The Play Company is dedicated to advancing an international view of contemporary playwriting. The company was formed to address our community’s lack of access to plays from other parts of the world, and to promote theatre as a means to engage with the ideas, issues and artists that shape our time. We include the U.S. in our "international view", producing American plays within this global context to emphasize cultural dialogue and the open exchange of ideas. We make our work affordable and accessible through modest ticket prices and grassroots outreach to the city's many cultural communities. The Play Company’s work expands the spectrum of theatre produced in our city, diversifies the repertoire in NYC and beyond, deepens our community’s understanding of contemporary playwriting by introducing foreign texts, and encourages artists and audiences to view American writing within a broader international context. In 2007, these achievements were cited when Play Co. received an OBIE Theatre Grant Award for its contribution to the Off-Broadway theatre community.

Play Co.'s artistic programs include:
-mainstage production of new plays

-the Universal Voices Translation Program to commission and develop new American translations of foreign-language plays.

-the New Work/New World Series, a developmental laboratory and public platform for readings, audience dialogues and panel discussions

KATE LOEWALD (Founding Producer) co-founded The Play Company with Mike Ockrent and Jack Temchin in 1998. Since then Play Co. has produced world, American and New York premieres of plays from Poland, Japan, Romania, India, Germany, Russia, France, the British Isles and the United States.

From 1990-99 Kate was head of the literary department at the Manhattan Theatre Club, overseeing programming and creative development. She collaborated with many playwrights and directors on new plays, including Terrence McNally, Jon Robin Baitz, Richard Greenberg, Donald Margulies, Elizabeth Swados, Cheryl West, Kia Corthron, Joe Mantello, Mark Brokaw and Nicholas Martin, among many others. She created the MTC Playwriting Fellowships for emerging writers. She was also Director of MTC’s acclaimed Writers in Performance series in 1998 and '99, producing an innovative program of literary events featuring such writers and performers as Walter Mosley, Norman Mailer, James Baldwin, Gish Jen, Alec Baldwin, Bill Murray, Buck Henry, Anita Desai, Robert Pinsky, Sydney Schanberg, and Arnold Wesker. Prior to MTC she was producing associate on George C. Wolfe’s Jelly’s Last Jam, Martha Clarke’s The Garden of Earthly Delights, and other plays on and off Broadway.

Kate is on the adjunct faculty of the Fordham College theatre department, and has also taught in the Dramatic Writing Program at New York University. She was a dramaturg at the O’Neill Playwrights Conference from 2000-2003. She serves on the board of Backbone Media, a San Francisco-based documentary film company. She is a graduate of Yale College. In addition to her work with The Play Company, she was the Guest Artistic Director for the Signature Theatre Company in the 2004/2005 season.

LAUREN WEIGEL(Managing Producer) is in her fifth year with The Play Company during which time she has produced nine world, American and New York premiere productions.  As part of the 2005 Summer Play Festival, she produced The Adventures of Barrio Grrrl! by Quiara Hudes. From 2001-2003, she was the Associate Producer of The Foundry Theatre where she produced Talk by Carl Hancock Rux at the Public Theater, David Greenspan's The Myopia for Ice Factory 2003 at the Ohio Theatre, The Rude Mechanicals’ Lipstick Traces on U.S. tour, and Rinde Eckert's And God Created Great Whales at the Barbican Centre in London. Previous New York theatre work includes time spent with the Manhattan Theatre Club and International Creative Management.  Lauren is a graduate of Miami University and a fan of the New York Mets.

LINDA BARTHOLOMAI (Artistic Associate) has worked with The Play Company on Made in Poland by Przemyslaw Wojcieszek, Rainbow Kiss by Simon Farquhar, Bad Jazz by Robert Farquhar, The Attic by Yoji Sakate, Romania. KISS ME! by various playwrights, Arabian Night by Roland Schimmelpfennig, Lovely Day by Leslie Ayvazian, Terrorism by the Presnyakov Brothers and Sakharam Binder by Vijay Tendulkar in the various capacities of Associate Producer, Dramaturg and Company Manager. Other dramaturgy credits include Of a White Christmas by Rinne Groff (Clubbed Thumb) and Fighting Words by Sunil Kuruvilla (Underwood Theatre).  Linda is a 2008 recipient of the Doris Duke, Andrew W. Mellon and TCG New Generations, Future Leaders grant. 

She has a MFA degree from the Yale School of Drama.

