CTC Commissions
At Chautauqua Theater Company (CTC), we are proud to invest in the future of American theater by commissioning new works from some of the most exciting voices in the field today. These commissions go beyond our New Play Workshops – they’re investments in the artists shaping tomorrow’s stage.
Each piece begins as a spark: a question, a vision, a story only they can tell. Through deep collaboration and dedicated development, we help bring these new works to life – offering playwrights, composers and creators the time, space and support to craft something extraordinary. Learn more about the journey of a commissioned play at CTC.
Explore the commissioned playwrights and works currently in progress at CTC and join us in championing the next generation of transformative theater.
CTC Commissioned Artists
Kwame Alexander
Kwame Alexander is an Emmy® Award-winning producer, and #1 New York Times best-selling author of 44 books, including Why Fathers Cry at Night; How Sweet The Sound; The Door of No Return (2025 Audie Award Winner); The Undefeated, the National Book Award nominee, Newbery Honor, and Caldecott Medal-winning picture book illustrated by Kadir Nelson; and The Crossover, his Newbery-Medal winning novel turned Disney+ TV series. His forthcoming books include J vs K, an illustrated novel he penned with Jerry Craft; and the motivational primer for graduates, creatives, and professionals, titled Say Yes. He is also the executive producer of Acoustic Rooster and his Barnyard Band and Acoustic Rooster: Jazzy Jams, a PBS KIDS special and series of shorts produced by GBH Kids based on his beloved children’s book of the same name. The recipient of a 2025 NAACP Image Award, Alexander is also the founder of AuthorStudy.com, and the Michael I. Rudell Artistic Director of Literary Arts for Chautauqua Literary Arts. He regularly shares his passion for literacy, books and the craft of writing around the world, including Ghana, West Africa, where he opened the Barbara E. Alexander Memorial Library and Health Clinic. His mission is to change the world, one word at a time.
Kate Hamill
Kate Hamill is an actor and playwright. Regularly appearing on Theatre Communications Group’s most produced playwrights list, she was the Wall Street Journal Playwright of the Year in 2017 and received the Einhorn Award in 2023. Plays include Pride & Prejudice – Primary Stages / HVSF (originated role of Lizzy; nominee, Off-Broadway Alliance Award), Sense & Sensibility at Bedlam (originated role of Marianne; winner, Off-Broadway Alliance Award; nominee, Drama League Award); Vanity Fair at the Pearl (originated Becky; nominee, Off-Broadway Alliance Award), Mansfield Park at Northlight, Little Women at Primary Stages and the Jungle, Dracula at Classic Stage Company, Ms. Holmes & Ms. Watson, Apt. #2B at KCRep, The Little Fellow at Cygnet Theatre, Emma at the Guthrie and The Scarlet Letter at Two River. World Premieres in the 2024-2025 season: The Light and The Dark at Chautauqua Theater Company and Primary Stages and The Odyssey at ART in Boston.
Zora Howard
Zora Howard is a Harlem-bred writer and director. Plays include BUST (co-world premiere at the Alliance/Goodman), STEW (2021 Pulitzer Prize Finalist; P73 Productions), The Master’s Tools (Wiener Festwochen; Williamstown Theatre Festival), Hang Time (The Flea), The Motions and Good Faith. Her work has been developed at Ojai Playwrights Conference, Stillwright, Mercury Store, and Cape Cod Theatre Project, among others. In 2020, her feature film Premature, which she co-wrote with director Rashaad Ernesto Green, opened in theaters following its world premiere at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival. Howard is a Lilly Award and Helen Merrill Award recipient, a former MTC Judith Champion Fellow and Lark Van Lier New Voices Fellow, and alum of P73’s I-73 Writers Group. She is currently under commission from Seattle Rep with film projects in development with Wychwood Media and River Road Entertainment.
Christopher Jackson
Christopher Jackson is a Tony Award-nominated actor, as well as a Grammy and Emmy Award-winning songwriter/composer best known for starring as George Washington in the critically acclaimed, award-winning musical “Hamilton” on Broadway and Disney+. As the creator of “The Crossover” musical score, he incorporates high-energy jazz and hip-hop to reflect the world full of dreams, melodies and rhythms.
In 2021, Jackson starred in Freestyle Love Supreme on Broadway alongside Lin-Manuel Miranda. His other Broadway credits include Holler if Ya Hear Me, After Midnight, The Bronx Bombers, In the Heights, Memphis and The Lion King. Off Broadway credits include Bronx Bombers, The Jammer, In the Heights, Cotton Club Parade, and Lonely, I’m Not.
Jackson’s TV and film credits include “And Just Like That,” “Bull,” “Freestyle Love Supreme,” “Person of Interest,” “A Gifted Man,” “Fringe,” “Gossip Girl,” “Tracers,” “Afterlife” and the 2021 film adaptation of “In the Heights.” Jackson voiced “Where You Are” for the Disney film “Moana,” and served as composer/songwriter for “Sesame Street,” garnering seven Emmy nominations and one win. He was also the co-music supervisor and writer for “The Electric Company” on PBS.
In 2018, “One Last Time (44 Remix)” was released which featured Jackson alongside President Barack Obama and BeBe Winans. Jackson won an Emmy Award for his song with Will.I.Am, “What I Am.”
Jackson has performed sold-out concerts all over the United States, including Carnegie Hall and Kennedy Center, and a command performance at the White House in 2023.
