THE SIGNPOST FELLOWSHIP
MEET THE
2024
SIGNPOST FELLOWS!
So. Friggin’. Proud.
And overjoyed that this year’s fellowship is sponsored by the Dramatists Guild Foundation through a Community Partnership. YYYYESSS.
And overjoyed that this year’s fellowship is sponsored by the Dramatists Guild Foundation through a Community Partnership. YYYYESSS.
DANIELLE ELLEN
A member of the Dramatists Guild of America, Danielle Ellen has co-authored several full-length play translations from French. The first was recognized by the Playwrights Guild of Canada for Best New Comedy. Her 2019 co-translation, written in collaboration with Montreal’s Centre for the Prevention of Radicalization Leading to Violence, was commissioned by the US Consulate General of Montreal.
Danielle won the Van Rensselaer Poetry Prize as a creative writing and neuroscience undergraduate at Columbia University. She followed this up with a master’s degree in creative writing from the University of Oxford. Danielle participated in the inaugural class of the Doha Film Institute Series Lab, the 2022 cohort of Project Involve at Film Independent, and was a 2023 grant recipient from the Dramatists Guild Foundation.
Most recently, she wrote the short film, The Bluest Hour, which will premiere at the 2024 Martha's Vineyard African American Film Festival. She is writing a dramedy pilot, a sci-fi novella, and a feature-length version of The Bluest Hour, with director and producer attached.
Danielle was born into a New England military family and has lived in Latin America, Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. She now lives and works in Los Angeles.
A member of the Dramatists Guild of America, Danielle Ellen has co-authored several full-length play translations from French. The first was recognized by the Playwrights Guild of Canada for Best New Comedy. Her 2019 co-translation, written in collaboration with Montreal’s Centre for the Prevention of Radicalization Leading to Violence, was commissioned by the US Consulate General of Montreal.
Danielle won the Van Rensselaer Poetry Prize as a creative writing and neuroscience undergraduate at Columbia University. She followed this up with a master’s degree in creative writing from the University of Oxford. Danielle participated in the inaugural class of the Doha Film Institute Series Lab, the 2022 cohort of Project Involve at Film Independent, and was a 2023 grant recipient from the Dramatists Guild Foundation.
Most recently, she wrote the short film, The Bluest Hour, which will premiere at the 2024 Martha's Vineyard African American Film Festival. She is writing a dramedy pilot, a sci-fi novella, and a feature-length version of The Bluest Hour, with director and producer attached.
Danielle was born into a New England military family and has lived in Latin America, Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. She now lives and works in Los Angeles.
M.J. KANG
M.J. Kang is a playwright and actor based in Los Angeles, Toronto, and Michigan. She was born in Seoul, Korea, and immigrated with her family to Toronto, Canada where life fundamentally changed. Her plays have been produced by Pan Asian Rep, East West Players, Son of Semele, Tarragon Theater, Factory Theater, Theater Passe Muraille, Cahoots Theater Projects, and many others. She has been a recipient of grants from the Canada Council, Toronto Arts Council, Ontario Arts Council, Groundlings, Impro Theater, UBC, and others. She has a teenage daughter, Mia, who constantly inspires her. She truly appreciates Chisa and this fellowship for this opportunity and for making this playwright feel welcome to continue creating. Many thanks also to Diana Son for being her mentor!
M.J. Kang is a playwright and actor based in Los Angeles, Toronto, and Michigan. She was born in Seoul, Korea, and immigrated with her family to Toronto, Canada where life fundamentally changed. Her plays have been produced by Pan Asian Rep, East West Players, Son of Semele, Tarragon Theater, Factory Theater, Theater Passe Muraille, Cahoots Theater Projects, and many others. She has been a recipient of grants from the Canada Council, Toronto Arts Council, Ontario Arts Council, Groundlings, Impro Theater, UBC, and others. She has a teenage daughter, Mia, who constantly inspires her. She truly appreciates Chisa and this fellowship for this opportunity and for making this playwright feel welcome to continue creating. Many thanks also to Diana Son for being her mentor!
SID GOPINATH
Sid Gopinath is a Brooklyn-based writer and filmmaker. In 2021, his writing partner Aditya Joshi and he sold SHIKAAR, a horror th riller TV show set in colonial India, to FX. Most recently, Sid was a writer on the Amazon show WE WERE LIARS and co-directed the short documentary FINDING OUR WILD, created with REI Co-Op Studios. He was selected for the Rickshaw Shorts Program, a finalist for the 1497 Lab, a finalist for a Periplus fellowship, and the 2024 Birch Fellow at Tofte Lake Artist Residency. As the son of Indian immigrants, Sid hopes to tell nuanced stories of underrepresented communities.
