The Vagrancy Playwrights’ Group is a cohort of writers tasked with the goal of developing full-length plays for production. The Vagrancy annually selects a core group of five playwrights representing the diverse perspectives and voices of Los Angeles.
Beginning each fall, the writers meet regularly throughout the year as they craft their plays. The Vagrancy hosts two mid-year development workshops wherein the plays are explored with actors and a director in a rehearsal setting with the playwright. As with the writers, the actors represent the breadth and diversity of Los Angeles. During the workshops, the playwrights are encouraged to take risks and stretch the bounds of theatre in an attempt to continue pushing the art form forward.
The process culminates each summer with BLOSSOMING, a weekend of staged readings of each of the plays performed before an audience. The Vagrancy then selects one of the plays for Play Date, an extended ten day intensive workshop which takes place the following winter.
Vagrant Writers 2017/2018
Lisa Dring – Writers Group Lisa is an artist living in LA. Lisa graduated from School of Dramatic Arts at the University of Southern California and has apprenticed with Actors Theatre of Louisville. She studied Creative Writing at CalArts and trained in clown with Chris Bayes.
Lena Ford – Writers Group Lena Ford is a graduate of USC’s MFA Dramatic Writing Program. She was born in New York and lived in Los Angeles for more than 25 years, returning after residing in Sydney, Australia, for five years. She writes extensively on social issues and their effects on families and the community. Her play, Disappearing Act, takes a bird’s eye view at the insidiousness of racism and its impact on a mixed-raced Black teenager in 1945 Harlem who decides to pass as White.
John Johnson - Writers Group John Johnson is a Los Angeles-based writer and dramaturge. His plays include (Troy), Separate Parts, Nahar, Static, and Empty Bellies. A graduate of California Institute of the Arts, he is a lover of science fiction, cooking, and unreliable narrators.
Nicholas Pilapil - Writers Group Nicholas Pilapil is a writer of plays and songs. His plays have been developed/performed at East West Players, Fresh Produce’d LA, and Playwrights Foundation. Nicholas is a writer in the 2016/17 Playground-LA Writers Pool and a producing member of Los Angeles theatre collective Artists at Play. @nicholaspilapil
Katherine Vondy - Writers Group Katherine Vondy is a Los Angeles-based writer and director whose credits span theater, film, and literature. Kat is the recipient of the Davey Foundation Theatre Grant for her play The Fermi Paradox, and her award-winning short film The Broken Heart of Gnocchi Bolognese has screened at festivals worldwide. Her plays have been developed with The Vagrancy, Salt Lake Acting Company, and Paper Wing Theatre Company, and recent theater directing credits include The Complete Human Experience (Lost Moon Radio), Friends in Transient Places (Fresh Produce'd LA), and Suddenly Split and Swiping Over (All Terrain Theater). Kat has received dramatic writing residencies from the HBMG Foundation, Vermont Studio Center, Starry Night, and Wildacres. She earned a BA from Amherst College and an MFA in Film and Television Production from the University of Southern California. More information about all her creative work is available at katherinevondy.com.
PLAY DATE is The Vagrancy’s annual month-long intensive workshop of a new play chosen from our BLOSSOMING reading series. Through the workshop we hope to catapult the play to a place of more secure footing as it progresses towards a full production.
