Guest Artists

Since its inception in the 1970s, the Iowa New Play Festival has brought guest artists to campus to meet with students. Festival special guests attend all performances and give feedback to the creative team for each show, especially the playwright. The feedback is given in roundtable discussions following each reading and on the morning after each production or workshop. These roundtables help the playwright and his or her collaborators see their work in a professional context.

The following guests will join us for Iowa New Play Festival 2025:

meet this year's guest artists
KEITH JOSEF ADKINS Keith Josef Adkins is a playwright, screenwriter and artistic director. His Great Migration play, The West End, had its world premiere at Cincinnati Playhouse and was a finalist for the 2022 Steinberg-ATCA New Play Award. Keith's other plays include The People Before the Park, Safe House, Pitbulls, The Last Saint on Sugar Hill, and The Heat Will Kill Everything (which will be workshopped this summer at Brava Theater in San Francisco). Keith's plays have been produced Off-Broadway, regionally, and at the University of Iowa. He’s the recipient of the Helen Merrill Playwriting Award, Samuel French's inaugural Award for Impact and Activism in the Theater Community, Prelude’s Frankie Award as well as National Black Theater's Teer Spirit Award. Keith has sat on numerous selection committees for NYC and national grants/fellowships including the Jerome Foundation and the Princess Grace Award. As the artistic director of The New Black Fest, Keith has curated dozens of playwriting festivals and events in New York City. The organization was in residence at the Lark Play Development Center for six years and continues to be hosted by such institutions as the Apollo Theater and the Segal Center at the CUNY Graduate Center, to name a few. Three of The New Black Fest's social justice anthologies have been published by Samuel French and have been produced and seen internationally. Some of Keith's TV writing credits include Accused, P-Valley, Outer Banks, and The Good Fight. He's also developed TV projects with JJ Abrams, Don Cheadle/Steven Soderbergh, Regina King, and is currently developing projects with Anthony Anderson as well as Kaplan Entertainment. His horror film Run Sweetheart Run (that he co-wrote with Shana Feste) is available on Amazon. Keith is currently working a selection of short memoir and fiction entitled The Men Within Me.
JOHN BAKER John Baker is Co-Founder and Artistic Director of Sun Valley Playwright’s Residency, which offers playwrights commissions, development support, and retreats at Idaho’s historic Ernest & Mary Hemingway House. He is the Former Director of Artistic Programs at SPACE on Ryder Farm, Literary Manager and Interim Director of New Work at Woolly Mammoth, and Artistic Associate at Williamstown Theatre Festival. Off Broadway and regionally, he has dramaturged new work at Dallas Theatre Center, The Lark, Lincoln Center Theatre, Ma-Yi, New Dramatists, New Harmony Project, Ojai Playwrights Conference, Page 73, Rattlestick, Seattle Rep, Seven Devils, Signature, Steppenwolf, South Coast Rep, Woolly Mammoth, among others. For more than a decade, John has dramaturged new work at The O’Neill National Playwright’s Conference by playwrights such as Christina Anderson, Neena Beber, Stephen Belber, Carla Ching, Julia Cho, Jason Grote, Steve Sater, and Zayd Dohrn. Recent world premieres include Samuel D. Hunter’s A CASE FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD (directed by David Cromer) and LITTLE BEAR RIDGE ROAD (directed by Joe Mantello). BA: Boston University; MFA: The University of Iowa.
MIA CHUNG Mia Chung received a 2024 MacDowell fellowship, a 2023 Whiting Award for Drama, and a 2022 MAP grant for a new music-theatre work. Her play CATCH AS CATCH CAN will make its Chicago premiere in 2026 as part of Steppenwolf’s 50th season. The play also premiered at Playwrights Horizons in 2022 and had an Off-Off-Broadway world premiere with Page 73 in 2018). Her play YOU FOR ME FOR YOU had a UK premiere at the Royal Court in 2015; additional productions: National Theatre Company of Korea, Woolly Mammoth in DC, multiple U.S. regionals; and the play is published by Bloomsbury Methuen. Additional work: BALL IN THE AIR (NAATCO/Public Theater 2022). DOUBLE TAKE (PH Almanac 2021). THIS EXQUISITE CORPSE (multiple awards). Awards, commissions, residencies include: Clubbed Thumb, Helen Merrill, Loewe Award for Music-Theatre, MTC/Sloan, NYTW, Playwrights' Center/Jerome, Playwrights Horizons/Steinberg, Playwrights Realm, South Coast Rep, SPACE/Ryder Farm. Alum: Huntington Playwriting Fellows, Ma-Yi Writers Lab, New Dramatists. She has also written for Netflix’s THE DIPLOMAT and USA’s THE SINNER. She is developing an original episodic drama for FX.
HEATHER HELINSKY Heather Helinsky (she/her) is a Philadelphia-based freelance dramaturg and literary manager, known for re-shaping literary offices to community-based, anti-bias selection practices, focused on care-work. Since 2008, works for playwrights, not buildings. Reader & dramaturg for multiple new play festivals, from Sundance Theatre Lab (past) to KCACTF (hopefully not past). Current: Dramaturg for Ty Defoe, LLC on Trans World Trilogy, Galaxy edition (Yale Rep commission) and script development for Skeleton Canoe at Chicago International Puppetry Festival. Playwrights, present and past, include: Terrence McNally, Elana Dykewomon, JT Rogers (Oslo), Rachel Lynett, Darcy Parker Bruce, Tira Palmquist, Connie Congdon, Caridad Svich, Stefani Kuo, Matthew Ivan Bennett, Jennie Webb, Jacqueline Goldfinger, Jennifer Maisel, Stacey Isom-Cambell, Kyle T. Wilson, Ellen Struve, Claudia Barnett, Gina Femia, and many others along the way. Held space for LMDA dramaturgs during Covid pandemic as co-creator of Dramaturging the Phoenix with Anne Morgan & Ken Cerniglia. MFA: A.R.T./Moscow Art Theatre Institute at Harvard ‘07. Upcoming: New Harmony May 2025. Co-writing article on dramaturg/playwright Jeannie Barroga with Bay Area dramaturg Ely Sonny Orquiza.
ERIC HOLMES Eric Micha Holmes is a dramatist, educator, and dramaturg whose work has been produced by Audible Inc., BBC 4, The National Black Theatre, Guild Hall, The New Black Fest, The Apollo Theatre, and New York Theatre Workshop. Currently, Holmes is a member of the Dorothy Streslin New American Writers Group at Primary Stages Theatre Company. Previous fellowships and residencies include the I Am Soul Playwrights at Residency at NBT, Space at Ryder Farm, Djerassi Resident Artist Program, and The Dramatist Guild Fellowship among others. “Walking Next To Michael Brown: Confessions Of A Tragic Mulatto,” has toured with Kennedy Center’s Civic Artist award-winning “Hands Up: 7 Playwrights / 7 Testaments' ' to theaters across the country. He is co-editor of "Decentered Playwriting: Alternative Techniques for the Stage," available at Routledge Press.