Sid Gopinath is a Brooklyn-based writer and filmmaker. In 2021, his writing partner Aditya Joshi and he sold SHIKAAR, a horror th riller TV show set in colonial India, to FX. Most recently, Sid was a writer on the Amazon show WE WERE LIARS and co-directed the short documentary FINDING OUR WILD, created with REI Co-Op Studios. He was selected for the Rickshaw Shorts Program, a finalist for the 1497 Lab, a finalist for a Periplus fellowship, and the 2024 Birch Fellow at Tofte Lake Artist Residency. As the son of Indian immigrants, Sid hopes to tell nuanced stories of underrepresented communities.
CONGRATS & GIDDIT!
UPDATES FROM OUR INAUGURAL FELLOWS...
ADITI PRADHAN
“The fellowship year has been incredible! Madhuri has been such a wonderful mentor (and generally person). We're hopefully meeting in person for the first time next week!! Creatively, I had a staged reading of the play that I'd talked about in my Signpost interview, The Great Los Angeles Tikka Tour, and I'm now submitting it to festivals and programs. I'm also working on my next play and a feature!”
“The fellowship year has been incredible! Madhuri has been such a wonderful mentor (and generally person). We're hopefully meeting in person for the first time next week!! Creatively, I had a staged reading of the play that I'd talked about in my Signpost interview, The Great Los Angeles Tikka Tour, and I'm now submitting it to festivals and programs. I'm also working on my next play and a feature!”
KWEIGHBAYE KOTEE
“Last month, I submitted my script to the Sloan Science in Film Grant, so fingers crossed for that. I'm now working with a line producer to put together a budget, and I'm determined to move forward with making this film come hell or high water! lol. I just fully produced a feature film with a $200K budget and we were able to get a great product, so I feel confident that I can get this film off the ground.”
“Last month, I submitted my script to the Sloan Science in Film Grant, so fingers crossed for that. I'm now working with a line producer to put together a budget, and I'm determined to move forward with making this film come hell or high water! lol. I just fully produced a feature film with a $200K budget and we were able to get a great product, so I feel confident that I can get this film off the ground.”
QUENTIN NGUYEN-DUY
“After receiving the Signpost Fellowship, I used the stipend to help me go part time at my full time personal training job. That way I had a little more time to pour into my writing. I talked on the phone with chris peña about our goals for the year, and decided on a.) writing a new play and b.) applying to grad school. Alongside what chris and I outlined for the year, I also set the personal goal of using the stipend toward arranging a staged reading of my TV pilot, Parlor, about three women who open up a cronut store in the deep south only for it to become an accidental hub for queer youth, and subsequently an enemy of the local church, as well as buying Final Draft to help my scripts look official (about time!). The reading went well, and my collaborator and I took it to Naked Angels script club in Manhattan where it was accepted for a public reading! It received lots of positive feedback, and we are still developing it at this moment, having just finished a pitch deck for it.
I applied and was accepted to NYU Tisch, Brooklyn College, and USCD's MFA Playwriting Programs—ALL ON FULL RIDES!!! (Waitlisted at Hunter, but oh well, I'll take it). After visiting campus and talking to Iizuka about the program, I committed to UCSD for this coming year. But—curve ball—I also received an offer to take a leading part in a play called "Last Shot" at the Signature Theatre (formerly known as "When Harry Met Rehab"), which will be announced later this month. So, I deferred one semester at UCSD to do the play.
I really, truly believe the Signpost Fellowship was the launching pad for all of these endeavors. I had previously applied to graduate school two times, and was rejected by almost all them, except Columbia. This year, I applied to four, and was accepted by almost all of them with scholarships (save for the waitlist situation). UCSD has always been my dream school, and I wouldn't have been able to take time off my work to focus on writing without the financial assistance the fellowship provided, but more importantly, the support and belief that you provided, alongside chris peña, who truly forced me, despite my self doubt, to put my towel back in the ring with grad school.
Now, I am currently gearing up to go into rehearsals for the play, and am using some of my extra time this summer to hunker down and get some writing done, as well as have some readings for works that I have written and have not shown the light of day. That play chris and I started hasn't been finished, but I am working with my past director Sarah Shin to draft it (it's the play set in a personal training studio).
So, thank you and everyone on the board of the Signpost Collective for drastically rerouting my year. I truly would not have done half the things that got done this year without your support, generosity, and initiative to build this fellowship.”
