Roundabout Reveals Artistic Selections for The Refocus Project & Roundabout Underground

Roundabout Theatre Company has revealed artistic selections for The Refocus Project and Roundabout Underground programs, both newly revamped for 2025.  Both projects are dedicated to recognizing outstanding playwrights; Refocus by restoring formerly marginalized plays and writers to the American canon, and the Underground by elevating new artists and offering them significant development opportunities. 

“Since we launched the Refocus Project in 2021 and the Underground in 2007, we have been heartened by the impact of these initiatives, both artistically and in the lives and legacies of the playwrights. We’ve brought a formerly under-produced Refocus play to Broadway, and several of our Underground artists have become finalists - or have won! - the Pulitzer Prize,” says Scott Ellis, Interim Artistic Director.  “Building on our experience to fine tune each program, we are hopeful to foster greater success and visibility for the work of these four artists.”

The Refocus Spotlight Artists is the next phase of Roundabout's efforts to expand the American theatre canon. Building on three years of offering readings from the Black American, Latinx, and AAPI communities, this season Roundabout will concentrate on two artists, Migdalia Cruz and William S. Yellow Robe, Jr. This new approach will attempt to curate a deeper dive into the lives and careers of two artists of color whose names should be more familiar in American theatre history.
 
Roundabout will explore Cruz and Yellow Robe’s work through readings and panels and create an in-depth resource guides dedicated to the Spotlight Artists. These opportunities and resources will be shared with theatres, schools, and audiences both in NYC and nationwide, with the goals of encouraging more productions of their work and placement on theatre syllabi. 

Roundabout Underground exists to foster artistic risk-taking that may not be viable on RTC’s larger stages--by producing the debuts of emerging writers, creating opportunities for experienced directors to go back to basics, and by providing a nurturing, cost-free environment where writers can, simply, write. 
 
This year the Roundabout Underground Residencies will be introduced to provide two playwrights - Vichet Chum and Nikki Massoud -with time and space to work on one of their plays. Each writer will have scheduled time at a desk in a shared workspace, a multi-day workshop of the play, and access to Roundabout resources and staff that they feel is helpful to their process and overall artistic development.  

ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHTS: THE REFOCUS PROJECT 

MIGDALIA CRUZ, the 2023 DGF Legacy Playwright, is a Bronx-born playwright, lyricist, translator, and librettist with over 60 works performed in 150 venues across 40 cities in 12 countries. Her awards include the NEA, McKnight, NYSCA, and TCG/Pew, and she was named the 2013 Helen Merrill Distinguished Playwright. Cruz's mentor María Irene Fornés at INTAR and her residency at Latino Chicago nurtured her voice. She co-chairs the DGF Playwriting Fellows, mentors the Latinx Playwrights’ Circle, was listed on The Kilroys Web 2023, and taught at Princeton, NYU, IU, and as founding member of the Fornés Institute’s Playwriting Workshop. Migdalia is an alumna of New Dramatists, and a member of The Tent, a theater for “Vintage” playwrights. She was featured in: “Fifty Key Figures in Latinx and Latin American Theatre.” Her recent essays and interviews appeared in the publications: “Shakespeare And Latinidad,” “Diasporic Journeys: Interviews with Puerto Rican Writers in the United States,” “A History of Latinx Performing Arts in the U.S.,” “The Routledge Companion to Latiné Theatre and Performance,” and “Fornés In Context.” Her new anthology of plays “The Impossible Plays of Migdalia Cruz,” debuted October 2024, published by Tripwire Harlot Press.

WILLIAM S. YELLOW ROBE, JR (Assiniboine/Sioux) was a playwright, actor, director & teacher. He was born on February 3, 1960, on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation in Poplar, Montana. While in school on the reservation, he was encouraged by a teacher of his to become a writer. In his own words, "I had a bad truancy problem. I couldn't stay in school. I hated school. But I had a teacher, a white woman, named Dorothy Grow. One day I was cutting class, and I went to my grandma's house to hide out. As soon as I went in, there drinking tea was Mrs. Grow. Mrs. Grow took me back to school and said I should try something different. She offered me the chance to write a play, and that's how I got started." (3)
 
This early start turned into a calling which Yellow Robe followed to the University of Montana in Missoula. There he studied writing and performing arts. Over his lifetime, Yellow Robe wrote over 70 plays, poems, and monologues. He was produced all over the United States and Europe.
 
