DOROTHY’S DICTIONARY

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A New York Premiere Production

Dorothy's Dictionary

By E.M. Lewis

Co-directed by Project Y Theatre co-Artistic Directors, Andrew W. Smith and Michole Biancosino

Sparks fly when Zan, an angry high school student, is forced to work off his community service assignment reading to Dorothy, an ailing librarian. But each of them might just have what the other lacks... if they can only find the words.  Book by book, they begin to form an unexpected friendship… just when they need it most.

PRESS: 

"DOROTHY’S DICTIONARY is a reminder of the beauty of shared stories and the surprising places we find connection."  - BroadwayWorld

"Playwright E.M. Lewis has created a gentle, witty, and moving example of a two-character play."   

-DC Theater Arts

E. M. Lewis is an award-winning playwright, teacher, lyricist, and opera librettist. Her work has been produced around the world, and published by Samuel French. She received the Steinberg Award for How the Light Gets In and Song of Extinction and the Primus Prize for Heads from the American Theater Critics Association, the Ted Schmitt Award from the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle, a Hodder Fellowship from Princeton University, a playwriting fellowship from the New Jersey State Arts Commission, the 2016 Oregon Literary Fellowship in Drama, and an Edgerton Award for Magellanica.  Other plays include:  Strange Birds (featured in UCSB LaunchPad), The Frankenstein Project (workshop production at Florida Atlantic University), Apple Season (National New Play Network rolling world premiere), The Gun Show (more than fifty productions across the country; Edinburgh Fringe), True Story, and You Can See All the Stars (a play for college students commissioned by the Kennedy Center).  Lewis is playwright-in-residence at Artists Repertory Theater through the Mellon Foundation’s National Playwright Residency Program, and is a proud member of LineStorm Playwrights, Opera America, and the Dramatists Guild. She lives on her family’s farm in Oregon. 

Michole Biancosino is the Co-Founding Artistic Director of Project Y Theatre Company,

where she has developed and directed new work in Washington, D.C., New York City and

internationally for over 25 years. With Project Y, she has led various professional

productions, as producer, director, creator and writer.  Credits included the long-running

shows, Trump Lear (co-created and directed) and the award-winning, David Carl’s Celebrity

One-Man Hamlet (co-created and directed), both of which toured regionally and performed at

Edinburgh Fringe, as co-productions with Richard Jordan Productions (UK), The Pleasance, and

Underbelly.  She directs solo artist Peter Michael Marino’s long-running solo shows, Show

Up! and Show Up Kids! which is now running in Spanish- and Japanese-language versions.

Other work includes both the digital and on-stage versions of the Infallible Award-

winner PLANET OF THE GRAPES LIVE FROM NYC (Zoo Venues, Edinburgh 2021), the cosmic raga

opera, Waves of Gravity with Neel Murgai (LaMama CultureHub), and David and Katie Get Re-

Married, which is headed to Edinburgh Fringe this summer. As a performer, Michole has spent

the last two years acting as Jillian in Lia Romeo’s Yoga With Jillian, in NYC, regionally, and

abroad.

Michole is a producer of Project Y’s yearly Women in Theatre Festival.  She has been featured

by Amy Poehler’s Smart Girls, National Public Radio’s All Things Considered, and The Brooklyn

Rail. Recipient: SDC Gielgud Fellowship for classical directing.  Her work has been supported by

grants from The Puffin Foundation, ART/NY, NY Department of Cultural Affairs (DCA), The

Dramatists Guild, and New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA). She holds an MFA in

Directing from Rutgers University, Mason Gross School of the Arts. She is an Associate of

Theatre at Middlebury College. For more information: www.micholebiancosino.com

Andrew W. Smith is the Co-Founding Artistic Director of Project Y Theatre Company, where he has developed and directed new work in Washington, D.C., New York City and throughout the United States and internationally. With Project Y, he has served as Producer, Company Manager, Director, Technical Director, and Actor over the 25-year producing history of the company. He is a professional Actor and Director whose work has been seen throughout New York City, regionally, and internationally. Selected regional acting work includes: Pittsburgh Public Theatre, Pittsburgh City Theatre, Quantum Theatre, Actor’s Theatre of Louisville, Seattle Repertory Theatre, Arena Stage, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, Roundhouse Theatre, Potomac Theatre Project, Ars Nova, Studio Theatre, and Olney Center for the Arts. He toured with The National Players on their 50th anniversary as Cyrano in Cyrano de Bergerac. Filmwork includes Lucid, Shooting Script, Death of a Nation (Winner:  Best Short, IndieFest 2011; Best in Show, Best Shorts Competition 2011), Under-Ground. Television work includes American Rust, GONE, Law and Order: Criminal Intent, One Life to Live, As the World Turns, Guiding Light. Directing: Yoga with Jillian, world premiere in New York City as a part of the Women in Theatre Festival and at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2023 and 2024 at the Pleasance Courtyard. With Project Y, he has received grants funding for work from New York State Council on the Arts, New York Department Cultural Affairs, Alliance of Resident Theatres/New York, Brooklyn Arts Council, and The Puffin Foundation. He was an invited guest and Master Teacher at the Summer Theatre Academy, in Sozopol, Bulgaria, in 2019. He is currently an Associate Professor of Acting at the Carnegie Mellon School of Drama. He is also graduate of the MFA Acting program at the University of California, San Diego, from which he received the Teaching Excellence Award upon graduation. www.smithandrewwilliam.com.