Meet the next group of playwrights at the Geffen Playhouse.

Aug 20, 2019 — Geffen Playhouse announced today the newest group of writers that will participate in the 2019/20 Writers’ Room. Now in its second season, the Writers’ Room is a product of the Geffen’s deep commitment to supporting new plays and specifically to fostering bold, relevant work by the vibrant artistic community living in Los Angeles. During a one-year residency, playwright members gather monthly at the Geffen to share their work and receive feedback from their peers and Geffen Playhouse artistic staff, culminating in a reading with a director and actors in summer 2020.

Meet The Playwrights

Boni B. Alvarez

Boni B. Alvarez is a Los Angeles-based playwright-actor. His plays include America Adjacent, Bloodletting, Fixed, Nicky, Dallas Non-Stop, Dusty de los Santos, Ruby, Tragically Rotund, The Special Education of Miss Lorna Cambonga, Marabella, and Refuge for a Purple Heart. His plays have been produced at Center Theatre Group/Kirk Douglas Theatre, Echo Theater Company, Coeurage Theatre Company, Skylight Theatre Company, and Playwrights’ Arena. His plays have been developed/given readings at Chalk Rep, Moving Arts, Artists At Play, The Vagrancy, Los Angeles Theatre Center, EST/LA, The Blank, Pork Filled Players (Seattle), Second Generation (2g, NYC), InterAct Theatre (Philadelphia), and Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Upcoming: world premiere of Driven at Theatre Rhinoceros in San Francisco. He is an Adjunct Lecturer at USC and a Resident Playwright of New Dramatists.

Chloé Hung

A Chinese-Canadian writer and director, Chloé Hung is a graduate of the M.F.A. in Dramatic Writing program at NYU Tisch. Chloé’s plays include All Our Yesterdays (Toronto Fringe, Next Stage Theatre Festival); Issei, He Say(world premiere at New Jersey Repertory Company); Three Women of Swatow (ppcoming world premiere at Tarragon Theatre in March 2020). She was awarded the RBC Emerging Playwrights Award. Her plays have been workshopped in Toronto, New York, Washington DC, Banff, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles. In the world of television, she has written for Cherish the Day and Queen Sugar (both created by Ava DuVernay, for OWN). Her short film Signal received funding and mentorship through the Women In Film production lab. She is developing a television pilot, Banana Kids, with Insurrection Media. She workshopped her screenplay, A Glimpse of Sun, with The Black List’s screenwriting lab. When she’s not writing, she’s likely baking pies and cookies.

Inda Craig-Galván

Inda Craig-Galván’s plays include Black Super Hero Magic Mama (world premiere at Geffen Playhouse, Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, Kennedy Center Rosa Parks Playwriting Award, Kilroys List); I Go Somewhere Else (world premiere at Playwrights Area, L.A. Drama Critics Circle Awards & Stage Raw playwriting nominations); and Welcome to Matteson! (Ojai Playwrights Conference, Blue Ink Playwriting Award, The Old Globe/Powers New Voices Festival). She has also developed work with Oregon Shakespeare Festival Black Swan Lab, San Francisco Playhouse, Black and Latino Playwrights Conference, and others. M.F.A. in Theatre, University of Southern California. Television credits: How to Get Away with Murder, The Rookie.

Juan José Alfonso

Juan Alfonso is late to the playwriting game. After 20 years as a media executive, he wrote his first play, An Educated Guess, based on his own experience as an immigrant to the United States. The play was developed at New York Theatre Workshop and Steppenwolf Theatre Company (produced by Definition Theatre Company), and has been shortlisted at regional theaters across the country for awards and production. In his day job, Juan is a television producer. He has worked on over 25 shows, including the Emmy-winning American Crime from Academy Award winner John Ridley and Marvel’s Agent Carter; as well as documentaries like The Clemente Effectand L’Arbitre, winner of the United Nations prize at the New York Festivals in 2010. Juan began his career in advertising agencies in New York and San Francisco. He is an active member of Children’s Bureau and Urban Compass, and an unpaid weekend chauffeur for his very active children.

Ramiz Monsef

Ramiz is a co-author of the musical The Unfortunates, which was produced at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and ACT in San Francisco. He wrote that show’s accompanying graphic novel as well. He also co-wrote The Many Deaths of Nathan Stubblefield, which had its premiere in the 2017 Humana Festival at Actors Theatre of Louisville. His newest play 3 Farids was part of The Bushwick Starr reading series and was selected to be in the New Works Festival at TheatreWorks Silicon Valley, as well as the DNA Series at La Jolla Playhouse, and at Playwrights Horizons. Ramiz is an actor as well, and has appeared in theaters across the country, including Actors Theatre of Louisville, Mark Taper Forum, Berkeley Rep, Yale Rep, ACT, Seattle Rep, seven seasons at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Geffen Playhouse, Kirk Douglas Theatre, Second Stage Theater, Culture Project, and New York Theatre Workshop. He has appeared on television in Law & Order, Training Day, NCIS, SEAL Team, Modern Family, Kidding, Shameless, The Watchlist on Comedy Central, and the upcoming film Synchronic.

Ruby Rae Spiegel

Ruby Rae Spiegel’s Dry Land premiered Off-Broadway in a sold-out, critically acclaimed run at Colt Coeur, following development in New York Stage and Film’s Powerhouse Theater Readings Festival and the Ojai Playwrights Conference. A finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, the play has since gone on to be produced in over ten cities in the United States, London, Sydney, Abu Dhabi, South Korea, and more. Ruby’s short play Carrie & Francine premiered in the Summer Shorts Festival at 59E59 when she was only 18 years old. The play was produced alongside work by Neil LaBute, Christopher Durang and Alexander Dinelaris, receiving critical acclaim from The New York Times, The New York Post, and Time Out New York, and is now published in the anthology Outstanding Short Plays Volume 3. Ruby is a MacDowell Colony Fellow, was part of the Center Theater Group’s 2018/19 writers’ group, and recently attended Hedgebrook. Ruby has written for several television shows, including The OA, Purity, Mindhunter, When They See Us, and A Teacher.