Project Y Writer’s Group is Born!

We are pleased to close out the year by announcing the first ever Project Y Playwrights Group.

Starting in January 2014, a selected group of emerging and professional playwrights will meet twice a month to share and discuss work and develop their plays with peer support. The Playwrights Group will serve as an artistic community, a sounding board for ideas, and a way to build lasting relationships with playwrights and other Project Y artists. Playwrights will also be considered for Project Y readings and productions, and will collaborate on ten-minute play festivals and other projects. The submission period for Playwrights Group will begin shortly – check back on the Project Y blog or contact Lia Romeo at [email protected] for more details!

That brings us to our 2nd announcement:

Project Y welcomes playwright and author, Lia Romeo, on board as our new Literary Manager.

Lia Romeo wrote the the plays in our hit musical LoveSick, or THINGS THAT DON’T HAPPEN, which played to packed houses at 59E59 Theaters last year. Check out all the amazing things she has already done below, then contact her to get involved in our upcoming reading series or the Playwrights Group.

Lia Romeo is a playwright, novelist, and humor book author. She earned her B.A. from Princeton University and her M.F.A in playwriting from Rutgers, ending up with staggering quantities of student loans and no marketable skills whatsoever. She managed to secure a part-time job writing standardized test questions, and spends the rest of her time writing plays and novels and daydreaming about pretty shoes.

Her play Connected was commissioned by HotCity Theatre, and premiered there in February 2013. Her play Hungry premiered at Unicorn Theatre in Kansas City in the 2011-2012 season, and was produced by Stillwater Theater subsequently. Her play Green Whales premiered at Unicorn Theatre in 2010, and was produced by Renegade Theatre Experiment in 2012. Her play Right Place, Right Time premiered at Renegade Theatre Experiment in 2010, and was produced by Stillwater Theatre subsequently. Her play LoveSick was produced by Project Y Theatre Company at 59E59 in New York in 2012. Her plays have also been developed at the Kennedy Center, Orlando Shakespeare Theatre, New Jersey Repertory Theatre, Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey, Kitchen Dog Theatre, HotCity Theatre, Abingdon Theatre, and elsewhere. She has been a finalist for the O’Neill Playwrights Conference, PlayPenn, WordBridge, the Reva Shiner Comedy Award, and the Heideman Award, and has been a two-time previous finalist for the GreenHouse New Play Festival. She was the 2008-2009 National New Play Network Emerging Playwright-in-Residence at Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey, and is currently a member of the New Jersey Women Playwrights’ Project and Boston’s Interim Writers Accomplice.

Her humor book, 11,002 Things to Be Miserable About, was published in 2009 by Abrams Image. It is currently in its second printing, with over 30,000 copies sold, and has earned favorable reviews in the Boston Globe and other national publications. Her first novel, Dating the Devil, was published by BelleBooks on Valentine’s Day, 2013, and is in development as a TV movie with Vast Entertainment.

Check out her website here for more info on all things Lia!