From the Stage to the Page: When Playwrights Write Prose
About this Event
THIS IS AN OFFICIAL 2026 BROOKLYN BOOK FESTIVAL BOOKENDS EVENT. The event is co-sponsored by the Old Stone House and Brooklyn Social Media.
All three writers built their reputations as playwrights, shaping dialogue, structure, and character for the stage. Now, as prose writers, they navigate a different, perhaps more expansive, canvas. What happens to voice, pacing, and dramatic tension when the audience is no longer present in the room? And what does it mean, creatively and professionally, to make such a significant shift mid-career?
The panel will explore the similarities and differences between playwriting and prose, the challenges of adapting to a new form, and the freedoms that come with it. Join us for a lively and thoughtful discussion about storytelling, creative evolution, and what it takes to begin again.
ABOUT THE PANELISTS:
ALVIN ENG is a native NYC playwright, memoirist, performer, acoustic punk rock raconteur and educator. His plays and performances have been seen Off-Broadway, throughout the U.S., as well as in Paris, Hong Kong and Guangzhou, China. His memoir, Our Laundry, Our Town: My Chinese American Life from Flushing to the Downtown Stage and Beyond, was published by Fordham University Press in May 2022. David Henry Hwang, the Tony Award winning author of M. Butterfly called it “an engaging memoir that looks back on the past to envision a better future.”
STEVEN FECHTER is a novelist, playwright, and screenwriter. His debut novel, The Big Breeze, came out in 2026. Kirkus Reviews called it: “A thoughtful, wandering novel of self-examination, intrigue, art, and America’s pastime.” He co-wrote the screenplay for the award-winning film The Woodsman (based on his play) starring Kevin Bacon. For that film he was a Humanitas Prize finalist in screenwriting. The Woodsman and his other plays have been staged throughout North America and Europe. In 2022 his play, The Memory Exam, premiered at 59E59 Theatres in New York where it had a sold-out run. The New York Times called it a “dystopian thriller.” His short film, Miracle Baby, which he wrote and co-produced, has been an official selection in over 30 film festivals, winning awards for screenwriting, directing, and acting. He lives in New York’s Hudson Valley with his wife.
KIM MERRILL is a playwright whose plays have won awards and been produced regionally and off-off-Broadway. Red Girl Jumping, her experimental prose memoir about traumatic amnesia, has received the 2024 Kenneth Patchen Award for Innovative Fiction and was supported by a fellowship at The MacDowell Colony. Her novel Hilda’s House won first place in the fiction category of the 2026 Tucson Festival of Books Literary Awards. MOOSE XING, her recent unpublished novel, was longlisted for the 2024 Petrichor Prize. Her writing has received additional fellowships from the Virginia Center For Creative Arts and the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation. She lives in New York City.
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