With a focus on creating new work that explores different Asian diasporic enclaves in Los Angeles, the inaugural Artists at Play Playwrights Group has been commissioned to write plays that will highlight the vibrant stories and histories of our local “Little Asia” neighborhoods and the communities who live and thrive there.

These playwrights will spend 2025 writing their plays in residence with AAP, meeting monthly in a peer-guided writers’ group led by Nicholas Pilapil (playwright of AAP’s world premiere God Will Do The Rest), and will be paired with community-based partners for cultural and community dramaturgy. All of this will culminate in staged readings of their new plays in 2026.

The 2025 Playwrights

Sarah Cho is a playwright and comedy writer whose work has been developed by Ashland New Play Festival, Great Plains Theatre Conference, Jungle Theater, Moving Arts Theatre, The Vagrancy, and more. She received the Iowa Arts Fellowship, the Richard Maibaum and Paul Stephen Lim Playwriting Awards, and was a finalist for the 2023 Jane Chambers Award. Cho also co-hosts the playwriting podcast Beckett’s Babies with Sam Collier. In comedy, her work has been featured on ComedyCake, WhoHaHa, and Funny or Die; she has performed at Green Gravel and Laugh Riot Grrrl festivals and written for the LA Scripted Comedy Festival and Pack Theater house teams. She holds an MFA from the Iowa Playwrights Workshop and BA in Film and Theatre Studies from UC Santa Barbara.

Katherine Chou is a writer, filmmaker, and theatre artist. Her work in theatre encompasses directing, producing, and dramaturgy with Artists at Play, South Coast Repertory, Boston Court Pasadena, A Noise Within, EST/LA, and the Denver Center for Performing Arts. As a filmmaker, her work has screened at festivals internationally and received support from CAPE, the Armed With a Camera Fellowship, STARZ, and Women in Film. Previously, she worked in post-production on films at Warner Bros., 20th Century Studios, and HBO. A graduate of L’Institut d’Études Politiques de Paris, she has called many places home, including France, Montreal, and Taipei.

Carolyn Huynh is a novelist, screenwriter, and playwright, who loves writing about unhinged women who never learn from their mistakes. Her debut book, The Fortunes of Jaded Women was a Good Morning America September 2022 book club pick. Her sophomore book, The Family Recipe is out now. She is a 2025 Rideback Rise fellow, adapting her forthcoming third novel as a feature. She resides in Los Angeles with her partner and her demon girl dog. When she’s not writing, Carolyn daydreams about having iced coffee on a rooftop in Ho Chi Minh City.

Aditi Pradhan was raised in a neighborhood that was 80% Asian American. She writes about family relationships, social change, and the South Asian diaspora. She’s a member of New West, EST/LA’s young playwrights’ group. Her play, The Great Tikka Tour (O’Neill Semi-Finalist 2025), is being produced through SheArts LA. She will be attending a residency at the Blue Mountain Center. She’s a recipient of the Signpost Fellowship for BIPOC writers, sponsored by the Dramatists Guild Association. In high school, she was nominated as “Most Dependable,” which is the highest honor she’s received. BA: UC Berkeley; MFA: USC (incoming first-year)