C.A. Johnson
C.A. Johnson is a Brooklyn-based playwright originally from Metairie, Louisiana. Her plays include All The Natalie Portmans (MCC Theater), Thirst (2017 Kilroys List, CATF), The Climb (Cherry Lane Mentor Project, InterAct Theatre Company), An American Feast (NYU Playwrights Horizons Theater School), I Know I Know I Know, Somebody’s Body and Tell Me You’re Dying. Most recently, she was named a resident playwright with New Dramatists. She was previously the Tow Playwright in Residence at MCC Theater, the 2018 P73 Playwriting Fellow, The Lark’s 2016-17 Van Lier Fellow, a Dramatists Guild Fellow, a MacDowell Fellow, a member of The Working Farm at SPACE on Ryder Farm, a Core Writer at The Playwrights Center, and a 2018 Sundance Theatre Lab Fellow among other accolades. Her work has been commissioned by Manhattan Theatre Club, Seattle Rep, Page 73, and Chautauqua Theater Company. Johnson also has an active career in film and television, with several projects in development, including at ABC Signature and Searchlight Pictures. She has written for several television series, including projects helmed by Drew Goddard, Marielle Heller, and Jon Robin Baitz. BA: Smith College MFA: NYU
Candrice Jones
Candrice Jones is a playwright and educator from Dermott, Arkansas. As a rising voice in American theater, she brings her poetic sensibility and powerful storytelling to the adaptation of The Crossover. She serves as a board member and educational outreach specialist of The Weekend Theater as well as Ozark Living Newspaper.
Jones’ primary goal as a writer is to write love letters for and to women of the American South. She is best known for writing “FLEX,” a play developed while she was a resident at the Voices of Our Nations Arts Foundation (VONA) Playwrights Festival, Ground Floor. FLEX premiered at Lincoln Center Theater in New York and Penumbra Theatre in St. Paul, Minnesota. Jones is also the author of the full-length play, “Crackbaby.” She has received virtual commissions from the People’s Light and Actors Theatre of Louisville.
Jones is a CalArts Critical Studies MFA recipient. She was a fellow at Callaloo for poetry at Brown University. She was also a former resident at MacDowell’s Colony of the Arts.
Theresa Rebeck
Theresa Rebeck is an award-winning and widely-produced playwright whose work has been staged across the globe. Her Broadway plays include the record-breaking Roundabout Theatre-produced hit I Need That (starring Danny DeVito), along with Bernhardt/Hamlet, Dead Accounts, Seminar and Mauritius. Other notable plays include the New York Times Critic’s Pick Dig (which she also directed) at Primary Stages/59E59 Theaters; Mad House, which premiered on London’s West End starring David Harbour and Bill Pullman; Seared (MCC); Downstairs (Primary Stages); The Scene; The Water’s Edge; Loose Knit; The Family of Mann; Spike Heels (Second Stage); Bad Dates; The Butterfly Collection; Our House (Playwrights Horizons); The Understudy (Roundabout); View of the Dome (NYTW); What We’re Up Against (Women’s Project); Omnium Gatherum (Pulitzer Prize finalist). Rebeck recently wrote the book for the musical adaptation of Working Girl, which premiered at La Jolla Playhouse, with music & lyrics by Cyndi Lauper. As a director, her work has been seen at The Alley Theatre (Houston), the REP Company (Delaware), Dorset Theatre Festival, the Orchard Project and the Folger Theatre. Major film and TV projects include Trouble, with Anjelica Huston, Bill Pullman and David Morse (writer and director), NYPD Blue, the NBC series Smash (creator), the female spy thriller 355 (for Jessica Chastain’s production company) and Glimpse. As a novelist, Rebeck’s books include Three Girls and Their Brother and I’m Glad About You. Rebeck is the recipient of the William Inge New Voices Playwriting Award, the PEN/Laura Pels Foundation Award, and a Lilly Award. theresarebeck.com
Sharyn Rothstein
Sharyn Rothstein is an award-winning playwright and television writer. Her newest play Bad Books is a National New Play Network Rolling World Premiere play and will be produced at theaters across America this year. Rothstein is currently a writer and co-executive producer on Suits LA, the spin-off of the hit legal drama Suits, for which she wrote and produced for five seasons. Sharyn was also a writer and co-executive producer on AMC’s Orphan Black: Echoes, and has developed shows for Apple, AMC and Bravo. Her Helen Hayes Award-nominated musical adaptation of the beloved film Hester Street (with music and lyrics by Joel Waggoner) was produced at DC’s Theater J in spring 2024. Her play By The Water was first produced by Manhattan Theater Club and Ars Nova and was the recipient of the American Theater Critic’s Association Francesca Primus Prize. Her audio drama Deep Fake was recently released on Audible. Sharyn holds an MFA in dramatic writing from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, and a master’s degree in Public Health from Hunter College.
History of CTC Commissions
2026
Elevator
By Theresa Rebeck
‘Elevator’ is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.
2025
A Musical Adaptation of the book The Crossover
Kwame Alexander, Christopher Jackson, and Candrice Jones
The Motions
by Zora Howard
2024
Best for Baby
by Sharyn Rothstein
‘Best for Baby’ is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.
2023
The Light and The Dark (the life and times of Artemisia Gentileschi)
by Kate Hamill
The Witnesses (formerly titled Tell Me You’re Dying)
by C.A. Johnson
‘The Witnesses’ is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.