MELISSA HARDY(Associate Producer/Literary Associate) has worked with The Play Company for the past three years as Literary Associate, and has also served as Producing Associate and Company Manager on various productions.  Her dramaturgy credits include Beasley’s Christmas Party (Keen Company), Conscientious Objector (Keen Company), In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer (Keen Company), Bronx Express (New York International Fringe Festival), and The Sleeping Girl (Relentless Theatre Company, the Alabama Shakespeare Festival’s Southern Writer’s Project).  Before joining The Play Company, Melissa worked as an associate agent at Bret Adams Limited, representing emerging writers, directors, and designers.   Melissa holds a B.F.A. from Ohio University and an M.F.A from Brooklyn College. 

Matt M. Morrow(Development Manager)For seven years, Matt held the position of Literary and Development Director of Amas Musical Theatre, where he also produced The Amas Six O'Clock Musical Theatre Lab. Matt has also held the position of Development Director for Cherry Lane Theatre, New York's oldest Off-Broadway theatre. Matt is also a director, and his work has been seen at Lincoln Center, Amas Musical Theatre, Playwrights Horizons, Primary Stages, Urban Stages, Ensemble Studio Theatre, HERE, Dixon Place, MTC, The York, The Tank, NYC Int'l Fringe, Midtown Int’l Festival, among others. Upcoming: The World premiere of his new opera GREAT WHITE and Jennifer Haley's Neighborhood 3: Requisition of Doom, and the new play An Apology for the Life of Leni Riefenstahl by Stanton Wood. Matt holds a BFA in Drama from Carnegie Mellon University.

Lawrence Kaplen, Chairman
Jeffrey A. Sine, Vice Chairman
Kate Loewald, Secretary
Michael Dweck
James V. Hart
Patricia Heaton
Ruth Hendel
Lisa Hofer
David Hunt
Victoria Reese
George Sheanshang, Esq.
Christian Yegen

Emeritus:
Patricia Heaton
David Hunt
Susan Stroman

JACK TEMCHIN (1946-2003) was a co-founder and producer of The Play Company. He produced the long-running Off-Broadway show El Grande de Coca-Cola in New York and around the world. He produced the feature film Home Movies, directed by Brian DePalma, starring Kirk Douglas and Nancy Allen, released by United Artists. He worked for 15 years with the Manhattan Theatre Club, first as Associate Artistic Director, and then as Literary Consultant. In MTC's Writers in Performance series, he directed events featuring Malcolm McDowell, Jeremy Irons, Bill Murray, Buck Henry, Treat Williams, Marcia Gay Harden, David Strathairn and Alec Baldwin. He served as dramaturg for several plays at MTC including Janusz Glowacki's Hunting Cockroaches and Richard Wesley's The Talented Tenth. At the American Jewish Theatre he produced Another Time by Ronald Harwood, starring Malcolm McDowell and Marion Seldes, and The Day the Bronx Died by Michael Henry Brown. He has edited three books of monologues and scenes for Applause Books, and has written teleplays for Freddy's Nightmares, Tales From the Crypt and animation shorts that appeared on Sesame Street. He produced the musical revue 2 By 5, which introduced the Kander and Ebb song "New York, New York". Mr. Temchin spent seven years as the producer of the Thesis Repertory Season for the Actors Studio Drams School MFA Program in New York City. He was a graduate of Amherst College.

MIKE OCKRENT (1946-1999)was a co-founder and producer of The Play Company. He was the Artistic Director of the acclaimed Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh, Scotland from 1973-1976. While there he produced many international plays, including Peter Handke's Kaspar, the first UK performance of Strindberg's To Damascus, Dream Play, etc. as well as new plays by CP Taylor and Stanley Eveling. Among his London directing credits were the award-winning new plays Once a Catholic by Mary O'Malley (Royal Court Theatre and West End), Educating Rita by Willy Russell (Royal Shakespeare Company and West End) and Passion Play by Peter Nichols (RSC and West End). He directed two plays at the Royal National Theatre, with Dame Peggy Ashcroft and Sir Ralph Richardson. He was also well known as a director of musicals including the award-winning London production of Follies, London and New York productions of Me and My Girl, Crazy for You (Tony Award for Best Musical) etc. In 1999 he directed Jean Claude Carriere's La Terrasse for Manhattan Theatre Club. He was developing and directing the musicals The Night They Raided Minsky's (which he co-conceived), and, with Mel Brooks, The Producers, for Broadway. He received a B.Sc. in Physics from Edinburgh University.