My Brother Jake

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ABOUT US

Founded in 2023 by autistic playwright and producer Anthony J. Piccione, the Neurodivergent New Play Series is dedicated to presenting matinee readings on the 3rd Sunday of every month - with seasonal breaks in December, January, July, and August - of plays written entirely by neurodivergent and disabled playwrights (i.e autism, ADHD, dyslexia, OCD, Tourette syndrome, etc.) as part of a growing resident company of playwrights whose interests and specialties span a wide range of subjects, genres & structural approaches, with each play personally selected from a neuroinclusive resident company of directors.

Mr. Piccione is an award-winning writer, producer & teaching artist whose eclectic canon of plays have previously been presented in NYC and regional venues such as The Tank, the New York Theatre Festival, Planet Connections Theatre Festivity, Midtown International Theatre Festival, Manhattan Repertory Theatre, and more. His debut full-length play A Therapy Session with Myself premiered in January 2019 at the Hudson Guild Theatre before transferring in May to the Kraine Theater for an extended year-long run. Since then, his second full-length play One Empire, Under God made its live premiere at The Tank in November 2021 after previously premiering via Zoom earlier that year and is now published and available for licensing at Next Stage Press, while his next full-length play The Lone Wolf Society received a staged reading at The Tank in November 2022 and is slated to be published at Next Stage Press in 2024. Additionally, his short drama What I Left Behind was named the New York Theatre Festival’s Best Short Play of Winterfest 2018, and his short film The Fire That Won't Stop was named an official selection at the Venice Short Film Awards, the Paris International Short Festival, and the Hollywood International Golden Age Festival. He is also the Founding Artistic Director of the Talking It Out Virtual Arts Festival, which is dedicated to promoting mental health awareness through the arts and was nominated for Festival of the Year at the 2023 Young-Howze Theatre Awards, and currently serves on the Board of the Directors of the Autistic Theatremakers Alliance. He has previously worked as a scriptwriter-for-hire whose work has been commissioned by Sesame Workshop and various other clients, as well as a contributing writer to OnStage Blog from 2015 to 2019, and he has taught playwriting at EPIC Players and Broadway Weekends. Visit www.anthonyjpiccione.com to learn more.

The Neurodivergent New Play Series is a curated producted of spit&vigor. Founded in 2015, spit&vigor is a non-profit theater company devoted to the development of new plays and spirited, innovative productions of existing work. Their small roster of productions has been award winning and critically acclaimed, praised as “darkly humorous, deliciously ghoulish”, “wrenching and visually eloquent”, "irresistibly dramatic" and "legitimately upsetting" by the New York Times. In collaboration with theater company Theatre4thePeople, spit&vigor was the recipient of the 2015 New York Innovative Theater Outstanding Premiere Production of a Play Award for their very first production in a historic chapel at The West Park Presbyterian Church, which included an Artist Support Grant from the Donn Russell Fund. spit&vigor has since gone on to earn The Players Theater Off-Broadway Artistic Residency, The Center at West Park’s Artist Residency, IRT's 3B Residency, The Davenport space grant, and The Times Center space grant.

If you would like to make a donation to directly offset production costs for the Neurodivergent New Play Series, please visit https://ko-fi.com/neurodivergentplays

Cast

Creative Team

Meet the Company

Kyle A Smith

Jake

Kyle A. Smith’s acting has been seen in the New York fringe, a zombie Walden reimagining, a reading of Dave's other play The Wonderful Out There, and not a whole lot else. As a playwright, their plays include The Part of Me (Madlab theatre, excerpt at Graeae, Princess Grace Finalist, BAPF Semi-Finalist, Theatre503 Semi-Finalist), Paralysis (upcoming production at Kansas University, developed with Fresh Binder Productions, Reading at Transformation Theatre, DGF Fellowship Finalist), and Blinded (O'Neill Semi-finalist, Goldberg Prize Finalist, New Classics Semi-Finalist), among many others. Their dramaturgy work includes work for Transformation Theatre, reading for New York Repertory Theatre, and freelance work with writers at all stages of their careers. They have also created a series of short films with long time collaborator Stephen Zuccaro, including the films Peanut Butter Water and The Exclusive, among others. Kyle is Agender, Bisexual, Bipolar, a full bingo card of neurodivergent, and frankly, has too many parts of themselves to keep track of. They teach English, screenwriting, and Theatre history at UCNJ and business writing at Kean University. They live with their spouse, baby, and cat, in Brooklyn. Kyleanthonysmith.com MFA: NYU, DDW.

Dan Victor

Ethan

Dan Victor (He/They) is an Autistic and Physically Disabled Actor. This the third play by Dave Osmundsen he has participated in a reading of, and is so thrilled to be back doing some #AutisticAF theater. When he isn’t yelling himself hoarse about accessibility, Dan can be found performing in Serials at the Tank, the next cycle of which is in July (and he will give you a lil forehead kiss if you attend, pinky swear). He would like to specifically thank the Stella Adler Voice Department for his golden pipes and all the trauma for making him funny.

Dave Osmundsen

Playwright

Dave Osmundsen (He/Him/His) is an Autistic playwright and dramaturg whose work has been seen and developed at KCACTF Region 8, the Kennedy Center/NNPN MFA Playwrights Workshop, BLUEBARN Theatre, the Great Plains Theatre Conference, Purple Crayon Players, B Street Theatre, the William Inge Theatre Festival, the Midwest Dramatists Conference, Phoenix Theatre Company, Clamour Theatre Company, Premiere Stages, the Valdez Theatre Conference, and more. A three-time O'Neill semi-finalist, he was also a recipient of the Blank Theatre and Ucross Foundation’s inaugural Future of Playwriting Prize. His play Light Switch received its world premiere with Spectrum Theatre Ensemble in April 2022. Light Switch was also the 2021 Distinguished Achievement recipient of the Jean Kennedy Smith Playwriting Award, an Honorable Mention finalist for BAPF 2021, longlisted for the Theatre503 International Playwriting Award, a finalist for the 2020 Carlo Annoni Playwriting Prize, and a semi-finalist for the 2020 National Playwrights Conference. His one-act, A Firework Unexploded, was a semi-finalist for the NYC Audio Theatre Writing Contest and was produced by Pint-Sized in London. His plays have been published by The Dionysian, Canyon Voices, Exposition Review, Fresh Words: Contemporary One Act Plays Volume 5, and Broadway Play Publishing. MFA: Arizona State University

Allen MacLeod

Director

is a NYC-based theatrical director of new plays and musicals. Recent credits include Love + Science (City Center), More of a Heart (BLUEBARN Theatre), Light Switch (Spectrum Theatre Ensemble), The Trade Federation: or, Let’s Explore Globalization Through the Star Wars Prequels (IRT Theater); Prophesy (The Wild Project; best direction award, Fresh Fruit Festival); You’re Not My Type (The Duplex). Upcoming projects include More of a Heart, premiering in March, 2023. Select associate/assisting credits: How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (The Kennedy Center); Frozen: A Musical Spectacular (Disney Cruise Lines); Presto Change-o, A Little More Alive, and Man of La Mancha (Barrington Stage); I Hate Hamlet (Bucks County Playhouse); We Are the Tigers (Gallery Players); Cory and Smin’s Love Conquers the Universe (Smiling Hogshead Ranch).

Our next scheduled reading at spit&vigor's tiny baby blackbox theater:

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