KATHERINE OWENS/
Undermain Fund for New Work
Katherine Owens, beloved Founding Artistic Director of Undermain Theatre, passed away unexpectedly on July 21, 2019 after a brief five-month illness. To establish her legacy, her husband, Producing Artistic Director Bruce DuBose, joined by Undermain’s Board of Trustees, has established a fund that will support the continuation of the work Katherine fostered here in North Texas during her incredible 36-year career at Undermain.
Managed by Undermain Theatre, the Katherine Owens/Undermain Fund for New Work seeks to provide additional support to increase Undermain’s ongoing commitment to new work, our commitment for 36 years. We invite you to join us in honoring this incredible visionary and leader in our arts community.
To make a gift to the Katherine Owens/Undermain Fund for New Work in memory of Katherine, please click on the donate button below to make your gift online. Please reference “New Work Fund” as the Dedication honoree name. To make your donation by check, please make your check out to Undermain Theatre with the memo "Katherine Owens Fund" and mail your donation to: Undermain Theatre, PO Box 140193, Dallas, TX 75214. If you have any questions, please contact our Development Director at blaircrane@undermain.org.
2026 recipient Erin Malone Turner
Undermain Theatre is pleased to announce playwright Erin Malone Turner as the 2026 recipient of the Katherine Owens/Undermain Fund for New Work for her ongoing work in the American Theater with an eye towards a future production of a new play for the Undermain stage.
Erin Malone Turner is a Dallas-based theater artist originally from New Orleans. Writing developed locally with: Kitchen Dog Theater (how to catch a ghost), Undermain Theatre (SPACED OUT), Amphibian Stage (through a glass darkly), Bishop Arts Theatre Center (GRAY, ingrained, and PlayingPretend), Echo Theatre (the secret keepers), UT Arlington’s Black Theatre Society (THE BRIDGE), and SheDFW Arts (Hello, Earthlings!). Her TACA Grant-funded commissioned play what fits inside a human heart had its world premiere with Soul Repertory Theatre in Oct. 2023, and was nominated for an Irma P. Hall Black Theatre Award for Best Play. She has been a member of two DFW-based playwriting cohorts: BATC’s First Move in 2022 and Second Thought’s Thought Process in 2024 and 2026. In 2025, she was Arts Mission Oak Cliff’s Summer Sanctuary Artist-in-Residence. In this time, she presented a staged reading of a new play, a poetry community event, and a self-directed workshop performance of for the rest of our lives.
As an actor, she has worked with Echo Theatre (Those Hollow Bodies), Kitchen Dog Theater (Address the Body!), Plague Mask Players (MOR), Sundown Collaborative Theatre (Stressor), and Second Thought Theatre (What Would Batd*ck Do?). Also, she performed in her own plays Everyone, give yourselves a pat on the back! at AMOC and Hello, Earthlings! with SheDFW Arts. Her devised, collaborative work has been featured at Bombshell Dance Project and Very Good Dance Theatre.
Her training includes scene work and Shakespeare with The Playground Acting Program, improv and stand-up with Stomping Ground Comedy, and acting for the camera with Fort Worth Actors Studio. With Amy Berryman, she has studied Advanced Intuitive Playwriting, both in group and one-on-one settings. In addition, she has served as a youth playwriting teaching artist with Kitchen Dog and Prism Movement Theater. In 2025, she was the Assistant Director of The Niceties at Theatre Three.
From 2021-2023, she was mentored by six-time Tony Award winner Audra McDonald through the Age in the Arts Program. A huge honor, this connection—and the priceless wisdom and care from Audra—helped Erin to challenge herself to write more experimentally, be more intentional, and take bold risks while staying true to her roots and her vision.
The 2024 Recipient: gracie gardner
Undermain Theatre is pleased to announce playwright Gracie Gardner as the 2024 recipient of $10,000 from the Katherine Owens/Undermain Fund for New Work for her ongoing work in the American Theater with an eye towards a future production of a new play for the Undermain stage.
Gracie Gardner is an American playwright. Her play, Athena was recently produced at Undermain Theatre and during the same time period her play Banya premiered at Theatrelab in New York City. Her play Pussy Sludge was selected for Theatertreffen Stückemarkt in Berlin and previously received the Relentless Award. It was developed by Less Than Rent at HERE Arts Center, and The Old Vic in London. Her play Athena (New York Times Critics’ Pick) was presented by The Hearth at JACK. Gracie is the recipient of the Theater of the Future Fellowship, McKnight National Residency and Commission, an Ensemble Studio Theater Sloan Foundation Commission, the James E. Michael Award, the James Stevenson Prize, and she is a Samuel French OOB Festival winner. She’s a proud member of New Dramatists, Ars Nova Play Group, Youngblood, and she has received commissions from Clubbed Thumb, Manhattan Theatre Club, and the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music. She’s also worked as a video game writer for Annapurna Interactive.