“After receiving the Signpost Fellowship, I used the stipend to help me go part time at my full time personal training job. That way I had a little more time to pour into my writing. I talked on the phone with chris peña about our goals for the year, and decided on a.) writing a new play and b.) applying to grad school. Alongside what chris and I outlined for the year, I also set the personal goal of using the stipend toward arranging a staged reading of my TV pilot, Parlor, about three women who open up a cronut store in the deep south only for it to become an accidental hub for queer youth, and subsequently an enemy of the local church, as well as buying Final Draft to help my scripts look official (about time!). The reading went well, and my collaborator and I took it to Naked Angels script club in Manhattan where it was accepted for a public reading! It received lots of positive feedback, and we are still developing it at this moment, having just finished a pitch deck for it.
I applied and was accepted to NYU Tisch, Brooklyn College, and USCD's MFA Playwriting Programs—ALL ON FULL RIDES!!! (Waitlisted at Hunter, but oh well, I'll take it). After visiting campus and talking to Iizuka about the program, I committed to UCSD for this coming year. But—curve ball—I also received an offer to take a leading part in a play called "Last Shot" at the Signature Theatre (formerly known as "When Harry Met Rehab"), which will be announced later this month. So, I deferred one semester at UCSD to do the play.
I really, truly believe the Signpost Fellowship was the launching pad for all of these endeavors. I had previously applied to graduate school two times, and was rejected by almost all them, except Columbia. This year, I applied to four, and was accepted by almost all of them with scholarships (save for the waitlist situation). UCSD has always been my dream school, and I wouldn't have been able to take time off my work to focus on writing without the financial assistance the fellowship provided, but more importantly, the support and belief that you provided, alongside chris peña, who truly forced me, despite my self doubt, to put my towel back in the ring with grad school.
Now, I am currently gearing up to go into rehearsals for the play, and am using some of my extra time this summer to hunker down and get some writing done, as well as have some readings for works that I have written and have not shown the light of day. That play chris and I started hasn't been finished, but I am working with my past director Sarah Shin to draft it (it's the play set in a personal training studio).
So, thank you and everyone on the board of the Signpost Collective for drastically rerouting my year. I truly would not have done half the things that got done this year without your support, generosity, and initiative to build this fellowship.”
ABOUT THE FELLOWSHIP...
So whenever Chisa's gotten an email about a grant, fellowship, or research opportunity from her scholarship program or from the university where she teaches, nine times out of ten, it's been for some science-y shit or finance-y crap. Which, you know, is useless and alienating if you're a writer interested in the entertainment industry.
So this here's the tenth out of ten.
The Signpost Fellowship is a six-month situation intended for a person of color (singular-- sorry, no writing partners) age 18 or over who's interested in shadowing professional playwright or screenwriter of color. What that looks like is entirely up to you and your Writer-Mentor but could involve:
Oh, and there's $2500 in it for you.
Possible Writer-Mentors (click name for info):
So this here's the tenth out of ten.
The Signpost Fellowship is a six-month situation intended for a person of color (singular-- sorry, no writing partners) age 18 or over who's interested in shadowing professional playwright or screenwriter of color. What that looks like is entirely up to you and your Writer-Mentor but could involve:
- being invited to meetings, auditions, rehearsals, and events
- giving and receiving feedback on script drafts
- performing dramaturgical research
- fielding bottomless requests for bios and headshots
- figuring out wtf to do with a stack of 1099s
Oh, and there's $2500 in it for you.
Possible Writer-Mentors (click name for info):
- Betty Shamieh
- C.A. Johnson
- Charly Evon Simpson
- Chisa Hutchinson
- Christine Toy Johnson
- christopher oscar peña
- C. Julian Jiménez
- Cori Thomas
- C.Q. Quintana
- Diana Son
- Idris Goodwin
- Jiehae Park
- Kristoffer Diaz
- Lori Sykes Roper
- Madhuri Shekar
- Matthew Paul Olmos
- Nambi Kelley
- Reginald Edmund
- Timothy Huang
- T.J. Young
The submission window
is now closed.
Check back next January!
is now closed.
Check back next January!
Interested in supporting?
Drop a message below sharing what your superpower is (i.e. mentoring, advocating, promoting, reading, etc.)
Drop a message below sharing what your superpower is (i.e. mentoring, advocating, promoting, reading, etc.)
OR!
You could just drop some ducats.
All donations go directly to the fellowship fund.
You could just drop some ducats.
All donations go directly to the fellowship fund.