Ars Nova commissions and develops new projects with artists who work non-traditionally, create across multiple disciplines, and have big dreams for what they want to make next. Commissioned projects are nurtured from beginning stages to full production in Ars Nova’s adventurous, process-driven environment, allowing them to develop organically and always with the artists’ needs at the center.
Kevin Armento’s plays include Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally (Drama Desk Nomination, Stage Edinburgh Award), Good Men Wanted (New York Stage and Film), Companion Piece (Pleasance Theatre), and killers (Tom Noonan’s Paradise Factory), and upcoming plays include Balls (co-written with Bryony Lavery, 59E59 Theaters / One Year Lease), Playing Hot (Pipeline Theatre) and Devil with the Blue Dress (Bunker Theatre, London). Work has been produced and developed with Arena Stage, Ars Nova, Cape Cod Theatre Project, Dixon Place, The Flea, Johnny Mercer Writers Colony, The New Ohio and Stages Repertory Theatre, and he is an alum of The Working Farm at SPACE on Ryder Farm, Artist-in-Residence at The Drama League and Play Group and Makers Lab at Ars Nova.
Sammy Miller A native of Los Angeles, Grammy nominated drummer Sammy Miller has become known for his unique maturity and relentless focus on making music that “feels good” as a drummer, singer and bandleader. Upon completing his Master’s at The Juilliard School, Sammy formed his ensemble, The Congregation. As a band they are focused on sharing the power of community through their music—joyful jazz.
Manik Choksi Broadway: Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812. Off-Broadway: Indian Ink, Roundabout; Bunty Berman Presents (Lortel Nomination), New Group; Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812, Ars Nova; God Bless You Mr. Rosewater, Encores!; King Tot and D, Deb, Debbie, Deborah; Clubbed Thumb; Huck & Holden, Cherry Lane. Regional: Moby Dick and Moby Dick, ART. Film/TV: “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt”; “New Amsterdam”; “Good Fight”; “Mindhunter”; “Elementary”; “Happyish”; “One Life To Live” (Vimal Patel), Home, Passing Season. Composer: Those Lost Boys (workshop); Food Odyssey, 3LD. Education: The Juilliard School
Brandon Kyle Goodman (he/they) is an actor, writer, and speaker. He’s best known for his roles on Netflix’s smash hit and Emmy nominated animated comedy series Big Mouth and its spin-off Human Resources; Amazon’s Modern Love, Hulu’s Plus One, and Netflix’s Feel the Beat.
Goodman has established himself as a leading voice for Black and Queer communities and continues to make a name for himself, using his candid and comedic approach to tackle the day’s controversial, cultural, and political happenings. His Instagram videos addressing systemic racism and how to be effective allies were viral during the ongoing protests against police brutality and racial inequality in the US.
Goodman continues to use his platform to encourage openness with his two Instagram series; Every Monday and Thursday, Goodmanasks their 181,000 Instagram followers to tell them something good or messy. People who tune into the Instagram Stories series, called “Messy Mondays” and “Thot Thursdays,” send in submissions that are indeed good, messy or both.
Goodman shares an inspiring and uplifting message of self-love and acceptance with his first book, You Gotta Be You, released on September 27th, 2022. Written in the same refreshingly honest voice as his viral Instagram posts, he explores the intersection of race, sexuality and gender, and the lessons that would guide him to his most authentic self. As a nonbinary queer person of color, Brandon knows the pain of hiding one’s true self, the work of learning to love that true self, and the freedom of finally being your true self. While most inspiring narratives from queer authors take the form of memoirs, Brandon is one of few LGBTQ+ writers writing in the self-help space to offer the readers life lessons.
Goodman has been featured in The New York Times, Esquire, Well+Good, OUT, Bustle, Buzzfeed, and many more. A graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, Brandon lives in Los Angeles with his husband, Matthew, and their dog, Korey.
