CHECK OUT OUR
2026
SIGNPOST FELLOWS!
Baddies, all.
And once again, this year’s fellowship is sponsored by the Dramatists Guild Foundation through a Community Partnership. YYYYESSS.
IVAN ROME
Ivan is an award-winning writer and director whose Southern roots shape his storytelling. A Columbia University MFA graduate, he has participated in several writing programs including TIFF's Writers' Studio and New York Stage and Film’s Filmmakers’ Workshop. He was recognized as the 2025 TIFF-Sloan Science & Technology Writers’ Fellow, and is currently developing a new pilot with the assistance of the ATX TV Festival. Ivan’s work has screened at Academy Award-qualifying festivals across the country and on American Airlines flights around the world.
Mentor: TJ Young
DAMIAN ARTEAGA
Damian Alejandro Arteaga is an accomplished Mexican playwright from Southern California. He has been a member of PlayGround-LA’s Writers Pool since 2023 and has been staged with them 11 times over the course of three seasons. He has also been selected as Best of PlayGround-LA 3 years in a row. He is also currently under commission with Playground-LA to develop a full length parody musical. He was recognized as a 2026 O'Neill Playwright Conference Semi-Finalist with his play, The Hole. Damian’s play Super Duper Happy Immigrant Funtimeland was produced as part of Full Circle Players Emerging Voices Festival. His play Friendly Fire was staged for the Hell or High Water festival at Different Strokes PAC, for which he was awarded as an Audience Favorite, and his piece received an encore performance. Other theaters where his work has been performed include The Redlands Theatre Festival, Little Fish Theatre, and the Morgan Wixson Theatre. When not writing plays, he is writing interactive gaming experiences. He is a writer for NukeItFromOrbit, a new sci-fi role-playing game, and he also collaborates with Shewstone Publishing to create various tabletop adventures set in Enchanted England.
Mentor: Kristoffer Diaz
Damian Alejandro Arteaga is an accomplished Mexican playwright from Southern California. He has been a member of PlayGround-LA’s Writers Pool since 2023 and has been staged with them 11 times over the course of three seasons. He has also been selected as Best of PlayGround-LA 3 years in a row. He is also currently under commission with Playground-LA to develop a full length parody musical. He was recognized as a 2026 O'Neill Playwright Conference Semi-Finalist with his play, The Hole. Damian’s play Super Duper Happy Immigrant Funtimeland was produced as part of Full Circle Players Emerging Voices Festival. His play Friendly Fire was staged for the Hell or High Water festival at Different Strokes PAC, for which he was awarded as an Audience Favorite, and his piece received an encore performance. Other theaters where his work has been performed include The Redlands Theatre Festival, Little Fish Theatre, and the Morgan Wixson Theatre. When not writing plays, he is writing interactive gaming experiences. He is a writer for NukeItFromOrbit, a new sci-fi role-playing game, and he also collaborates with Shewstone Publishing to create various tabletop adventures set in Enchanted England.
Mentor: Kristoffer Diaz
TAYLOR A. BLACKMAN
Taylor A. Blackman is a Chicago-born, New York-based playwright, actor, director, producer, and educator whose work lives at the intersection of comedy, absurdism, identity, and the emotional messiness of being human. A multi-hyphenate theater artist, Taylor is particularly interested in stories that interrogate race, queerness, belonging, family, and the strange ways people make meaning when the worlds around them refuse to make sense.
Taylor is an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation/Ensemble Studio Theatre commissioned playwright for To Infinity and a 2025–26 Yes, And Laughter Lab Fellow and Executive Committee member. He is a Fire This Time Fellow and commissioned playwright, A Signpost Fellow, a New York Playground Playwriting Resident, an Uptown Collective resident and recipient, and a City Theatre Susan J. Westfall Award recipient. His plays have been developed and presented through Baltimore Center Stage Ensemble Studio Theatre, The Fire This Time, Playground, and the Wild Project, with work reaching audiences through All Arts/PBS. His writing is published in We/Us: Plays for the Gender Minority, and his work is available for licensing through Tiny Scripted. He has also been recognized as a 2026 Van Lier Semi-Finalist, Princess Grace Semi-Finalist, and a Black Boy/Black Girl Writers Semi-Finalist. Taylor’s play It’s Karen, B***!* was selected for the Yes, And Laughter Lab, where it was developed and pitched as a television project.
