A Tony Award-Winning Non-Profit Theater in New York
With a commitment to creating new works and launching them on a pathway to production, this new partnership will support playwrights developing original works for Roundabout with the gift of time and space on the Hermitage’s inspirational Manasota Key campus.
May 3, 2023 (Sarasota County, Florida) — The Hermitage Artist Retreat is pleased to announce a new partnership with the Tony Award-winning Roundabout Theatre Company, the nation’s largest not-for-profit theater with a celebrated history of producing iconic works for nearly 60 years. The partnership, designed to continue on an ongoing basis, furthers the Hermitage’s mission to inspire and foster the most influential and culturally consequential art and artists of our time. This collaboration will provide an opportunity for some of the theater world’s most exciting new voices to explore their work on the historic Hermitage campus before a potential production at one of the country’s most prestigious theatrical institutions. The inaugural year of this new partnership will launch this summer with playwrights York Walker and Dave Harris.
York Walker, an award-winning playwright and screenwriter from Chicago, is the inaugural recipient of the Vineyard Theatre’s Colman Domingo Award and is also a member of Marcus Gardley’s New Wave Writer’s Workshop. His work includes The Séance (Winner of the John Singleton Short Film Competition, 48 Hours… in Harlem), Covenant (Fire This Time Festival, Access Theatre’s 4 Flights Up Festival), White Shoes (Fire This Time Festival), Summer Of ’63 (The Actors Company Theatre’s New TACTics Festival, Actor’s Theatre of Louisville’s Apprentice Reading Series) and Of Dreams To Come (American Conservatory Theatre’s New Work Series). His play Covenant is scheduled to premiere as part of the Roundabout Underground Series in the fall of 2023.
Dave Harris is a poet and playwright based in Philadelphia whose work Tambo & Bones premiered at Playwrights Horizons in 2022. Other works for the stage include Exception to the Rule (Roundabout Theatre Company, 2022), and Everybody Black (Humana Festival 2019). His first feature film, Summertime premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival and was released in 2021. Selected honors include: the 2019 Ollie Award, The Lorraine Hansberry Award and Mark Twain Award from The Kennedy Center, The International Commendation for The Bruntwood Prize, the Venturous Fellowship from The Lark, and a Cave Canem poetry fellowship amongst others. Harris is currently writing several features and television projects for AMC (Interview with the Vampire), FX, and Amazon. His first full-length collection of poetry, Patricide, was published by Button Poetry. Upcoming: Incendiary (Woolly Mammoth, 2023), Tambo & Bones (Royal Stratford East, London Premiere, 2023).
“We are honored to be launching this exciting collaboration with Roundabout Theatre Company,” added Hermitage Artistic Director and CEO Andy Sandberg. “We are proud to be a leading national incubator for new and original works, and as Roundabout deepens its commitment to championing new voices, this partnership provides emerging and innovative playwrights with a ‘full circle’ journey.”
Harris and Walker are not the only overlapping Hermitage and Roundabout Underground artists. Adam Gwon, whose musical Ordinary Days premiered at the Underground in 2009, went on to develop his musical Scotland, PA (with playwright Michael Mitnick) at the Hermitage Artist Retreat before its premiere at the Laura Pels Theatre at the Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre in 2019. Other notable mutual artists include Tigers Be Still playwright Kim Rosenstock, who was recently in residence at the Hermitage developing a new commission for Roundabout, amongst other emerging and established theater artists.
For more information on the Hermitage and upcoming programs, visit HermitageArtistRetreat.org.
Artist Bios
York Walker
York Walker is an award-winning playwright and screenwriter from Chicago, Illinois. He is the inaugural recipient of the Vineyard Theatre’s Colman Domingo Award. He is also a member of Marcus Gardley’s New Wave Writer’s Workshop. His work includes Holcomb & Hart (Victory Garden’s New Plays For A New Year Festival), Asè (Harlem9, Harlem Stage, and Lucille Lortel Theatre’s Consequences digital series), The Séance (Winner of the John Singleton Short Film Competition, 48 Hours… in Harlem), Covenant (Colman Domingo Award, Fire This Time Festival, Access Theatre’s 4 Flights Up Festival, Arizona Theatre Company’s Digital Play Series), White Shoes (Fire This Time Festival), Summer Of ’63 (The Actors Company Theatre’s New TACTics Festival, Actors Theatre of Louisville’s Apprentice Reading Series) and Of Dreams To Come (American Conservatory Theatre’s New Play Series). York received his MFA in Acting from the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco and is currently developing work with South Coast Repertory Theatre and Roundabout Theatre Company.