To Yellow Robe, writing was a responsibility and a means of education and communication. As he one said, “the reason I do theatre, especially playwriting,” is that it was “the most peaceful form of communication; and it’s also the most peaceful means of change without bloodshed.” Though his work Yellow Robe continues to make accessible the truths of racism and inequality, while also presenting moments of pure comedy and love.
 
Arguably, his most significant impact was on his students. Yellow Robe encouraged young artists to be themselves, write from the heart and reflect Native American culture. As stated by his student Rhiana Yazzie, "He imparted a love for the craft and art of theatre while embodying Indigenous values of relationship and community." (4) Yellow Robe Jr. taught Native American studies, literature, history, politics, and culture, in addition to playwriting, theater, poetry, and environmental science at tribal colleges, Ivy League schools, and universities all over the US, including the Institute of American Indian Arts , University of New Mexico, University of Montana, and University of Maine. William S. Yellow Robe, Jr. died in Bangor, Maine, on July 19, 2021, at 59.

ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHTS: ROUNDABOUT UNDERGROUND 

Vichet Chum (He/Him) is a New York based writer from Dallas, Texas. His plays have been workshopped/produced at Steppenwolf Theatre, The Alley Theatre, Merrimack Repertory Theatre, Ars Nova, Page 73 Productions, TheatreWorks Silicon Valley, Cleveland Play House, the Magic Theater, the UCROSS Foundation, Fault Line Theatre, Crowded Outlet, Second Generation Productions, Weston Playhouse, Cleveland Public Theatre, South Carolina New Play Festival and the New Harmony Project. He received the 2023 Lucille Bulger Service Award, 2018 Princess Grace Award in Playwriting with New Dramatists, the 2021 Laurents/Hatcher Award and a 2021 Edgerton Foundation New Play Award for the world premiere of his play Bald Sisters which premiered at Steppenwolf Theatre in 2022 and a special state citation from the Massachusetts House of Representatives for his play KNYUM at Merrimack Repertory Theatre in 2018. He is currently a Usual Suspect at New York Theatre Workshop, a Sun Valley Writers’ Conference Fellow, a board member for the New Harmony Project, and a steering committee member for the Obie Award and Tony Award-winning organization, AAPAC (The Asian American Performers Action Coalition). Past notable writers' groups include: the Resident Working Farm Group at Space on Ryder Farm, the Interstate 73 Writer's Group at Page 73 and the Ars Nova Play Group. He is currently working on commissions for Audible, Steppenwolf Theatre, People’s Light, and Seattle Children's Theatre. Vichet's debut YA novel "Kween" was released this last fall with Quill Tree Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. He is a proud graduate of the University of Evansville (BFA) and Brown University/Trinity Repertory Company (MFA) and is represented by WME and CURATE Management. vichetchum.com 

Nikki Massoud is an Iranian-Canadian-American writer and performer based in New York City. She is a 2050 Artistic Fellow at New York Theatre Workshop and a commissioned playwright with Atlantic Theater Company, Noor Theater, and The Acting Company. Her work has been developed through Ground Floor/Berkeley Rep, Bard at the Gate, Atlantic Theater Company, Less Than Rent Theater, The Lark, The Coop, CUNY, and a City Artist Corps Grant. Her television work as a performer includes roles on Succession (HBO), Love Life (HBO Max), and Mozart in the Jungle (Amazon.) Her New York stage credits include Sanaz Toossi's WISH YOU WERE HERE at Playwrights Horizons, and OTHELLO at New York Theatre Workshop, directed by Sam Gold. Nikki has also performed at The Goodman Theatre, the Guthrie Theater, The Old Globe, South Coast Rep, Berkeley Rep, and Huntington Theatre Company. Nikki is the Odyssey Award-winning narrator of over 70 audiobooks and a graduate of the Brown University/Trinity Rep MFA Program, Georgetown University and BADA. “Zan, Zendegi, Azadi.”