The 2023 Recipient: Jarrett king
2023’s recipient of $10,000 from the Katherine Owens/Undermain Fund for New Work to playwright Jarrett King for his ongoing work in the American Theater, with an eye toward the future production of a new play for the Undermain stage.
Jarrett King (he/him) is a playwright, and educator based in Chicago, Illinois. His play A War of the Worlds—an afrofuturist reimagining of the War of the Worlds radio broadcast—was the inaugural production in Penfold Theatre Company’s new play commission series and received 12 B. Iden Payne Award nominations, including Best Original Script. Other works include The Possible, Box, and St. Miles, which was developed while a playwright-in-residence at the Goodman Theatre. He is a recipient of Definition Theatre’s Amplify New Play Commission, where his play Frog Splash is currently in development, and is the 2023 recipient of Undermain Theatre’s Katherine Owens/Undermain Fund for New Work. In addition to playwriting, he is a two-time second rounder at the Austin Film Festival. As an actor, he has nearly two decades worth of credits performing in film, television, and professional theaters including Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, Salvage Vanguard, Penfold Theatre, and the Mary Moody Northen Theatre. As an educator, he has worked as a Teaching Artist at Steppenwolf, Silk Road Rising, and Chicago Shakespeare Theater’s Shakespeare Slam among other teaching and administrative roles. He is the Director of Education at Court Theatre (2022 Regional Theatre Tony Award) and an Adjunct Professor at Loyola University.
The 2022 Recipient: Brian Dang
The 2022 recipient of $10,000 is playwright and poet Brian Dang to support their ongoing work and to commission the future production of their play, This time for the Undermain stage.
Brian Dang (they/them) is a Vietnamese/Chinese playwright, poet, and teaching artist based in Seattle. They are a proud resident playwright at Parley. For Brian, writing is an act of envisioning an eventual communing, an opportunity to freeze time as we know it, and a reaching for joy.
Their plays include This time (NPC Finalist 2022, Many Voices Fellowship Semi-Finalist 2022) and a white haunting (MAP Theatre, Princess Grace Fellowship Final Round). Their writing has been supported by 4Culture, Seattle Office of Arts and Culture, and workshopped with Seattle Opera, Pork Filled Productions, Mirror Stage, Sound Theatre, and Theatre Battery. They teach poetry/theater with Writers in the Schools, Arts Corps, and more.
WORLD PREMIERES
During her 35 years as Artistic Director, Katherine Owens either directed or oversaw a total of 34 world premiere plays at Undermain Theatre
Company Member Anthony L. Ramirez in the World Premiere of The Droll by Meg Miroshnik
The cast of the World Premiere of so go the ghosts of méxico, part two by Matthew Paul Olmos
The cast of the World Premiere of Jonah by Len Jenkin. This play was developed at the Sundance Theater Lab by Katherine Owens and Company Member Len Jenkin before premiering at Undermain Theatre
Bruce DuBose, Michael Federico and Alex Organ in the World Premiere of Profanity by Sylvan Oswald
WHITHER GOEST THOU AMERICA FESTIVAL OF NEW AMERICAN PLAY READINGS
In 2017, Katherine Owens and Bruce DuBose established the Whither Goest Thou America Festival of New Play Readings as a platform to develop new work. Often a play is read in the reading festival, and then presented as a world premiere in the following season. Audiences get a more detailed insight to the developmental stages of a play, with direct access to playwrights, directors and actors during the process.
Director Blake Hackler and playwright Gordon Dahlquist talking to donors during a rehearsal of Red Chariot. This play was read in the festival in the Spring of 2019 and presented as Undermain Theatre’s 35th World Premiere in the fall of 2019.
Producing Artistic Director Bruce DuBose, Company Member Joanna Schellenberg, Jim Jorgensen and Stephanie Oustalet in the reading of Len Jenkin’s How is it That We Live or Shakey Jake + Alice in the spring of 2018. Undermain presented the World Premiere of this play in the fall of 2018.
Bruce DuBose and Jim Jorgensen in the World Premiere of Len Jenkin’s How is it That We Live or Shakey Jake + Alice.