The Farm Theater's Bullpen Sessions

Bullpen Sessions Episode 80: Dipti Bramhandkar

Dipti Bramhandkar is a Mumbai-born playwright, filmmaker, LAByrinth Theater Company member. She was commissioned by Juggerknot Theatre Company in Miami for Conjuring the King, a fully immersive show about an Elvis fan, which is currently running (2024.) The Farm Theater has awarded her their 2023-24 College Collaboration Project Fellowship. Bramhandkar will be in residence at multiple universities throughout 2023-24 to develop a new play in collaboration with different college theater programs. The first of the two, Soft Launch, premiered at Centre College in early 2023. The second, The Ruminants, will be produced three times - Austin Peay State University, Middle Tennessee State University, Shenandoah University (2024.) She presented her new play, Love Lake, at LAByrinth's Barn Series in 2023, which is now in development. This is the third of four plays that have been selected for the Barn Series since 2020. Other recent work includes Is There Even Porn in India?, which was workshopped in London with director Tim Supple (former AD of the Young Vic) and dramaturg, Jack Bradley (Sonia Friedman Productions.) It was presented in New York (with Sarita Choudhury, Kevin Corrigan, and Ajay Naidu.) Her play Islands of Contentment (Daphne Rubin-Vega, Danny Pudi, Florencia Lozano, Sathya Sridharan, Mahira Kakkar, Laura Gómez, Rita Wolf, Kalki Koechlin, Suraj Sharma, and more) was produced by Hypokrit Productions and The Tank. She was the playwright in residence at Guild Hall, which subsequently commissioned A Land Without Weather(with David Zayas, David Anzuelo, Chris McGarry, Purva Bedi, Rajesh Bose.) She was commissioned by Compass Needle Productions to write two audio plays, Kishori’s Canteen and Learning to Swim, which are out on Audible. Her audio series Quarantheater was featured on WNYC. Her short film The Choice (with Bobby Daniel Rodriguez) was selected for several film festivals. She holds a BA from Cornell University and a MA from Cambridge University.

Bullpen Sessions Episode 79: Eden Marryshow

Eden Marryshow is an award-winning Director/Writer/Actor from Flatbush, Brooklyn. For over a decade, Eden served NYC’s Department of Education as a Paraprofessional where he taught some of city’s most marginalized youth. Latina "Peanut" Bilbro, one of his most beloved students, would always tell him that she believed in him, she knew he was going to be on stage and make movies someday. On June 22nd 2006, Eden received a call that Peanut was killed in a drive-by shooting. He decided it was time to follow his dream... and prove Peanut right. Since that decision, Eden wrote, produced, directed and starred in the Nationally Theatrically released Feature Film Bruce!!!!, which garnered Marryshow multiple awards.  He is currently in post-production for his newest feature, Can You Stand The Rain, which is a love-note to his brother, Shawn Xavier Brown, who he lost last year. Theatre credits include INK (MTC/Broadway), Seven Guitars (Arena Stage), Pipeline (Actors Theatre), Game On (Kennedy Center). Marryshow recently recurred on Netflix’s Archive 81, and previously Jessica Jones and It’s Bruno. A huge thanks to my parents, Cesa, KMR, Victor Villar-Hauser, and The Boothe Group. To my Peanut… dreams do come true. 

Bullpen Sessions Episode 78: Jake Brasch

Jake Brasch (he/they) is a writer + actor + composer + clown and a graduating second-year playwright in the Juilliard School’s Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwrights Program. Jake is a member of the 2024 Page 73 Writers Group and a 2023-2024 Alliance/Kendeda Finalist. His play The Reservoir was commissioned by the Ensemble Studio Theatre/Alfred P. Sloan Science & Technology Project and was presented at the 2023 Colorado New Play Summit at the Denver Center. Their work has been developed by New York Stage and Film, The Ensemble Studio Theatre, The Farm Theater, ArtHouse Inkubator, Letter of Marque Theater Company, Eden Theater Company, and LAByrinth Theater Company. He is currently under commission from the EST/Sloan Project and The Farm Theater’s College Collaboration Project. They're a proud graduate of Ensemble Studio Theatre's Youngblood, The Farm Theater's Development Workshop, and The LAByrinth Intensive Ensemble. As a composer, Jake has written music and lyrics for several films, plays, and podcasts. He works as a birthday party clown in the tri-state area and is currently developing a series based on his clowning career. They are also developing a Grotowski-based physical dramaturgy pedagogy for playwrights. BFA from NYU Tisch (Experimental Theatre Wing/New Studio on Broadway).

