OPC 2026
Summer conference &
new works festival playwrights
Jaclyn Backhaus (she/her)
Jaclyn Backhaus is a playwright, screenwriter, and educator hailing from Phoenix, Arizona. Her Off-Broadway plays include Out Of Time (NAATCO, The Public Theater, dir. Les Waters), Wives (Playwrights Horizons dir. Margot Bordelon), India Pale Ale (MTC, Winner of the Horton Foote Prize, dir. Will Davis), Men On Boats (Clubbed Thumb, Playwrights Horizons, dir. Will Davis), Folk Wandering (Pipeline, dir. Andrew Neisler), and You On The Moors Now (TRE, dir. John Kurzynowski). Other plays include Dana During Tech Week, The Collectivists, Heathcliff!!, and End-Of-Life. TV/film: As Far As The Eye Can See (Sundance Episodic Intensive 2025), Preeti Popped It (1497 Features Lab). Adjunct professor of playwriting at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts in the Departments of Drama and Dramatic Writing. Creative director of Fresh Ground Pepper NYC. Jaclyn is a New Dramatists resident playwright, a Hermitage Fellow, a Tow Foundation Playwright, and a former member of The Kilroys.
Keith Bunin (he/him)
Keith Bunin's most recent original play The Coast Starlight was commissioned and premiered by La Jolla Playhouse and Lincoln Center Theater, and was developed at the Ojai Playwrights Conference. His plays The Busy World Is Hushed, The Credeaux Canvas, and The World Over all premiered Off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons. His other plays include The Unbuilt City (New York Stage and Film) Sam Bendrix At The Bon Soir (La Jolla Playhouse/City Theater Pittsburgh) and The Principality Of Sorrows (Pure Orange Productions). He wrote the book for the musical 10 Million Miles (Atlantic Theater Company), and wrote the stage adaptation of the novel The Thing About Jellyfish (Berkeley Repertory Theater). His screenwriting credits include Disney/Pixar’s Onward, Horns, Nimona, and Which Brings Me To You, and he was a writer for the HBO TV series In Treatment.
Grace McLeod (she/her)
Grace McLeod is a queer playwright and screenwriter from New York City who is proud to call Los Angeles home. Her play Herland received an NNPN Rolling World Premiere in 2019 and her play Closing Costs will receive its world premiere at Geffen Playhouse in 2027. As a playwright, Grace has had her work produced, developed, optioned, and/or commissioned by South Carolina New Plays Festival (upcoming), No Guarantees Productions, The Playwrights Realm, Ashland New Plays Festival, Goodman Theatre, IAMA Theatre Company, Redtwist Theatre, MOXIE Theatre, Greenway Court Theatre, and many more. She’s a former Tribeca Film Fellow, a current member of AGBO’s Storytellers Collective, and she has developed film/TV/audio projects with companies including HappyBad Bungalow, Mucho Mas Media, Picturestart, Hartbeat, and Temple Hill. Grace is a graduate of the University of Chicago, where she received the Olga and Paul Menn Foundation Prize for Playwriting. www.gracemcleod.com
Harrison David Rivers (he/him)
Harrison David Rivers is an award-winning playwright, librettist and television writer based in St. Paul, Minnesota. His works include This Bitter Earth (Soho Theatre, Seattle Public, TheaterWorks Hartford, InterAct, About Face, Penumbra, New Conservatory Theatre Center), The Bandaged Place (Roundabout), The Salvagers (Yale Rep), Where Storms are Born (Williamstown), We Are Continuous (convergence-continuum, Diversionary, Uptown Players, NCTC, Geva, Williamstown) and A Christmas Carol (CenterREP, Geva), among others. His television credits include One Of Us Is Lying (Peacock), The Nevers (HBO) and Wytches (Amazon). He has developed projects with HBO and Lena Waithe’s Hillman Grad Productions. Harrison is a recipient of McKnight, Jerome and Van Lier Fellowships; residencies with Berkeley Rep, the Siena Art Institute, Geva, New York Theatre Workshop, Williamstown and Duke University; and is currently under commission from Yale Rep, MCC, Geva, Moton Museum/Waterworks Players and Minnesota Opera. harrisondavidrivers.com
Mat Smart (he/him)
Mat Smart has written 27 full-length plays that have been produced around the United States. Upcoming in Fall 2026: A Black-Billed Cuckoo, World Premiere at La Jolla Playhouse directed by Shelley Butler. In Spring 2027: Kill Local: A New Musical with music and lyrics by Liza Anne, World Premiere at Dallas Theater Center directed by Jaime Castañeda. He is currently writing an original screenplay for Taylor Sheridan, Bosque Ranch Productions, and Range Media Partners. Mat is also collaborating with the folk rock band Delta Rae (“Bottom of the River”) on a new Southern Gothic musical called The Ninth Woman with Logan Vaughn directing and P3 producing. An avid traveler and baseball fan, Mat has been to all of the states, all of the continents, and all of the current MLB stadiums. Undergrad: University of Evansville. MFA: UCSD.
