National Black Theatre has named five artists to its 2026 SOUL Series LAB cohort: three playwrights, a director and a producer, each starting a residency at the Harlem company.
The playwrights are Abigail C. Onwunali, Mckensi Scy Pascall and Washington Kirk, who join the I Am SOUL Playwright Residency. Raz Golden is the SOUL Directing Resident, and Pier Lamia Porter, known as Mia, is the SOUL Producing Resident.
The playwriting residency, running since 2012, takes up to three writers per cycle. Each gets a stipend, development resources and a production team over 18 months, toward a public presentation of a newly commissioned play that NBT commits to producing in a future season. The directing residency also runs at least 18 months and is built to give a Black director New York credentials. The producing residency lasts 10 months and hands the resident a project to lead within the season.
Onwunali, a Nigerian-American writer and performer, appeared on Broadway this year as Martha Pentecost in Joe Turner's Come and Gone; her other Broadway credits include Jaja's African Hair Braiding. Pascall, originally from Trinidad and Tobago, teaches playwriting for Public Works at The Public Theater. Kirk writes, directs and acts; his comedy series Frederick Douglass Boulevard, about a married couple scheming to de-gentrify Harlem, is due on Kinema. Golden has developed work with Clubbed Thumb, Playwrights Horizons and Second Stage. Porter is deputy programming director at 54 Below, where she created the Make Them Hear You series of Black musical-theater writing.
NBT has also added a strand to the LAB, the Keep SOUL Alive Development Series. Over 10 months it funds new work at several sizes: one-day virtual readings, three-day in-person workshops pairing a playwright with actors and a director, and intensive 29-hour workshops for a playwright, director and stage manager. Those sessions are closed to the public.
