Ro Reddick (Courtesy Photo)

James Ijames (Courtesy Photo)

 

Lincoln Center Theater Launches $4.25 Million Helen Gurley Brown Theater Lab for New American Writers

Lincoln Center Theater is making a $4.25 million investment in the part of theater audiences rarely see: the uncertain stretch when writers are still shaping ideas, rewriting pages and deciding what a new work might become.

Backed by a five-year gift from the Helen Gurley Brown Foundation, the new Helen Gurley Brown Theater Lab will provide writers with space, financial resources and sustained development support.

Its first group is hardly short on credentials.

James Ijames, winner of the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Fat Ham, and Martyna Majok, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Cost of Living, are among the inaugural fellows. They are joined by Abigail Barlow and Emily Bear, the Grammy-winning team behind The Unofficial Bridgerton Musical Album; Bear is also an Emmy Award winner. The group also includes Avery Deutsch, whose The Age of Mary won the 2025 Terrence McNally New Play Incubator and 2025 Neukom Playwriting Award, and Ro Reddick, whose Cold War Choir Practice won the 2026 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, 2026 John Gassner Award for New American Play and 2026 Off-Broadway Alliance Award for Best Play.

“The Theater Lab is designed to incubate the next canon of new American theater for the stage of Lincoln Center and beyond,” said Maria Manuela Goyanes, who will now serve as Helen Gurley Brown Artistic Director of LCT3 and Producer.

The Lab arrives at a moment when developing new theater can be as difficult as producing it. Rising costs and the pressure to move quickly toward production can leave little room for experimentation.

Lear deBessonet, Lincoln Center Theater’s Kewsong Lee Artistic Director, said the program is intended to protect that creative space.

“Artists need more than a place to put a play on its feet,” she said. “They need the time and support to explore new ideas and take creative risks.”

The mix of fellows reflects that range.

Barlow, who made her Broadway debut in 2026 as Katherine Howard in SIX, and Bear went from the viral success of The Unofficial Bridgerton Musical to writing songs for Disney’s Moana 2. Bear’s career has also stretched across film, television and live performance, including work as the featured pianist on Beyoncé’s Renaissance World Tour.

Ijames, who was also nominated for a Tony Award for Fat Ham, is an Associate Professor of Theatre at Columbia University and head of its playwriting program. Majok, whose plays also include Sanctuary City, Queens and Ironbound, is adapting Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 for Broadway.

Reddick’s Cold War Choir Practice moved from Clubbed Thumb’s Summerworks to an Off-Broadway production by MCC, Clubbed Thumb and Page 73. Deutsch, meanwhile, is a member of EST/Youngblood and a 2026 MacDowell fellow.

The program will be managed by Kalina Ko, who joins Lincoln Center Theater after serving as Director of New Play Development at Atlantic Theater Company. She has also worked at Roundabout Theatre Company and Manhattan Theatre Club and has helped lead the Ma-Yi Writer’s Lab since 2022.

For Goyanes, the initiative deepens an existing relationship with the Helen Gurley Brown Foundation, whose BOLD Theater Women’s Leadership Circle has supported artistic directors developing new work across the country.

The announcement also comes during Goyanes’ second curated season at LCT3’s Claire Tow Theater, which includes creation stories and all the important importants by Mfoniso Udofia, directed by Tamilla Woodard; Pretend It’s Pretend by Emma Watkins, directed by Annie Tippe; and the return of The Comedy Series in spring 2027.

Founded in 1985, Lincoln Center Theater has spent four decades building its reputation on finished productions. The Helen Gurley Brown Theater Lab shifts some of that attention to an earlier and more fragile stage — when a playwright still needs time, money, and permission to take a risk.

For more information, visit Lincoln Center Theater.

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