writers-in-residence
Juliette Carrillo (she/her)
Currently a finalist for New Dramatists Residency, Juliette has written three commissioned plays for Cornerstone Theater Company, performed with and about various California communities: Plumas Negras, with East Salinas farmworkers, Ghost Town within Venice, and Pedro Play within San Pedro. Plumas Negras was a Nuestras Voces finalist for Repertory Español and has had continued development in universities nationwide. She wrote additional text for Long Beach Opera’s The Penal Colony by Phillip Glass and is currently working on two new plays: Tailbone To Tailbone, developed in part at Chautauqua Theater Company and The Healing Play, developed at La Mama Umbria and the MacDowell Residency. She is currently in development for a screenplay (San Ignacio) to be shot in Mexico in Spring of 2027. Juliette has directed critically-acclaimed plays in major regional theaters across the country, including Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Seattle Repertory and the Mark Taper Forum. She is a graduate of Yale School of Drama.
Zola Dee (she/her)
Zola Dee is a playwright, screenwriter, actor and banjo player whose written works are deeply invested in exploring Black Americana, African diasporic religions, and imagining freer worlds for the Black collective body. Her plays include Gunshot Medley, Smile, Goddamnit, Smile, and [Home]going. Other accomplishments include: 2025 Kesselring Prize for Playwriting, 2025-2028 Jerome Hill Fellow, 2023 I Am Soul National Black Theater Resident Playwright, Playwrights’ Center Jerome Fellow 2022-2023, Playwrights’ Center Many Voices Fellow 2021-2022. Zola resides in Minneapolis, Minnesota, while continuing to cultivate her deep-rooted connections to the Carolinas and Los Angeles. She holds a BFA in Acting and a minor in Creative Writing from the California Institute of the Arts. She is currently represented by Lizzy Weingold at WME and managed by Stefan Rich. For more information go to www.zoladee.com
Gregory S Moss (he/him)
Gregory Moss is a playwright, novelist, director, educator, activist, and performer whose work has been produced and developed at Playwrights Horizons, Soho Rep, Steppenwolf Theatre Company, La Jolla Playhouse, South Coast Repertory, and La Comédie-Française, among others. His plays include Indian Summer, punkplay, Reunion, Billy Witch, House of Gold, and sixsixsix. Most recently, he wrote the book for The Untitled Unauthorized Hunter S. Thompson Musical (with Joe Iconis), which premiered at La Jolla Playhouse. His honors include the Reva Shiner Comedy Prize, the Edgerton Foundation New Play Award, and Jerome and McKnight Fellowships. Moss is a graduate of Brown University’s MFA Program in Dramatic Writing and holds an MFA in Fiction from Vermont College of Fine Arts. He is Chair of the Department of Theatre & Dance and Director of the MFA Dramatic Writing Program at University of New Mexico.