PHILADELPHIA – Philadelphia Young Playwrights (PYP) announced today that Lisa Nelson-Haynes, an experienced nonprofit leader and arts administrator as the Associate Director at the Painted Bride Art Center, will serve as the organization’s Executive Director, beginning April 5, 2016.  Nelson-Haynes takes the reins of an organization that uses playwriting to teach literacy and leadership skills to some 2,000 students in more than 65 classrooms in the Philadelphia region. 
 
“After a careful search,” said Jim Geier, President of PYP’s Board of Directors, “the Board believes Lisa has all the tools required to lead PYP in the next phase of our growth, including her most important characteristic:  a passion for the mission of unleashing the potential of young people through playwriting.”

Having spent 15 years at the Painted Bride Art Center, Nelson-Haynes brings to PYP a deep knowledge of the Philadelphia arts-education community, coupled with hands-on experience with nonprofit management and educational programming.  In her role there as associate director, Nelson-Haynes ran the Center’s educational outreach and residency programs, marketing and communications departments and managed contractual relationships with artists.  Most recently, she has worked with the Bride’s executive director Laurel Raczka and University of the Arts dance director Donna Faye Burchfield to shepherd the ambitious project, Re-PLACE-ing Philadelphia -- an 18-month initiative to expand the archive of the city’s cultural memory through multiple histories that “re-place” established narratives with new perspectives.  She is also a nationally recognized expert in digital storytelling through her work as a facilitator with Storycenter, which uses the art of first-person narrative as a tool for education, advocacy and community-building.

Nelson-Haynes is a graduate of Hampton University and a candidate for a M.F.A. in film-making at Temple University.   A self-described child of the arts scene in Philadelphia, she and her family currently live in Lansdowne, Pennsylvania.  One of her two children is a participant in a PYP playwriting program at Independence Charter School.

“Philadelphia Young Playwrights has earned an outstanding reputation throughout the region for its unique and effective approach to fostering learning for students of all ages and backgrounds,” said Nelson-Haynes.  “I am deeply honored to have the opportunity to lead an organization that has been such a vital force in the lives of Philadelphia’s young people for more than 25 years.  I look forward to working with PYP’s talented staff and incredible network of teachers, teaching artists, theater partners and supporters to drive the next era of growth and ensure this great organization will continue to tap the potential of youth for years to come.” 
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Nelson-Haynes succeeds Glen Knapp, who left PYP in December after 15 years to pursue new career opportunities in education and the foundation world.
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About Philadelphia Young Playwrights

Founded in 1987, Philadelphia Young Playwrights is an award-winning program that taps the potential of youth and inspires learning through playwriting in more than 65 public and private K-12 classrooms each year. A leader in arts education in the Philadelphia region, Young Playwrights believes that all students have something important to say and nurtures student voices through in-classroom playwriting workshops, an annual playwriting festival, public presentations at schools, and professional productions at local theaters.  Since its founding, Young Playwrights has served nearly 60,000 students and their teachers and partnered with approximately 60 professional playwrights and numerous Philadelphia’s professional theater companies.  Young Playwrights alumni span many sectors and industries; among its alumni are novelist Elise Juska, Chair of Creating Writing at University of the Arts; Adam Goldberg, Executive Producer of ABC’s The Goldbergs and Chairman of Young Playwrights’ Alumni Council; and Quiara Alegría Hudes, Tony-nominee, 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Drama Winner and Young Playwrights board member.

Press Inquires:

Contact: Carrie Gorn, Publicist
Email: [email protected]
Phone: 215-480-7423

Young Playwrights Teacher and Board Member Lori Odum has had a playwriting program at Meade Elementary for almost 10 years.  She was featured in a great article today in The Philadelphia Tribune!

One student interviewed in the article, Qamar Hunt said

"...I also like the playwrights program, because we able to write our own plays from scratch.” 

Check out the full article

Youth Council Member and Student Playwright
Angela Antoinette Bey won the National Constitution Center's first ever Founding Freedoms Essay & Playwriting Contest, sponsored by the John Templeton Foundation.

Angela and the cast are pictured to the left on opening night!

Her four actor play imagines how Mrs. Elizabeth Willing Powel and the citizens of Philadelphia reacted to Benjamin Franklin’s advice that “you” the citizen is ultimately responsible for upholding the principles of the new government.  This play was directed by PYP Resident Director, David O'Connor.

Listen to her interview on KYW, below, then check out Angela's play at the National Constitution Center throughout July 2015! Call for showtimes - 215.409.6600

Read The Article HERE
BY: Peter Crimmins for WHYY

On Saturday, Philadelphia Young Playwrights will stage dramatic readings of plays by young authors in its Paula Vogel Mentorship Program. Five promising young writers were matched with an established playwright for a year to write a workable script.

All are in high school, except for Ethan Brunton, 20, a student at Montgomery County Community College.

His play, "Hades and Persephone: Letters from Hell and Back," is about the relationship between the Greek god of the underworld and his young bride.

Brunton wrote it with sympathy for the devil.

"He's by the book, he's reasonable, he holds true to his deals, he loves his wife," said Brunton. "The most you can get out of him as being an angry guy is because some of the people he has to work with agitate him."

Brunton lives with autism. He had been writing short plays through a program for adults on the spectrum at Theatre Horizon in Norristown. He was approached by Philadelphia Young Playwrights to take on a more ambitious writing project through its mentorship program.