Play development is a year-round activity at WTF. Every summer, the Festival supports new work in development by inviting artists to participate in workshops and residencies. Performances of these works-in-progress will be public and reservations will be required. Tickets are free, and will be made available in the coming weeks. Festival donors at the $1,000 level and above will receive advance access as a benefit of support, consider making a donation to the Festival today! Any remaining tickets will be made available to the general public two weeks prior to performances.

We’re thrilled to welcome the following projects and artists to Williamstown this summer

July 18-20
Alone & Alive
Written and Performed by Joel Waggoner
Directed by Brandon Ivie

A one-man-gay-existential-crisis-concert-sketch-comedy-variety-show-with-all-the-bells-and-whistles about figuring out who you are… without all the bells and whistles.

July 30-31
Marcel On The Train
Written by Marshall Pailet and Ethan Slater
Directed by Marshall Pailet
Produced by Mix and Match Productions (Maxwell Beer and Mitch Marois)

Featuring Ethan Slater as Marcel, Julie Benko as Berthe, Noah Robbins as Adolphe, Peter Grosz as Henri, Maddie Corman as Etiennette, and Aaron Serotsky as The Man.

Decades before Marcel Marceau became the world’s most famous mime, he joined the French resistance, saving Jewish children from the Nazis by smuggling them on a train to safety. This is the story of one of those train rides.

August 10
White Bitches in Delhi
Written by Ellis Stump and Neeta Thadani
Created by Ellis Stump
Directed by Neeta Thadani
Consultation by Zi Alikhan and Ambika Raina

Featuring Arjun Biju as James, Caitlyn Marr as Sienna, Yasmin Pascall as Ridhi, Aaron Roitman as Jensen, and Rita Wolf as Pia, with Michael Berbano reading Stage Directions.

Two privileged Americans studying abroad in India use Shaadi.com, a real matchmaking app, to help their desi bestie find true love (and pay off their student loans with the dowry money) in this queer, satirical sendup of both Bollywood and Hollywood rom-com tropes.

In addition to these companies, Kamilah Bush, John J. Caswell, Jr., and Ellis Stump will join us as playwrights-in-residence this summer.

Artist Headshots and Bios

Alone & Alive

Joel Waggoner (Writer/Performer)
Joel Waggoner is a singer/songwriter, composer, performer, multi- instrumentalist, arranger, teacher, and comedian. Broadway: Be More Chill, School of Rock. Off-Bway: A Man of No Importance (CSC), Southern Comfort (Public Theater), The Joel Waggoner Experience (Joe’s Pub). TV: Only Murders in the Building S3. Co-creator of the Instagram sensation Advent Carolndar with Julia Mattison. Original series: Wig Mediums on Broadstream, “$100,000 Pyramid” Season 3. Vocal Arranger: Randy Rainbow , Joe Iconis “Album”, Broadway Bounty Hunter (Off-Bway Cast Recording.), Alysha Umphress and Things…Like This (Live at Joe’s Pub). MFA from NYU Tisch. “Unlikely Warrior”, “Gorgine” and “Stable Girl” all avail on music platforms. @joelwaggoner @adventcarolndar www.joelwaggoner.com

Brandon Ivie (Director)
Brandon Ivie is a Seattle/NYC-based director, producer, and developer of new work. Credits: Off-Broadway musicals Lizard Boy and Jasper in Deadland , Seattle Rep, The 5th Avenue Theatre, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Goodspeed, Paper Mill Playhouse, Barrington Stage, TheatreWorks Silicon Valley, HERE Arts Center, The Public Theater/Joe’s Pub, as well as internationally at Edinburgh Fringe Festival and Hope Mill Theatre. He is currently Associate Artistic Director at Village Theatre. LCT Directors Lab, Drama League Directing Fellow, UW School of Drama.