Dave Harris
Dave Harris is a poet and playwright from West Philly. Selected plays include Tambo & Bones (Playwrights Horizons, Center Theatre Group, 2022), Exception to the Rule (Roundabout Theatre Company, 2022), and Everybody Black (Humana Festival 2019). His first feature film, Summertime premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival and was released in 2021. Selected honors include: the 2019 Ollie Award, The Lorraine Hansberry Award and Mark Twain Award from The Kennedy Center, The International Commendation for The Bruntwood Prize, the Venturous Fellowship from The Lark, and a Cave Canem poetry fellowship amongst others. Dave is currently writing several feature and television projects for AMC (Interview with the Vampire), FX, and Amazon. His first full-length collection of poetry, Patricide, was published by Button Poetry. Upcoming: Incendiary (Woolly Mammoth, 2023), Tambo & Bones (London, 2023).
The Hermitage Artist Retreat
Sarasota County, Florida
Andy Sandberg, Artistic Director and CEO
The Hermitage is a non-profit artist retreat located in Manasota Key, Florida, inviting accomplished artists across multiple disciplines for residencies on its beachfront campus, which is on the National Register of Historic Places. Hermitage artists are invited to interact with the local community, reaching thousands of Gulf Coast residents and visitors each year with unique and inspiring programs. Hermitage Fellows have included 15 Pulitzer Prize winners, Poets Laureate, MacArthur ‘Genius’ Fellows, and multiple Tony, Emmy, Grammy, Oscar winners and nominees. Works created at this beachside retreat by a diverse group of Hermitage alumni have gone on to renowned theaters, concert halls, and galleries throughout the world. Each year, the Hermitage awards the $30,000 Hermitage Greenfield Prize for a new work of art, the newly announced $35,000 Hermitage Major Theater Award for an original theater commission, and the Aspen Music Festival’s Hermitage Prize in Composition.
For more information, visit HermitageArtistRetreat.org.
The Hermitage is supported by:
Hermitage programs are supported, in part, by Sarasota County Tourist Development Tax Revenues; the State of Florida, Department of State, Division of Arts and Culture, the Florida Council on Arts and Culture, and the National Endowment for the Arts; as well as the Gulf Coast Community Foundation, Charles & Margery Barancik Foundation, and the Community Foundation of Sarasota County.
Roundabout Theatre Company:
Roundabout Theatre Companycelebrates the power of theater by spotlighting classics from the past, cultivating new works of the present, and educating minds for the future. A not-for-profit company, Roundabout fulfills that mission by producing familiar and lesser-known plays and musicals; discovering and supporting talented playwrights; reducing the barriers that can inhibit theatergoing; collaborating with a diverse team of artists; building educational experiences; and archiving over five decades of production history.
Roundabout Theatre Companypresents a variety of plays and musicals on its five stages: Broadway’s American Airlines Theatre, Studio 54 and Stephen Sondheim Theatre, and Off-Broadway’s Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre, which houses the Laura Pels Theatre and Black Box Theatre. American Airlines is the official airline of Roundabout Theatre Company. Roundabout productions are supported, in part, with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Hochul and the New York State Legislature.
Roundabout’s upcoming productions include:Primary Trust by Eboni Booth, directed by Knud Adams; The Refuge Plays by Nathan Alan Davis, directed by Patricia McGregor; Covenant by York Walker, directed by Tiffany Nichole Greene; I Need That by Theresa Rebeck, directed by Moritz von Stuelpnagel; Home by Samm-Art Williams, directed by Kenny Leon; and Jonah by Rachel Bonds, directed by Danya Taymor.