Cadence Pipeline New Works Fellowship
Pipeline's first class of Fellows (left to right) with David Lindsay-Abaire: Will Inman, Irene Ziegler, Sanam Laila Hashemi, Steven Burneson, Brittany Fisher. Photo courtesy of Chris Lindsay-Abaire.
Cadence's Pipeline NewWorks Fellowship Program aims to help Virginia-based writers create and develop new works under the mentorship of industry professionals. The playwriting cohort is led by David Lindsay-Abaire, a Tony and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, screenwriter, lyricist, and librettist. Clay McLeod Chapman leads the screenwriting cohort, reflecting Cadence’s commitment to screenplay, film, and web content for growing audiences. Writing commenced with our most recent cohorts in 2023, with monthly meetings. Works written could be selected for further development as Cadence continues to support groundbreaking new works for both stage and screen.
David Lindsay-Abaire
David Lindsay-Abaire is an American playwright, lyricist, and screenwriter. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2007 for his play Rabbit Hole, which also earned several Tony Award nominations. Lindsay-Abaire won both the 2023 Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical and Tony Award for Best Original Score for the musical adaptation of his play Kimberly Akimbo. Other notable works include Good People, Fuddy Meers, Ripcord, Wonder of the World and Shrek The Musical. Lindsay-Abaire wrote the screenplay of the film adaptation of his play Rabbit Hole, which starred Nicole Kidman. His other screenplays include the animated film Robots, written with Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel, Inkheart, based on the novel of the same name, the animated film Rise of the Guardians, based on a story by co-director William Joyce, and Oz the Great and Powerful, written with Mitchell Kapner. He also wrote the screenplay for the 2015 horror remake Poltergeist. In 2016, Lindsay-Abaire was named co-director of Juilliard's Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwrights Program. He attended Sarah Lawrence College and Julliard.
Clay McLeod Chapman
Clay McLeod Chapman writes books, comic books, children's books, as well as for film and television. His most recent novels include What Kind of Mother and Ghost Eaters. You can find him at www.claymcleodchapman.com.
Read the newest on Pipeline
2023-24 Playwrights
Djola Banner
Djola Banner identifies as an interdisciplinary artist/educator/administrator who combines movement, sound and light to create compelling portraits of American life for the stage, focusing on those historically absent from theatre. He is currently the director of the School of Theater at George Mason University.
Juliana Caycedo
Juliana Caycedo began writing out of necessity during the pandemic when avenues of performance were clogged. She is fascinated by the way other people experience life, consuming art and conversation and writing as a way to process what she sees and hears.
Eva DeVirgilis
Eva DeVirgilis turns towards playwriting for the opportunity for connection, after an explosive TEDxRVAwomen talk about the apology reflex of women. Her work strives to create unapologetic spaces where we can safely celebrate, laugh loudly, boast, reflect, connect, forgive and feel worthy.
Andrew Gall
Working in the theatre industry for thirty years, Andrew Gall has a wealth of experience as a multidisciplinary artist and administrator. Turning his focus to writing, Andrew is currently getting his MFA in Playwriting/Screenwriting from Augsburg University and is enthusiastically looking forward to close collaboration within this fellowship.
Olivia Luzquinos
Olivia Luzquinos is currently finishing a BA in Musical Theater with a minor in Screenwriting from American University, coming off of a recent engagement at SigWorks with her play, Damn Things Will Kill Ya. Olivia’s writing builds off dialogue between complex women and authentic queer relationships, deciphering what exactly she wants to say about this world.
M Mary Sullivan
M Mary Sullivan, who works in the mental health field, observes how people interact with humor after walking through horrendous life situations. He writes for the different parts of ourselves; the young parts, old parts, rebellious teenage parts, the parts we wish we could return to. He notes that while the pursuit of writing may seem lonely, the end result is always a feeling of not being alone.
Liv Wilson
Liv Wilson, dramaturg, playwright, librettist, and theatremaker, writes to make sense of the world, themselves, and the relationship between the two. They wrestle with the frustrating anomaly of trying to pin down play, an action inherently unencumbered, unscripted, and ephemeral.
2023-24 Screenwriters
Rusty Baldwin
Rusty Baldwin was first intrigued by screenwriting after getting his hands on a Pulp Fiction script and discovering the reverse engineering of how a director took their vision from the page to the screen. Literature taught him that it is okay to ask the questions, that nobody really knew the answers either, but just thinking about the human experience could create beautiful art.
Adrian Belman
Adrian Belman, whose philosophy is “research, then write”, strives to tell stories in comedic and culturally nuanced ways. Inspired by the beauty of the human experience and the resilience of the human spirit, Adrian writes for those who want to experience other cultural perspectives to make sense of their own worlds.
Marcus Dowd
Marcus began with us as a senior in the Commonwealth Governor’s School program in Northern Virginia, and is now a freshman at Northwestern University. After being part of Cadence's 13 The Musical in 2019 the pandemic hit, and Marcus became involved with Kdents TV, introducing him to the wonderful world of screenwriting.
Kathryn Thompson
For Kathryn Thompson, writing has been intertwined with her being since childhood. Her current project focuses on destigmatizing traditional Black spirituality with a focus on Haiti, telling these stories through the lens of lived experience.
