2022-23 OHIO MFA Playwrights
Steven Strafford (he/his). Steven is a Brooklyn-born playwright. He is the author and performer of the award-winning Methtacular! which he has performed across the country at LORT theaters, universities, and LGBTQ spaces. Methtacular! was filmed at Steppenwolf Theatre’s 1700 Space in 2019. His play Small Jokes About Monsters recently won the 2022 Ready-to-Publish Award from SETC and will be published and licensed by StageRights. It also won the 2016 New American Voices Competition and was a semi-finalist for The O’Neill New Play Conference. It received productions in Chicago, Houston (nominated – Houston Theatre Award – Outstanding New Play) and Sioux City, Iowa. His play Greater Illinois was a finalist for the Jackie Demaline Play Award as well as a semi-finalist at The O’Neill. His short plays, Use Your Noodles and The Breakup Play have each had multiple university productions.
Eryn Elyse McVay (she/her). Eryn is a Pacific Northwesterner who earned her BA in Theatre from Western Washington University where she concentrated on Playwriting and Acting, and is currently an MFA candidate in Playwriting at Ohio University. Her play “How Sweet The Sound” has been a semi-finalist for the Eugene O’Neill 2019 New Playwrights Conference, the 2019 National Partners of American Theatre Region 7 Selection for the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival, a semi-finalist for the International Wolfe Prize from UNC’s PlayMakers Repertory Theater, and received recognition in Distinguished Achievement from KCACTF for their National Undergraduate Playwriting Award in both 2018 and 2019. Eryn’s new full-length “what the Gods gave me” received a staged reading at the 27th Annual Seabury Quinn Jr. Playwright’s Festival at Ohio University in Spring 2021, and will be premiering as a full production at Ohio University in Fall 2022.
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