Nicholas Pilapil (he/him) is a Filipino-American playwright. His plays have been developed/performed with Artists at Play, Becky and Baldwin, Fresh Produce’d LA, Playwrights Foundation, Theatre Rhinoceros, The Fountain Theatre, The New Cosmopolitans, and The Vagrancy. Nicholas’ short films have also played at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival, Philippine International Film Festival, and Outfest FUSION, among others. His play The Bottoming Process was a finalist with honorable mention at the 2021 Bay Area Playwrights Festival and featured in IAMA Theatre Company’s Under 30 Lab Series. He is an alum of the IAMA Theatre Under 30 Playwrights Lab, The Vagrancy Playwrights Group, and artEquity.
Archives: Team Members
Nygel D. Robinson
Nygel D. Robinson is a singer, actor, writer, and multi-instrumentalist based in New York City. Select musical theatre credits include Larry in the workshop and Lincoln center concert version of Beau: The Musical, and Actor/Musician in The All Night Strut (Milwaukee Rep). Nygel and Brian Quijada are the co writers of the new musical Mexodus which started being developed through New York Stage and Film in early 2020 and was featured in NYSAF’s 2021 Powerhouse summer season.
Gage Tarlton
Gage Tarlton is a Southern genderqueer writer and artist, currently based in Brooklyn, NY. He received his B.A. from UNC-Chapel Hill, where he also served as the Artistic Assistant and Literary Associate at PlayMakers Repertory Company. His plays include sons that wear dresses and mothers that love sweet potatoes, exercise your demons: a play on the trauma of a gay male body, xXPonyBoyDerekXx: an onlyfans experience, amongst others. His work has been developed with The Kennedy Center, PlayMakers Rep, Misfits Theatre Company, El Centro Productions, and Kenan Theatre Company. He is a 2019 Kennedy Center Playwriting Fellow, a 2020 finalist for the Echo Theatre Company’s National Young Playwrights in Residence and The Parsnip Ship Season Six: Queer Theater, a 2020 recipient of distinguished achievement from the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival, and a 2020 semifinalist for the National Playwrights Conference and the Bay Area Playwrights Festival. He is a co-writer of the Broadway virtual experiences Our Offering and its sequel A Christmas Offering, both created by Sis to raise money for The Next Generation Project. Currently, he’s in post-production for his first short film The Homiesexuals: a social media tragedy. You can read more about him at his website: www.gagetarlton.com.
Ken-Matt Martin
Ken-Matt Martin (he/him) is the Artistic Director of Victory Gardens Theater. He is the co-founder of Pyramid Theatre Company in Des Moines, Iowa where he served as Executive Director from 2015 until 2018. Martin’s producing and directing credits in Des Moines have received thirty-four Cloris Leachman Excellence in Theatre Award nominations, including two awards for Best Play and a Special Honor for Martin in 2016 for his exemplary service to the Des Moines arts community. From 2019 to 2021 Martin served as the Associate Producer of Goodman Theatre. Prior to his time at Goodman, he served as the Producing Director of Williamstown Theatre Festival from 2018-2019. Select directing credits include: Civil Sex, Love’s Labour’s Lost, Prowess, tick..tick..Boom (Brown/Trinity Rep), Fences, Mississippi Goddamn, Prowess, The Amen Corner (Pyramid Theatre), Tripping Over Roots (Rites and Reason Theatre), Shakuntala (Gateway Dance Theatre), and A Son, Come Home and Brotherhood (Williamstown Theatre Festival). He received two undergraduate degrees from Drake University and his M.F.A. in Directing from Brown University. In addition to his producing credits, Martin has numerous directing/acting credits: more info can be found at http://www.kenmatt.com
Joel Drake Johnson
Joel Drake Johnson (d. January 11, 2020) was a member of the inaugural Playwrights Ensemble at Victory Gardens Theater. During his tenure, five of his plays were produced at VG, all world premieres: Before My Eyes (1998), The End of the Tour (2003), Four Places (2008), A Guide for the Perplexed (2010), and The Boys Room (2011). Joel was an award-winning, internationally produced Chicago playwright and teacher, and his presence brought joy to so many of his students and collaborators.
Steve Carter
Steve Carter (November 7, 1929 – September 15, 2020) was the first Playwright in Residence at Victory Gardens, beginning in 1981, and a member of the inaugural Playwrights Ensemble. Eight productions of his works were mounted at VG during his tenure, five of them world premieres, including the acclaimed Pecong, a retelling of the Medea myth set on a fictional Caribbean island that won the Jeff Award for Best New Work in 1990. He inspired generations of Black playwrights, actors, and theater artists through three decades of work at the American Community Theater and Negro Ensemble Company in New York City.
Photo credit: Debbie McGee, courtesy of NYT