As an actor, Taylor has performed extensively onstage, including in the Broadway National Tour of TINA: The Tina Turner Musical, at Yale Repertory Theatre, The Public Theater’s Under the Radar Festival, Roundabout Theatre Company, Signature Theatre, Playwrights Horizons, Page 73, and with the Movement Theatre Company. His television credits include FBI, Raising Kanan, and Alternatino.
As a director and producer, Taylor has led new work and developmental theater across New York, including serving as Producer/Director of the New School MFA New York Showcase and Executive Producer of the 2026 BFA Dramatic Arts Festival. He also has served as a Director/Movement Director for 48Hrs In Harlem, The Public Theatre's Under The Radar (Sweet Chariot), & Baltimore Center Stage's children's programming.
Taylor currently serves as Director of New Work at the Wonderlust Storytelling Institute, where he leads new-play development, dramaturgical processes, and artist support for the institute and its New Works Festival. He is also a professor at The New School’s School of Drama, teaching across performance, professional development, and new-work processes, as well as serving as a Co-Director for the BFA New York Showcase.
He is a graduate of Oklahoma City University and is pursuingan MFA-equivalent concentration in Creative Writing/Playwriting at the City College of New York.
Mentor: Kristoffer Diaz
Taylor A. Blackman is a Chicago-born, New York-based playwright, actor, director, producer, and educator whose work lives at the intersection of comedy, absurdism, identity, and the emotional messiness of being human. A multi-hyphenate theater artist, Taylor is particularly interested in stories that interrogate race, queerness, belonging, family, and the strange ways people make meaning when the worlds around them refuse to make sense.
Taylor is an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation/Ensemble Studio Theatre commissioned playwright for To Infinity and a 2025–26 Yes, And Laughter Lab Fellow and Executive Committee member. He is a Fire This Time Fellow and commissioned playwright, A Signpost Fellow, a New York Playground Playwriting Resident, an Uptown Collective resident and recipient, and a City Theatre Susan J. Westfall Award recipient. His plays have been developed and presented through Baltimore Center Stage Ensemble Studio Theatre, The Fire This Time, Playground, and the Wild Project, with work reaching audiences through All Arts/PBS. His writing is published in We/Us: Plays for the Gender Minority, and his work is available for licensing through Tiny Scripted. He has also been recognized as a 2026 Van Lier Semi-Finalist, Princess Grace Semi-Finalist, and a Black Boy/Black Girl Writers Semi-Finalist. Taylor’s play It’s Karen, B***!* was selected for the Yes, And Laughter Lab, where it was developed and pitched as a television project.
As an actor, Taylor has performed extensively onstage, including in the Broadway National Tour of TINA: The Tina Turner Musical, at Yale Repertory Theatre, The Public Theater’s Under the Radar Festival, Roundabout Theatre Company, Signature Theatre, Playwrights Horizons, Page 73, and with the Movement Theatre Company. His television credits include FBI, Raising Kanan, and Alternatino.
As a director and producer, Taylor has led new work and developmental theater across New York, including serving as Producer/Director of the New School MFA New York Showcase and Executive Producer of the 2026 BFA Dramatic Arts Festival. He also has served as a Director/Movement Director for 48Hrs In Harlem, The Public Theatre's Under The Radar (Sweet Chariot), & Baltimore Center Stage's children's programming.
Taylor currently serves as Director of New Work at the Wonderlust Storytelling Institute, where he leads new-play development, dramaturgical processes, and artist support for the institute and its New Works Festival. He is also a professor at The New School’s School of Drama, teaching across performance, professional development, and new-work processes, as well as serving as a Co-Director for the BFA New York Showcase.
He is a graduate of Oklahoma City University and is pursuingan MFA-equivalent concentration in Creative Writing/Playwriting at the City College of New York.
Mentor: Kristoffer Diaz
CONGRATS & GIDDIT!
Learn what past fellows are up to now here.