librettist, and performer, with degrees from Berklee College of Music (2016) and NYU Tisch’s Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program (2019). His current works include the musicals Sawyer Thompson: A New England Beach Dramedy with Colin Gallagher (programmed for workshop with the New Studio on Broadway), and the Lovecraft-inspired The Place Between with Celine Snippe. He has had songs performed in the Curtain Up Musical Theatre Festival in Boston, the New and Newer Festival in Seattle, Two River Theatre in New Jersey, and the PIT Loft and the Duplex’s ‘In the Works’ Series in NYC. Gates also co-created the noir podcast The City Below (pilot produced by NYU Production Lab) with Snippe, and is the songwriter and co-star of the musical webseries Unintentional, currently in-production with Gallagher and director Sarah Mickey.

Celine is a playwright, lyricist, and librettist from the Netherlands. She holds an MFA in Musical Theatre Writing (New York University), an MA in Musical Theatre (Goldsmiths, University of London), and a BA in Theatre Studies (University of Amsterdam). Recent works: THE PLACE BETWEEN, 29-hour Equity Reading (Directed by Mike Donahue, 2019), selections featured in Curtain Up Festival (Berklee College of Music, 2019 & 2020) and Collaborative Cabaret with the Touring Cast of Wicked (Under the Arch Incubator, 2019), demo available on SoundCloud (2020); FREE SOLO, produced at Tristan Bates Theatre (2017) and Drayton Arms Theatre (2018), participant in BEAM Showcase (2018), Studio Cast Recording on Spotify and Apple Music (2019); THE CITY BELOW, pilot episode produced with support of the NYU Production Lab Podcast Academy (2019). Celine is a lyricist in the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop and she’s a proud member of the Dramatists Guild of America and ASCAP. www.celinesnippe.com

Carl Holder

Carl is a playwright and actor. He grew up in North Florida, now he lives in Brooklyn with three roommates and his dog.

He has developed and/or performed work with Incubator Arts Project, EST, Dennis and Victoria Ross Foundation, The Tank, FringeNYC, The Brick, Standard Toykraft, The Gym at Judson, House of Yes, Hearth Gods, Allegra LaViola Gallery, The Gene Frankel, Ice Factory and The New Ohio.

He is the Artistic Director of Glass Bandits Theater Company. He has written, acted, and directed on both sides of the East River for GB in various festivals, basements, warehouses, and loft apartments.

His play Until You Come Back to Me won the 2020 Goldberg Play Prize.

Back to Top