Deepali Gupta is a performance artist, composer, and playwright. Her work explores themes of madness and illucidity in relation to the feminized and colonized body. She makes work intended to unravel the warped weave of narratives surrounding what we term mania, psychosis, mood disorder, and mental illness. She is the youngest daughter of Kashmiri and Bengali immigrants; and a neurodivergent person with a diagnosis of bipolar I. According to the American psychiatric rubric, the mind suffering from “bipolar disorder”—illucid, illegible—experiences cognitive hyperassociativity and produces disorganized speech. This mind makes random turns and follows unknown laws. Deepali’s artistic ethos is intimately related to her neurologic logic. Her work has been presented by Ars Nova, The Public Theater, Lincoln Center Theater, Judson Memorial Church, The Poetry Project, The Bushwick Starr, and Target Margin Theater. She has collaborated with theater and VR companies such as Piehole, Tender Claws, and New Saloon on acclaimed and award-winning projects—including Ski End, Madonna col bambino, and Minor Character. Current projects include I Love You Stranger (developed in Ars Nova’s Makers Lab) and a commission for JACK titled United States v. Gupta, in collaboration with director Caitlin Sullivan. This work runs from the vein of lived experience, and works with private and public archives—bleeding out into any and many landscapes. SoundCloud: deepali (k) gupta / IG: deepaligupta / website: deepaligupta.net
Antoinette Nwandu is a New York-based playwright. Her Jeff-award winning play, Pass Over, will have its New York debut at LCT3 in June. A filmed version of the Steppenwolf production—directed by Spike Lee—will have its world premiere at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. Her play Breach: a manifesto on race in america through the eyes of a black girl recovering from self-hate will have its World Premiere at Victory Gardens in February. Antoinette’s work has been supported by the Sundance Theater Lab, Space on Ryder Farm, Ignition Fest, the Cherry Lane Mentor Project, the Kennedy Center, Page73, PlayPenn, Southern Rep, The Flea, Naked Angels, Fire This Time and The Movement Theater Company. Honors include the Paula Vogel Playwriting Award, the Lorraine Hansberry Playwriting Award, the Negro Ensemble Company’s Douglas Turner Ward Prize, a Literary Fellowship at the Eugene O’Neill Playwrights Conference and spots on the 2016 and 2017 Kilroys lists. Antoinette is a MacDowell Fellow, a Dramatists Guild Fellow and an Ars Nova Play Group alum. She is currently under commission from Echo Theater Company, Colt Coeur and Audible.
River L. Ramirez (they/them) is a NYC based experimental performance artist, comedian, musician, storyteller and writer who wrote, produced and directed the comedy special program “Pervert Everything” for Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim (2018) Ramirez appears alongside Fred Armisen on HBO’s Los Espookys (2022), and does character voice over work for Adult Swim’s Birdgirl as the character Charlie (2022), and Teenage Euthanasia as AI Operator and Shelley #3 (2022). This year they will be featured in Julio Torres’ Problemista.
Ramirez’s performance practice extends beyond the limits of television and comedy, their live performance practice being integral to their art. Ramirez teaches performance and public speaking at The Brick Aux in BK and performs experimental comedy at Littlefield in BK. They have been commissioned for original musical and dance based performances by Baryshnikov Arts Center (2021), Gibney (2022), Ars Nova Vision Residency program (2022), and Moma PS1 (2019). In 2022 they toured their latest music/storytelling, experimental comedy show “Ghostfolk” at the Wiesbaden Biennale in Germany and toured solo as an opening act for Will Butler and The Sister Squares. They have written for High Maintenance (2019) and The National Lampoon Radio Hour (2019). Named one of Comedy Central’s Up Next Comedians for 2018, Ramirez was featured in the San Francisco ClusterFest comedy festival, and performed at the Public Theater in New York as part of the January, 2019, Under the Radar Festival. They have been featured on Forbes 30 under 30, The New York Times, Art in America, SSense, and their writing has been featured in CRACKED, VICE, MoMa Magazine, WAIF, and more. You can follow them everywhere online @pileoftears
On The Rocks Theatre Co. is a California born, New York-bred company comprised of longtime collaborators Christopher Ford and Dakota Rose. Through rigorous blending of humor and heart, camp and poignancy and with a rich visual aesthetic drawing on a wide range of mid-century Americana, ON THE ROCKS create wholly original work that tells the stories of imperfect characters making their way in uncertain worlds. With a recurring crew of performers, musicians and dancers, they have made McBeth (2010), Wolfert (2015), The White Stag Quadrilogy (2016), FRED (2017) and their annual holiday bar pageant, Edelweiss (2017 & 2018).