Bullpen Sessions Episode 77: Tricia Alexandro

Tricia Alexandro is an actor, writer and native New Yorker. She has studied acting with Seth Barrish and Lee Brock at The Barrow Group, Bob Krakower at Manhattan Film Institute and attended Playhouse West in LA where she studied the Meisner Technique. She is an alumni of The Labyrinth Theater Company’s Master Class. Her latest credits include the Off-Broadway play Seven Deadly Sins, written and directed by Tony nominated and Obie winner Moisés Kaufman, a recurring role on the TV show Bridge and Tunnel (written and directed by Ed Burns) which premiered at The Tribeca Film Festival, The Blacklist (NBC), she guest starred on BULL (CBS) and Law and Order: SVU and recently appeared on The Other Two (with Wanda Sykes and Molly Shannon) on HBO Max. In 2023 she won the Best Actress Award in India for her lead role in the sci-fi film Life Quest, which is currently playing in festivals worldwide. Tricia was in the one woman show The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe, at Cape May Stage where she played 9 characters, and We, the Invisibles at the Humana Festival, in which she played 14 characters. Tricia’s performance in John Yearley’s collection of one acts called The Unrepeatable Moment at The Barrow Group Theater was singled out in The New York Times: “bravely acted, a high point of the show”. Next up, Tricia will do a staged reading at 59 E 59, for The Labyrinth Theater Company’s Barn Series, of Mel Nieves’ new play La Potencia, in which she plays the title character, a boxer from the Bronx who is past her prime, but unwilling to leave the boxing ring behind. Tricia also teaches at The Barrow Group School in NYC, and is a certified life coach who loves helping creative folks flourish. Find her on IG: @triciaalexandro

Bullpen Sessions Episode 76: Ajay Naidu

Ajay Naidu 

On screen, Naidu starred in the cult film Office Space, as well as appearing in films such as K-Pax, Subway Stories, π, Requiem for a Dream, Bad Santa, The War Within, The Guru, Waterborne, and Loins of Punjab Presents. He co-starred as a series regular in the sitcom LateLine and had guest starring roles on the television dramas The Sopranos,The West Wing and Bored to Death. Naidu has been working extensively with musicians from the Asian underground music movement for many years as a breakdancer and an M.C. His vocals have appeared on many records, most notably Talvin Singh's mercury award winner "OK". In 2006, Naidu directed his first feature film Ashes which had its release in 2010 and for which he won Best Actor accolades from the MIACC Film Festival in New York and the London Asian Film Festival. Naidu's most recent theatre credits include The Kid Stays in the Picture at the Royal Court Theatre, The Master and Margarita with Complicite, a world tour of Shakespeare's Measure for Measure with Complicite, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui alongside Al Pacino, directed by Simon McBurney, The Little Flower of East Orange alongside Ellyn Burstyn at New York's Public Theater directed by Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Waiting for Godot at TFANA directed by Arin Arbus. In 2001 Naidu's solo theatre piece Darwaza was a sold-out hit at New York's Labyrinth Theatre, where he is also a member of the company. In 2019, Naidu was awarded the Excellence in Performing Arts Award by Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White.