meet this year's guest artists

KEITH JOSEF ADKINS

Keith Josef Adkins is a playwright, screenwriter and artistic director. His Great Migration play, The West End, had its world premiere at Cincinnati Playhouse and was a finalist for the 2022 Steinberg-ATCA New Play Award. Keith's other plays include The People Before the Park, Safe House, Pitbulls, The Last Saint on Sugar Hill, and The Heat Will Kill Everything (which will be workshopped this summer at Brava Theater in San Francisco). Keith's plays have been produced Off-Broadway, regionally, and at the University of Iowa. He’s the recipient of the Helen Merrill Playwriting Award, Samuel French's inaugural Award for Impact and Activism in the Theater Community, Prelude’s Frankie Award as well as National Black Theater's Teer Spirit Award. Keith has sat on numerous selection committees for NYC and national grants/fellowships including the Jerome Foundation and the Princess Grace Award. As the artistic director of The New Black Fest, Keith has curated dozens of playwriting festivals and events in New York City. The organization was in residence at the Lark Play Development Center for six years and continues to be hosted by such institutions as the Apollo Theater and the Segal Center at the CUNY Graduate Center, to name a few. Three of The New Black Fest's social justice anthologies have been published by Samuel French and have been produced and seen internationally. Some of Keith's TV writing credits include Accused, P-Valley, Outer Banks, and The Good Fight. He's also developed TV projects with JJ Abrams, Don Cheadle/Steven Soderbergh, Regina King, and is currently developing projects with Anthony Anderson as well as Kaplan Entertainment. His horror film Run Sweetheart Run (that he co-wrote with Shana Feste) is available on Amazon. Keith is currently working a selection of short memoir and fiction entitled The Men Within Me.

