Playwrights Jessica Kahkoska and Talya Kingston both have plays featured in WAM’s 2023 Fresh Takes Reading Series. Join them as they share the inspiration for their works and provide insight into their creative process.
For more information and tickets for the 2023 Fresh Takes Play Reading Series, click here
Bios
Jessica Kahkoska (she/her) is a writer, producer, and researcher/dramaturg for theatre and TV. Current role with WAM: playwright, In Her Bones WAM Theatre: Debut Selected Theatre Credits Elsewhere: Wild Fire (World Premiere: Denver Center for the Performing Arts), Agent 355 (with Preston Max Allen, New York Stage and Film, Signature Theatre), The Death of Desert Rose (with Elliah Heifetz, under commercial option), Baba (with Elliah Heifetz, Iowa State University Guest-Artist-in-Residence), Letters to the President (co-conceived with Michael Bello, The Great Hall at Cooper Union), Wild Home: An American Odyssey (Notch Theatre Company, 2020 NEA ArtWorks Grant Recipient), and Nia (World Premiere: UNC Chapel Hill). Additional artistic credits: In TV, Jessica has worked as a Research and Associate Producer for series and films at CNN. Discovery. and Discovery+, and others. Creative inspiration: I am most interested in work inspired by true stories, the American West, and community collaboration. Community Engagement/Activist work: For community engagement, In Her Bones was the subject/recipient of talks at History Colorado “Borderlands Lecture Series,” University of Wyoming College of Philosophy and Religious Studies Public Lecture, Arts and Marsico Visiting Scholarship at Denver University, Season Writer-in-Residence at Southern Colorado Repertory Theatre, and a Western Jewish Studies Association Conference Presentation. Membership/Affiliations: Executive VP of Programs, Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of America. Member: Dramatists Guild of America. Faculty: Rutgers University Mason Gross School of the Arts. Selected training: Northwestern, BA. SUNY New Paltz, MBA (In Process) Awards/proudest achievements: She is the 2022 recipient of the National Archives Foundation’s Cokie Roberts Women’s History Fellowship and the Marion International Fellowship in the Performing Arts. Previously: Dramatists Guild Foundation Fellowship, a Red Line Arts-in-Society Grant, the Marion International Fellowship in the Performing Arts (2017), and creative residencies at UCROSS, Green Box Arts, Goodspeed Musicals, Rhinebeck Writers Retreat, and the Chautauqua Institution. Connect: Instagram: Jkos13
Talya Kingston (she/her) is a playwright, dramaturg and educator, who is inspired by the live interactions between artists and audiences and how these can be a catalyst for social change. WAM Theatre: Associate Artistic Director, Playwright: Port of Entry. Playwriting: Circling Suspicion (Commissioned by Plays In Place, Upcoming production at Historic Northampton), Port of Entry (2022 Silverthorne Theatre), Campus Unrest (2020 WAM Fresh Takes, 2019 Silverthorne Theatre, 2018 Play by Play Festival, finalist in the 2019 Bechtel Test Fest), Wave Goodbye (2020 PLAYground TYA Festival at NorthWestern University, semi-finalist for Provincetown Playhouse’s New Plays for Young Audiences), Sheryl Addresses the PGO (The New England Monologues Project), Wishing on Satellites, Anxiety Overdrive. Selected Dramaturgy: WAM Theatre (What The Constitution Means to Me, Roe, Lady Randy), Hartford Stage (Necessary Targets), New York Fringe Festival (Helmet), Ko Festival (Seriously.. What Did You Call Me? Written and performed by Onawumi Jean Moss). Publications: Scene Magazine, Theater Journal, The Moving Voice, European Stages, Howlround and The Valley Advocate. Selected training: MFA University of Massachusetts. Affiliations: proud member of the Northampton Playwrights Lab, Play Incubation Collective, the Dramatist Guild, and LMDA Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas.