4 Seasons Residency is a collaboration between Ignition Arts, LAUNCH PAD at UC Santa Barbara, Seven Devils New Play Foundry, Tofte Lake Center in collaboration with National New Play Network. 4 Seasons Residency takes a holistic, artist-centered, and long-term approach to new play development, employing an innovative model of deep collaboration between institutions toward the professional and creative growth of an individual artist, and is committed to investing in diverse voices. Now in its 3rd year, previous recipients were Jessica Huang, in 2020/21, and Franky Gonzalez, in 2021/22. |
2023 Residency Recipient, AZ EspinozaOur 2023 Residency Recipient is AZ Espinoza, a transmasculine feminist who makes magic through theatre. Their play All My Mothers Dream in Spanish will have its world premiere at Azuka Theatre in 2023, and their play Homeridae has been developed nationally and was an Honorable Mention finalist for the Terrance McNally Award. Their adaptation of Anne Carson’s The Bakkai took place in a BIPOC mutual aid zoom room in 2020, commissioned by Villanova Theatre; and their adaptation of Pericles, Peril’s Island was performed outdoors while observing social distancing in 2021, commissioned by Shakespeare in Clark Park. Directing credits include Alice Childress’s Wine in the Wilderness (Philadelphia Artists Collective and theBlackBestFriend), the world premiere of R. Eric Thomas’s Backing Track at the Arden Theatre (associate director) and the Philadelphia premiere of Angelina Weld Grimke’s 1915 anti-lynching play Rachel at Quintessence Theatre Company. They are the co-founder of theBlackBestFriend, a producing collective that uplifts Black multiplicities. They have been a theater educator at the Wilma Theater, Temple University, Haverford College, and the University of the Arts, and they are a student of liberation everywhere, and for everyone.
Learn more about AZ's work on The National New Play Exchange |