Ray Yamanouchi was born in Queens, raised on Long Island, and received a BA in film and theatre from CUNY Hunter College in Manhattan. His plays include Tha Chink-Mart (PlayPenn 2018), Impact (Finalist, Princess Grace Award 2019), and The American Tradition (New Light New Voices Award 2018). He has developed work with WT Theatre, The Blank Theatre, Rising Circle Theater Collective, Mission to (dit)Mars (Propulsion Lab), Ars Nova (Play Group), and Playwrights’ Center (Core Writer). You can find him online @NotoriousYAMs, or as the host of RE:, a NYC theatre talk show (www.retheatre.nyc).
Composer/lyricist, playwright and songwriter with Warner/Chappell, Zack Zadek has been named by Playbill as “A Contemporary Musical Theatre Songwriter You Should Know”, was a MacDowell Fellow and VCCA Fellow and is a 2019 Dramatist Guild Fellow. Zack won the Weston New Musical Award for his book, music and lyrics to DEATHLESS (dir. Tina Landau) which received its world premiere at Goodspeed Musicals in 2017. His work has been developed and presented at The Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center, Lincoln Center, The Kennedy Center, The 5th Avenue Theatre, TheatreWorks Silicon Valley, The Lark, Arena Stage, Goodspeed Musicals, Weston Playhouse, Finger Lakes Musical Theatre Festival, Legacy Theatre, NYMF, The Mitten Lab and in the UK at the London Theatre Workshop and Edinburgh Fringe. He is a two-time finalist for the Kleban Prize as a librettist and a lyricist, a three-time Jonathan Larson Grant Finalist, a resident of the Working Farm @ SPACE on Ryder Farm and SigWorks @ Signature Theatre, KSF Artists of Choice finalist and winner of the inaugural NMI/Disney Imagineering New Voices Award. Other pieces include The Crazy Ones (dir. Sam Buntrock/Hunter Bird), The Role of a Lifetime (dir. Jerry Mitchell) and 6 (dir. Sheryl Kaller/Max Friedman). Upcoming projects include Store Brand (dir. Jaki Bradley) being developed by The Civilians and current commissions from Mike Bosner Productions, Jill Furman Productions, Arena Stage and Ars Nova. He is currently a writer-in-residence with The Orchard Project Greenhouse and The Civilians.
Check out our History page.
From 2013 to 2016, Ars Nova had a program for musical theater writers and composers called Uncharted, led by Kent Nicholson. Please see below for Uncharted program alumni.
2016: Rachel Chavkin & Heather Christian; Sarah Hammond & Will Aronson; Michael McQuilken & Jessica Rizzo; Rebeckah Greer Melocik, Jacob Yandura & Victor Lesniewski
2015: Rachel Chavkin & Heather Christian; Akin Salawu & Greta Gertler Gold; Michael McQuilken & Martyna Majok; Rebekah Greer Melocik, Jacob Yandura & Victor Lesniewski; Max Vernon & Jason Kim; Will Aronson & Sarah Hammond
2014: César Alvarez; Andrew R. Butler & Andrew Farmer; EllaRose Chary & Brandon James Gwinn; Cory Finley & Jeremy Lloyd
2013: Charles Vincent Burwell & James D. Sasser; Anna K. Jacobs & Michael R. Jackson; Julia Meinwald & Gordon Leary; Shaina Taub & Jen Silverman
Participation in our commissioning program is by invitation only. Check our Work With Us page for more information on how to introduce Ars Nova to your work.
Kevin Armento & Sammy Miller are commissioned with support from the Stephen Siderow Fund for New Musicals.
Manik Choksi is commissioned with support from the New York State Council on the Arts.
Christopher Ford & Dakota Rose are 2024-2025 Tow Playwrights-in-Residence.
Zack Zadek is commissioned with support from Jill Furman Productions.
We’re always looking for partners to support our development programs! Learn more by reaching out to Ben Lasser, Development Director, at blasser@arsnovanyc.com.