Marcel on the Train

Ethan Slater (Co-writer, MARCEL)
Ethan Slater is a Tony-nominated actor best known for originating the role of SpongeBob in The SpongeBob Musical on Broadway (for which he also won the Drama Desk Award, OCC and others). Most recently he was seen on Broadway in Monty Python’s Spamalot and off-Broadway as Lee Harvey Oswald/The Balladeer in Assassins. This Thanksgiving, Ethan will be starring as Boq in Wicked: Part One (Universal Pictures, directed by Jon Chu) with the second film coming in November 2025.

Marshall Pailet (Co-writer, Director)
Marshall Pailet is the co-writer/director of the Off-Broadway musicals Who’s Your Baghdaddy?, which received two New York Times Critics’ picks, and Triassic Parq, which received the Ovation Award for its LA premiere. He wrote and directed the musical Private Jones which recently premiered at the Signature and Goodspeed Theaters, and has written/directed for DreamWorks, PBS, and franchises such as VeggieTales, Shrek, and the Magic School Bus, the musicals Claudio Quest (six NYMF Awards) and Hershey’s Unwrapped (Brass Ring Winner). Director of A Commercial Jingle for Regina Comet and Nikola Tesla Drops the Beat, and author of two best-selling plays for high schoolers (Everyone Gets Eaten by Sharks and Everyone Gets Abducted by Aliens). Graduate Yale University. www.marshallpailet.com

Mix and Match Productions
Mix and Match Productions is a producing company led by Maxwell Beer and Mitch Marois. Together, they have developed Marcel on the Train and the Off-Broadway premiere of Cellino v. Barnes, opening in Summer 2024. Individually, Max is the Associate Producer of Hendel Productions and is a Co-Executive Producer and an Engineer on the GRAMMY-nominated world premiere cast recording of Burt Bacharach and Steven Sater’s Some Lovers. Max is also the recipient of the 2023-2024 Prince Fellowship for Creative Producing in association with Columbia University. Mitch is the Managing Director of Hendel Productions and has previously served as the Director of Marketing and Sales for the New London Barn Playhouse, and is the founding Associate Producer of JAG Productions in Vermont.

White Bitches in Delhi

Ellis Stump (Co-writer, Creator)
Ellis Stump (they/she) is a Columbia University Playwriting MFA grad (2023), professor at Penn State and Columbia, and gay disgrace to their Lancaster Amish upbringing. Currently, they’re developing their TV/film projects with collaborators Leigh Silverman, Morgan Gould, and Andrew Barchilon, while serving as Showrunner of the Episodic Theatre Project (2024). Ellis’s full-length plays have been presented in NYC by the Wild Project, Westbeth Artists Gallery, Bohemian National Hall, Chain Theatre, and UP Theater, atop national and international productions (2021-2024). They’ve been a mentee of Steve Martin (2023), Playwright-in-Residence at Prague Performing Arts Academy (2019) and Wallace Stegner House (2020), and member of Speranza Theater’s and Yonder Window Theater’s playwrights groups (2022). This year, they’ve semi-finalized for the O’Neill NPC, American Blues Theater Award, and Lanford Wilson Festival, and finalized with The Dramatists Guild, Pipeline PlayLab, and Emerson Stages (2024). Through queer Gen-Z dramedies, Ellis invites everyone into insular communities and liberating relationships. @ellis_liketheisland

Neeta Thadani (Co-writer, Director)
Neeta Thadani (they/them) is a queer Desi-American director, writer, performer, and producer for theater, film, and podcasts. Their interests in artmaking and storytelling revolve around the crafting of the South Asian identity in America as it pertains to queerness, caste privilege, and decolonization. They were a 2023 Workshop Theater Fall Writers’ Intensive Fellow, a Nine Muses Screenwriting Lab Fellow, proud protégé of Jaclyn Backhaus and Zi Alikhan, and recently served as Head Writer and Dramaturg of The Episodic Theatre Project’s first season, BARDCORE (2024). Their most recent directing credits include associate directing Dana During Tech Week and ORACLE at Mercury Store and White Bitches in Delhi at Columbia University.
Currently in development: Their one-person show, The First Gen Desi’s Guide to Reclamation and Acceptance, White Bitches in Delhi, and an untitled radio play about the Partition of India.
@neeta_thadani