New York, December 2025 - New Dramatists, an artistic home and developmental laboratory for professional playwrights, is proud to announce the addition of new Board members, Lysna Marzani, Managing Director of Theatrical Rights Worldwide, and current resident playwrights, Ariel Stess, and Andrea Stolowitz, and the reappointment of Ken Urban, an alum who will remain on the board until June 2026.
With over thirty years in the theater industry, Lysna Marzani’s career embodies her lifelong dedication to supporting artists and championing new theatrical voices. She began as a Costume Coordinator and Dresser for leading New York not-for-profit theaters—including the Public Theater, the Wooster Group, and Folksbiene—before becoming assistant to legendary producer Arthur Cantor. Her career then expanded into television, where she served as Membership Coordinator for the Writers Guild of America East, managing membership affairs for writers and researchers at NBC, CBS, and ABC. Her enduring passion for theater led her back to artist representation at The Shukat Company, Ltd., where she worked with acclaimed writers, composers, and lyricists such as Alan Menken and Carol Hall. Lysna went on to spend eleven years at Samuel French, rising to Director of Acquisitions and Business Affairs, before serving as Director of Acquisitions at Playscripts, Inc. In 2018, Lysna joined Theatrical Rights Worldwide as Director of Professional & International Licensing and, in 2020, was appointed Executive Director of TRW Plays, the company’s newly launched division by Owner and CEO Steve Spiegel. In 2025, she was promoted to Managing Director of TRW Plays. A dedicated advocate for emerging talent, Lysna serves on the Advisory Board of Dramatic Question Theater and the Board of TYA/USA and has contributed to selection committees for the Premiere Stages Play Festival, the Samuel French Off-Off Broadway Festival, and the Eugene O’Neill National Music Theater Conference.
Ariel Stess is an Obie Award–winning playwright, director, and screenwriter originally from Santa Fe, New Mexico. Her play KARA & EMMA & BARBARA & MIRANDA won the 2024 Obie Award for Playwriting and the 2025 Yale Drama Series Prize. Other works include Heartbreak (The Bushwick Starr/New Georges); I’M PRETTY FUCKED UP (Clubbed Thumb); THE WORLD MY MAMA RAISED (Clubbed Thumb); and HE ATE QUIETLY INTO THE WALL(The New Ohio). Her plays have been developed or produced at Playwrights Horizons, Clubbed Thumb, The Bushwick Starr, New Georges, Mabou Mines, Brave New World Rep, Rivendell Theatre, Shattered Globe Theatre, DePaul University, Northwestern University, and The Lark. KARA & EMMA & BARBARA & MIRANDA will be published by Yale University Press in 2026. Ariel is an Affiliated Artist with New Georges, a resident playwright at New Dramatists, a former Core Writer at The Playwrights’ Center, and has held residencies at Yaddo, SPACE on Ryder Farm with Playwrights Horizons, and Mabou Mines. She’s been commissioned by Playwrights Horizons and Clubbed Thumb. She holds a BA from Bard College and an MFA in Playwriting from Brooklyn College. She currently teaches in Northwestern University’s Radio/TV/Film department and in the MFA in Writing for the Screen & Stage.
Andrea Stolowitz is an internationally produced playwright and librettist, a resident playwright at New Dramatists (NYC), and a three-time winner of the Oregon Book Award in Drama. The LA Times calls Andrea’s work “heartbreaking,” and the Orange County Register characterizes her approach as a “brave refusal to sugarcoat issues”. Andrea’s most recent play in development, NUMBERED BE OUR DAYS, is a verbatim project about the Cork, Ireland Jewish community. The project was awarded an Irish Arts Council Strand One Award and was presented as a work-in-progress at The Cork Midsummer Festival in 2025. Andrea’s play THE BERLIN DIARIES was a New York City Mayor’s Office/NYFA Women in Theatre, Film, and Television award winner and a JPP finalist. The play premiered in New York City at 59E59 Theatre. THE BERLIN DIARIES was part of the National New Play Network’s rolling world premiere program, under which the play had a five-theater US tour in 2024-25, finishing in June 2025, at Theatre J (DC). In addition to its US performances, THE BERLIN DIARIES was produced three times by English Theatre Berlin/International Performing Arts Center in Berlin, Germany. Andrea has worked with the Portland, Oregon-based devised theatre ensemble, Hand2Mouth Theatre creating four new plays. Andrea’s opera work has been supported by the Nautilus/New Dramatists composer-librettist studio, resulting in her new project, THE LIMIT OF THE SUN, with Grammy-nominated composer Luna Pearl Woolfe. Their work was developed at Opera McGill and West Edge Opera. Andrea’s current artistic practice centers on the use of verbatim texts, interviews, testimony, oral history, and found documents. Andrea has made and toured plays based on interviews with returning women combat soldiers, women police officers, 18–24-year-olds in Lebanon, and members of intentional communities. Andrea has served on the faculty at several universities. MFA playwriting: UCSD.
Ken Urban is an award-winning playwright, screenwriter and musician. His stage plays include THE MODERATE (Central Square Theater), DANGER AND OPPORTUNITY (Drama Desk Winner, East Village Basement), A GUIDE FOR THE HOMESICK (Off-Broadway at the DR2, Huntington Theatre Company, Trafalgar Studios in the West End), THE REMAINS (Studio Theatre), SENSE OF AN ENDING (59E59 Theatres, London’s Theatre503), NIBBLER (The Amoralists and Rattlestick Playwrights Theater), THE CORRESPONDENT (Rattlestick Playwrights Theater), THE AWAKE (59E59 Theatres, Chicago’s First Floor Theater), and THE HAPPY SAD (The Public Theatre/Summer Play Festival). His audio plays include VAPOR TRAIL (2022 Tribeca Festival and Playwrights Horizons’ Sound Stage) and A STICKY MEMENTO (NPR’s Playing on Air). He is a four-time recipient of the prestigious MacDowell Fellowship. Awards include Venturous Theater Fund Finishing Commission, EST/Alfred P. Sloan Science & Technology Project Commission, The Blue Ink Award, Weissberger Playwriting Award, New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, Independent Reviewers of New England’s Award for Best New Script, Headlands Artist Residency, Millay Arts Residency, Dramatist Guild Fellowship, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts Fellowship and the A IS FOR Playwriting Award for plays about reproductive justice. He is an alumnus of New Dramatists and an affiliated writer at the Playwrights’ Center. Ken wrote the screenplay for the feature-film adaptation of THE HAPPY SAD, directed by Rodney Evans. His plays are published by Dramatists Play Service/Broadway Licensing. He leads the band Occurrence, and they have released six albums on Archie & Fox Records, a label that Ken runs with sound designer and musician Daniel Kluger. His first TV pilot, THE ART OF LISTENING, was optioned by ITV and Madison Wells Media. Ken taught writing at Harvard University, Princeton University, Tufts University and Davidson College. He is currently the Senior Lecturer of Theater and Director of Dramatic Writing at MIT. He is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild and the Writers Guild of America and is also a voting member of the Recording Academy. He lives in New York City with his partner Johnny.