For our second Let’s Talk topic, we’re really thrilled to tackle the issue of parent artists - NHP is proud of our wholehearted support of parent artists, but there are lots of theatre organizations that do not prioritize that support. For this episode, we’re thrilled to be joined by three of NHP’s parent artist alumni: Shavonne Coleman, Franky D. Gonzalez, and Dan O’Brien.
Shavonne Coleman (she/they/fae) is a fabulist, applied theatre practitioner, actor, director, playwright, and dramaturg/cultural consultant whose work centers community-engaged storytelling as a practice of care, inquiry, and social change. Detroit-born and Detroit-rooted, Shavonne maintains deep artistic and professional ties to the city, continuing to collaborate with youth, community members, professional artists, and institutions.
Dan O’Brien is a playwright, poet, memoirist, essayist, and librettist. His most prominent works: the play The Body of an American and the poetry collection War Reporter. His play Newtown received the Laurie Foundation Theatre Visions Fund Award and premiered at Geva Theatre in 2024, directed by Elizabeth Williamson. His play The House in Scarsdale: a Memoir for the Stage received the 2018 PEN America Award for Drama after a premier at Boston Court Pasadena, directed by Michael Michetti. He has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Hodder Fellowship from Princeton University, the Horton Foote Prize for Outstanding American Play, the L. Arnold Weissberger Award, and many more honors and recognitions. He is currently under commission from the Lucille Lortel Theater Alcove New Play Development Program. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, the actor and writer Jessica St. Clair, and their daughter Isobel.
Franky D. Gonzalez is a playwright and TV writer of Colombian descent based in Dallas where he serves the Dramatists Guild Regional Representative. Selected appearances include The Lark, the Sundance Institute, the Ojai Playwrights Conference, Berkeley Repertory Theatre's Ground Floor, the NNPN National Showcase of New Plays, the Latinx Playwrights Circle, the Texas State University's Black and Latino Playwrights Celebration, The Sol Project (SolFest 2022), Urbanite Theatre, Visión Latino Theatre Company, The Orchard Project, the Great Plains Theatre Conference, the Valdez Theatre Conference, the Goodman Theatre (Live @ Five Series), Launch Pad at UC Santa Barbara, The New Harmony Project, Bishop Arts Theatre Center, Repertorio Español, LAByrinth Theater Company, Ars Nova (ANT Fest 2021), Dallas Theater Center, the William Inge Theatre Festival, Stages Repertory Theatre's Sin Muros Latinx Theatre Festival (2019 and 2024), the Latino Theatre Company’s RE:Encuentro 2021: National Virtual Latina/o/x Theatre Festival, the Latinx Theatre Commons 2022 Comedy Carnaval, Seven Devils New Play Foundry. Franky was a recipient of the Charles Rowan Beye New Play Commission, an MTC/Sloan Commission, the Risk Theatre Modern Tragedy Prize, co-recipient of the MetLife Nuestras Voces Latino Playwriting Award, won the Crossroads Project Diverse Voices Playwriting Initiative Award, the Judith Royer Award for Excellence in Playwriting, the Short+Sweet Theatre Festival Manila Best Overall Production Prize, and was a staff writer for the fourth season of 13 Reasons Why. Productions of his work have also been recognized garnering two Non-Equity Jeff Awards in Chicago for Short Run Production and Short Run Director in 2024. Previously he was a 4 Seasons Resident Playwright, a Sony Pictures Television Diverse Writers Program Fellow, a Core Writer with the Playwrights Center, and is currently the proud Bishop Arts Theatre Center Playwright-in-Residence, and a board member of the New Harmony Project.