Annual residency and fellowship supported by the Jack Welch Fund for Playwrights
McGRATHPR.com – Boston Playwrights’ Theatre (BPT), Boston University’s award-winning professional theatre dedicated to new work, presents the 2026 Jack Welch Residencies, two developmental projects that culminate in free public readings on Sunday, December 6, at 949 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston. Masha Obolensky’s “Everything After,” directed by Shawn LaCount, is read at 1 pm, and Sinan Ünel’s “Miller Hill,” directed by Scott Edmiston, is read at 5 pm. Supported by the Jack Welch Fund for Playwrights, the residencies give each playwright time, a director and a professional cast to move a new play forward, culminating the work in front of an audience.
“Everything After,” the recipient of this year’s Jack Welch Developmental Residency, opens a week after a mother has walked out on her family. In the work, fifteen-year-old Enid and twelve-year-old Oscar are trying to keep it together when their long-absent father turns up at the door. As the siblings set off on separate journeys, each looks for a way to break the cycle of abandonment they have inherited. BPT’s Artistic Director Megan Sandberg-Zakian describes the play as a “fabulist tale about what it means to show up for the people we love.”
Obolensky holds a Master of Fine Arts degree in playwriting from Boston University. Her play “Not Enough Air,” was produced by the Nora Theatre Company in Cambridge, where the Boston Globe named it one of the “10 Best of 2010,” also produced by TimeLine Theatre in Chicago, where it earned five Joseph Jefferson Award nominations. Her honors include the Kennedy Center Michael Kanin Award, the PEN New England Discovery Award and the Robert Pinsky Global Playwriting Fellowship, and she has twice been a playwriting fellow at the Huntington Theatre Company. Director Shawn LaCount is the co-founder and Artistic Director of Company One Theatre.
“Miller Hill,” the Jack Welch Developmental Fellowship, takes place over 30 years in Provincetown, from 1988 to 2018. Greg visits the pier to say goodbye to a friend before he and Paul leave town for good. The play follows four men bound by lifelong friendship, set against the losses of the AIDS epidemic and a town whose identity is swiftly shifting around them.
Ünel’s plays have been produced by the Huntington Theatre Company, Long Wharf Theatre, the Arcola Theatre and The Gate Theatre in London, Theatre at Boston Court in Pasadena, Provincetown Theatre Company and Provincetown Theatreworks, as well as theatres in Germany and Austria, and at Boston Playwrights’ Theatre. He is a recipient of the John Gassner Memorial Award and the Daryl Roth Creative Spirit Award, and was a Huntington Theatre Company playwriting fellow. Director Scott Edmiston is an Elliot Norton Award–winning director.
image by Joclyn Finlay
The two programs serve plays at different stages. The Developmental Residency supports a promising new play early in its theatrical life: often an early or unfinished draft with no more than one prior reading or workshop. The residency includes dramaturgical consultation, 30 hours of development with a full cast and director, and a public reading. The Developmental Fellowship supports a play further along in its development, which has undergone multiple drafts and rewrites. The Fellowship provides dramaturgical consultation and a public reading featuring a professional cast and director.
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The Jack Welch Fund for Playwrights provides endowed annual funding for BPT’s work developing new plays. It was created by the estate of Jack Welch, who passed away in 2017, in keeping with his wish to support playwrights. Born in Exeter, New Hampshire, and a graduate of Emerson College, Welch spent three decades at Baker’s Plays, rising from proofreader and clerk to managing director and editor. He was a founding member of several Boston theatre organizations, including the Massachusetts Young Playwrights’ Project and the Boston Theater Marathon, served on the board of StageSource for 25 years, and received StageSource’s first “Theater Hero” Award in 2000.
Jack Welch Residencies Schedule
“Everything After” by Masha Obolensky, directed by Shawn LaCount. Jack Welch Developmental Residency.
Public reading: Sunday, December 6, 1:00 pm
Boston Playwrights’ Theatre, 949 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston
Admission is free; reserve at bostonplaywrights.org/jack-welch-residencies
“Miller Hill” by Sinan Ünel, directed by Scott Edmiston. Jack Welch Developmental Fellowship.
Public reading: Sunday, December 6, 5:00 pm
Boston Playwrights’ Theatre, 949 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston.
Admission is free; reserve at bostonplaywrights.org/jack-welch-residencies
Boston Playwrights’ Theatre is the only authorized source of tickets for its productions. To ensure guaranteed entry, reservations should be made exclusively through bostonplaywrights.org or the BPT box office. Tickets obtained through third-party sellers or unauthorized websites may be invalid, overpriced or fraudulent.
For reservations and more information about the Jack Welch Residencies, visit bostonplaywrights.org, call the box office at (617) 353-5443, and follow Boston Playwrights’ Theatre on Facebook and Instagram.
About Boston Playwrights’ Theatre
Boston Playwrights’ Theatre (BPT) is an award-winning professional theatre dedicated to new work for the stage, founded in 1981 by Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott. Part of the Boston University Office for the Arts and led by Artistic Director Megan Sandberg-Zakian, BPT produces a full season of new plays each year, developmental readings of works in progress, and the iconic Boston Theater Marathon, an annual all-day “marathon” of new ten-minute plays by New England playwrights. BPT alumni have seen their work produced on Broadway, on Netflix, and at regional theatres across the country and around the world; they include Melinda Lopez, Ronán Noone, Molly Smith Metzler, Alexis Scheer, Eliana Pipes and Karen Zacarías. For more information, visit bostonplaywrights.org, and follow Boston Playwrights’ Theatre on Facebook and Instagram.
