Vagrant Writers 2025/2026
Amy Tofte - Writers' Group
Amy Tofte is an award-winning playwright and screenwriter who received a Nicholl Fellowship in screenwriting from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Her play Righteous Among Us (2020 Todd McNerney Award, 2024 LANPP Award) had a staged reading at Urban Stages (off-Broadway) and will premiere at Little Fish Theatre (Redondo Beach) in February 2026. Her play BloodSuckingLeech will be presented in May 2026 at Nashville Rep. She participated in the 2024 Evolving Playwrights Group at Circle X Theatre, where she completed a new play about the climate crisis called Rain Dog War. She has been in residence at the Autry Museum of the American West, Brush Creek, Monson Arts, The Kennedy Center, Headlands Center for the Arts, and Yaddo, with work produced and developed throughout the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom, and twice at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. She is a proud member of The Dramatists Guild. MFA, CalArts.
NEVER-GOOD-ENOUGH-NEVER Synopsis: Trapped in a space that is part magical limbo and part emotional purgatory, three lesser known pioneers of science are pulled from their lives to serve global superstar Madonna in the creation of her next pop song. A play about navigating overwhelming disappointment and blond ambition.
Amy Tofte is an award-winning playwright and screenwriter who received a Nicholl Fellowship in screenwriting from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Her play Righteous Among Us (2020 Todd McNerney Award, 2024 LANPP Award) had a staged reading at Urban Stages (off-Broadway) and will premiere at Little Fish Theatre (Redondo Beach) in February 2026. Her play BloodSuckingLeech will be presented in May 2026 at Nashville Rep. She participated in the 2024 Evolving Playwrights Group at Circle X Theatre, where she completed a new play about the climate crisis called Rain Dog War. She has been in residence at the Autry Museum of the American West, Brush Creek, Monson Arts, The Kennedy Center, Headlands Center for the Arts, and Yaddo, with work produced and developed throughout the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom, and twice at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. She is a proud member of The Dramatists Guild. MFA, CalArts.
NEVER-GOOD-ENOUGH-NEVER Synopsis: Trapped in a space that is part magical limbo and part emotional purgatory, three lesser known pioneers of science are pulled from their lives to serve global superstar Madonna in the creation of her next pop song. A play about navigating overwhelming disappointment and blond ambition.
Amanda L. Andrei - Writers' Group
Amanda L. Andrei is a playwright, literary translator, and theater critic/journalist residing in Los Angeles by way of Virginia/Washington DC. She writes epic, irreverent plays that center the concealed, wounded places of history from the perspectives of diasporic Filipina women, and she co-translates from Romanian to English with her father. Her play Mama, I wish I were silver, also developed with The Vagrancy, won the 2022 Jane Chambers Award for Feminist Playwriting. Her plays have been produced by Relative Theatrics and developed with Boston Court, NY Classical Theater, La MaMa, Echo Theatre, Pasadena Playhouse, Artists at Play, Circle X, Chalk Rep, and more, as well as received finalist status with the Princess Grace Award, Eugene O’Neill Conference, Playwrights Realm, and Ashland Festival. Her critique and articles can be found in the L.A. Times, American Theatre Magazine, Stage Raw, Howl Round, Rappler, Critical Stages, and more. Her translations have received support from the Bread Loaf Translators Conference and appeared in Asymptote Journal, Another Chicago Magazine, and Lunch Ticket. She is a former contributing editor with American Theatre Magazine; an alum of the Asian Cultural Council, National Critics Institute, and the BIPOC Critics Lab at the Public Theater; and she is a Theatre Communications Group Rising Leaders of Color (2023). MFA: University of Southern California.
Mezcalería Synopsis: The play takes place in 17th century Mexico and is an anachronistic, fable-esque drama about a Filipina mezcal-maker encountering God and the Devil as she stops at a convent during her journey to find her missing brother. The mood/genre is drama/fantasy with some clowning elements and a desert gothic vibe.
Amanda L. Andrei is a playwright, literary translator, and theater critic/journalist residing in Los Angeles by way of Virginia/Washington DC. She writes epic, irreverent plays that center the concealed, wounded places of history from the perspectives of diasporic Filipina women, and she co-translates from Romanian to English with her father. Her play Mama, I wish I were silver, also developed with The Vagrancy, won the 2022 Jane Chambers Award for Feminist Playwriting. Her plays have been produced by Relative Theatrics and developed with Boston Court, NY Classical Theater, La MaMa, Echo Theatre, Pasadena Playhouse, Artists at Play, Circle X, Chalk Rep, and more, as well as received finalist status with the Princess Grace Award, Eugene O’Neill Conference, Playwrights Realm, and Ashland Festival. Her critique and articles can be found in the L.A. Times, American Theatre Magazine, Stage Raw, Howl Round, Rappler, Critical Stages, and more. Her translations have received support from the Bread Loaf Translators Conference and appeared in Asymptote Journal, Another Chicago Magazine, and Lunch Ticket. She is a former contributing editor with American Theatre Magazine; an alum of the Asian Cultural Council, National Critics Institute, and the BIPOC Critics Lab at the Public Theater; and she is a Theatre Communications Group Rising Leaders of Color (2023). MFA: University of Southern California.
Mezcalería Synopsis: The play takes place in 17th century Mexico and is an anachronistic, fable-esque drama about a Filipina mezcal-maker encountering God and the Devil as she stops at a convent during her journey to find her missing brother. The mood/genre is drama/fantasy with some clowning elements and a desert gothic vibe.