Bullpen Sessions Episode 75: Jessi D. Hill

JESSI D. HILL (she/her) is a NYC-based director, theatre-maker, teacher and runner (8 Marathons and counting!) whose play development projects have included work at New York Theatre Workshop, The Public Theater/Joe’s Pub, Playwrights Horizons, The Playwrights’ Center, Primary Stages, Labyrinth, Keen Company, The Women’s Project, 59E59, The New Group, Rattlestick, HERE Arts Center, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Culture Project, The Acting Company, The Barrow Group, New Dramatists, P73, Clubbed Thumb, The Lark, The Playwrights Realm, PS122, Baruch Performing Arts Center, New Georges, Premiere Stages, Luna Stage, The Wild Project, Abingdon, Naked Angels, Jewish Plays Project and others. Her work has been seen internationally in Edinburgh, London, New Zealand, Bucharest, Berlin, Hamburg and Rome.. www.jessidhill.com

Bullpen Sessions Episode 74: Lori Vega

Lori Vega is a New York-based stage and screen actor whose most recent TV credits include work on Pretty Little Liars, And Just Like That (HBO), Bull (CBS) and FBI (CBS) and El Deafo (Apple TV+). Coming from world class training at LAMDA and Cornell University, her on stage credits include both classical and contemporary plays with Off-Broadway theaters such as Playwrights Horizons, Target Margin Theater, Classical Theater of Harlem, and Ensemble Studio Theater (EST). She has also worked at regional theaters such as Trinity Rep, The Rep St Louis, Contemporary American Theater Festival (CATF), Portland Stage Co., Lake Tahoe and Idaho Shakespeare Festivals, and many more. www.lorivega.net

Bullpen Sessions Episode 73: Erin Mallon

ERIN MALLON is a USA Today Bestselling Author, playwright, producer of audio plays and narrator of 600 audiobooks. She is a six-time Earphones Award Winner and a five-time Audie Award Nominee. Her audio play These Walls Can Talk is a 2021 Independent Audiobook Award Winner for Humor. The Natural History Series is Erin’s debut trio of romantic comedy novels including Flirtasaurus, Lovebug and Sharkbait. Erin’s plays have been presented with Urban Stages, New Georges, Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, The Collective, Cherry Picking, Great Plains Theater Conference, Samuel French #OOB Short Play Festival, Project Y Theater, Vivid Stage, Mile Square Theatre and more. Erin’s play Branched (dir. Robert Ross Parker) premiered with InViolet Theater at HERE Arts Center in NYC and is in print with Original Works Publishing. Her play, The Net Will Appear had its Off-Broadway Premiere at 59E59 Theaters in NYC starring the great Richard Masur and is now available on Audible.com as an audio drama co-starring Matilda Lawler (Disney Plus’ Flora & Ulysses, Broadway’s The Ferryman). Erin’s Other full-length plays include: Pale Blue Dot(s), Good Riddance, Soft Animals, Hand Me Down, Stunning Displays of Prowess, Skin Hungry, The Other White Meat, Come Find Me, These Walls Can Talk 2: The Narwhal Strikes Back! and These Walls Can Talk 3: Rise of the Machine. 

Bullpen Sessions Episode 72: Katie Mack

Katie Mack (she/her) is a queer sober scrappy nomadic creative who loves other creatives. Her most recent curiosity is the intersection of technology and live theater, to be explored in future production #uglycry: grief hits different coming this fall. She is the founder and producer of multi-award winning podcast “fcking sober: the first 90 days”, has helped create over 40 original song works as an actor, and six first works with her company  Somehow9am Productions, and has an unhealthy love of peanut butter.

Bullpen Sessions Episode 71: Awoye Timpo

Awoye Timpo: is a New York-based director. Off- Broadway directing credits include Elyria (Atlantic Theater Company) In Old Age (New York Theatre Workshop), Good Grief (Vineyard Theatre), The Revolving Cycles Truly and Steadily Roll’d (Playwrights Realm), and The Homecoming Queen (Atlantic Theater Company). Regionally she has directed Pipeline (Studio Theatre), Everybody Black (Actors Theatre of Louisville) and Paradise Blue (Long Wharf Theatre). Additional credits include Carnaval (National Black Theatre), Sister Son/ji (Billie Holiday Theatre) and Ndebele Funeral (59E59 Theaters, Edinburgh Festival/Summerhall, and South African tour). She is a Creative Director for music events and a Creative Consultant for the African-American Policy Forum.