The 4 Seasons Residency is a collaboration between Ignition Arts, Seven Devils New Play Foundry, Tofte Lake Center, and LAUNCH PAD. Our collective mission is to provide year-long, life-changing support to an artist who voices the kaleidoscopic American experience. 4 Seasons is in its 5th year; LAUNCH PAD is proud to be part of this unique program.
~ 2026-27 4Seasons Recipient: LM Feldman ~
L M Feldman is a queer, feminist, GNC playwright who makes theatrically adventurous, ensemble-driven plays that bend space, weave time, and queer form. Their body of work is known for being (simultaneously) intimate & epic, political & poetic, and always physically kinetic.
So far, their plays include: ANOTHER KIND OF SILENCE (National New Play Network Rolling World Premiere: City Theater Company, VORTEX Rep); THRIVE, OR WHAT YOU WILL (American Shakespeare Center); GRACE, OR THE ART OF CLIMBING (Denver Center); S P A C E (Central Square Theater); HAND FOOT HAND (Beyond the Realm); SCRIBE, OR THE SISTERS MILTON, OR ELEGY FOR THE UNWRITTEN (The Distillery Festival); LIMBER, A LOVE STORY (Emerson Stage); THE EGG-LAYERS (New Georges/Barnard College); A PEOPLE (Orbiter 3); a TYA stage adaptation of TROPICAL SECRETS by Margarita Engle (Theater J); and a half-dozen ensemble-devised works.
L has been a Venturous Playwright Fellow & a Core Writer at the Playwrights’ Center, as well as a fellow at MacDowell, the Playwrights Realm, New Georges, InterAct Theatre, the Dramatists Guild, and Shakespeare’s New Contemporaries; a member of Orbiter 3; a thought-partner with the Artistic Caucus (Baltimore Center Stage, Woolly Mammoth, Long Wharf, & St. Louis Rep); and part of the National New Play Network’s Rolling World Premiere program. L’s plays have been nominated for the Herb Alpert Award, Wendy Wasserstein Prize, Barrie & Bernice Stavis Playwright Award, Doric Wilson Independent Playwright Award, the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, the Jane Chambers Award, and the Lambda Literary Award for LGBTQ Drama. L couldn't be more grateful for the validation & artistic expansion that each and every one of these has offered.
As a contemporary circus artist, L performed duo trapeze at festivals around the world. They continue to teach, coach, and dramaturg for circus artists around the country. L is passionate about theater that moves, and circus that delves.
L has lived in seven cities and is based in Philadelphia, where they write, mentor, collaborate, advocate, teach (all over the place), and handstand (also all over the place).
You can read their scripts online (along with other new plays by living playwrights!) at the New Play Exchange. And you can check out their circus & theater work at www.laurenfeldman.com.
Photo credit: Joanna Eldredge Morrissey
"Being a part of the 4 Seasons residency has been such a dream. Being a playwright can often exist at two ends of the artistic hustle spectrum - the one end is an exhausting constant hustle and the other is a desert of rejection and despair and constant summoning of resilience. I'm so lucky and so grateful for how being the 4Seasons playwright has wrested me away from those two poles and grounded me in a year of support."
~ Megan Tabaque, 2024-25
Amplify is a student-led UCSB initiative dedicated to amplifying underrepresented voices in theatre. The organization strives to create a more inclusive and diverse artistic landscape by supporting and uplifting individuals from marginalized communities, including people of color, those in the queer community, neurodivergent individuals, and differently-abled people. Through its work, Amplify seeks to provide a platform for these voices, ensuring their stories are heard and celebrated within the world of theatre.