JOHN BAKER

John Baker is Co-Founder and Artistic Director of Sun Valley Playwright’s Residency, which offers playwrights commissions, development support, and retreats at Idaho’s historic Ernest & Mary Hemingway House. He is the Former Director of Artistic Programs at SPACE on Ryder Farm, Literary Manager and Interim Director of New Work at Woolly Mammoth, and Artistic Associate at Williamstown Theatre Festival. Off Broadway and regionally, he has dramaturged new work at Dallas Theatre Center, The Lark, Lincoln Center Theatre, Ma-Yi, New Dramatists, New Harmony Project, Ojai Playwrights Conference, Page 73, Rattlestick, Seattle Rep, Seven Devils, Signature, Steppenwolf, South Coast Rep, Woolly Mammoth, among others. For more than a decade, John has dramaturged new work at The O’Neill National Playwright’s Conference by playwrights such as Christina Anderson, Neena Beber, Stephen Belber, Carla Ching, Julia Cho, Jason Grote, Steve Sater, and Zayd Dohrn. Recent world premieres include Samuel D. Hunter’s A CASE FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD (directed by David Cromer) and LITTLE BEAR RIDGE ROAD (directed by Joe Mantello).

BA: Boston University; MFA: The University of Iowa.

MIA CHUNG

Mia Chung received a 2024 MacDowell fellowship, a 2023 Whiting Award for Drama, and a 2022 MAP grant for a new music-theatre work. Her play CATCH AS CATCH CAN will make its Chicago premiere in 2026 as part of Steppenwolf’s 50th season. The play also premiered at Playwrights Horizons in 2022 and had an Off-Off-Broadway world premiere with Page 73 in 2018). Her play YOU FOR ME FOR YOU had a UK premiere at the Royal Court in 2015; additional productions: National Theatre Company of Korea, Woolly Mammoth in DC, multiple U.S. regionals; and the play is published by Bloomsbury Methuen. Additional work: BALL IN THE AIR (NAATCO/Public Theater 2022). DOUBLE TAKE (PH Almanac 2021). THIS EXQUISITE CORPSE (multiple awards). Awards, commissions, residencies include: Clubbed Thumb, Helen Merrill, Loewe Award for Music-Theatre, MTC/Sloan, NYTW, Playwrights' Center/Jerome, Playwrights Horizons/Steinberg, Playwrights Realm, South Coast Rep, SPACE/Ryder Farm. Alum: Huntington Playwriting Fellows, Ma-Yi Writers Lab, New Dramatists. She has also written for Netflix’s THE DIPLOMAT and USA’s THE SINNER. She is developing an original episodic drama for FX.

HEATHER HELINSKY

Heather Helinsky (she/her) is a Philadelphia-based freelance dramaturg and literary manager, known for re-shaping literary offices to community-based, anti-bias selection practices, focused on care-work. Since 2008, works for playwrights, not buildings. Reader & dramaturg for multiple new play festivals, from Sundance Theatre Lab (past) to KCACTF (hopefully not past).

Current: Dramaturg for Ty Defoe, LLC on Trans World Trilogy, Galaxy edition (Yale Rep commission) and script development for Skeleton Canoe at Chicago International Puppetry Festival.

Playwrights, present and past, include: Terrence McNally, Elana Dykewomon, JT Rogers (Oslo), Rachel Lynett, Darcy Parker Bruce, Tira Palmquist, Connie Congdon, Caridad Svich, Stefani Kuo, Matthew Ivan Bennett, Jennie Webb, Jacqueline Goldfinger, Jennifer Maisel, Stacey Isom-Cambell, Kyle T. Wilson, Ellen Struve, Claudia Barnett, Gina Femia, and many others along the way. Held space for LMDA dramaturgs during Covid pandemic as co-creator of Dramaturging the Phoenix with Anne Morgan & Ken Cerniglia. MFA: A.R.T./Moscow Art Theatre Institute at Harvard ‘07.

Upcoming: New Harmony May 2025. Co-writing article on dramaturg/playwright Jeannie Barroga with Bay Area dramaturg Ely Sonny Orquiza.

ERIC HOLMES

Eric Micha Holmes is a dramatist, educator, and dramaturg whose work has been produced by Audible Inc., BBC 4, The National Black Theatre, Guild Hall, The New Black Fest, The Apollo Theatre, and New York Theatre Workshop. Currently, Holmes is a member of the Dorothy Streslin New American Writers Group at Primary Stages Theatre Company. Previous fellowships and residencies include the I Am Soul Playwrights at Residency at NBT, Space at Ryder Farm, Djerassi Resident Artist Program, and The Dramatist Guild Fellowship among others. “Walking Next To Michael Brown: Confessions Of A Tragic Mulatto,” has toured with Kennedy Center’s Civic Artist award-winning “Hands Up: 7 Playwrights / 7 Testaments' ' to theaters across the country. He is co-editor of "Decentered Playwriting: Alternative Techniques for the Stage," available at Routledge Press.