The Dramatists Guild Foundation (DGF), in partnership with The Lillys, have announced graduate students Charlene Adhiambo and Amy B. Tiong as the 2025 recipients for the Hansberry-Lilly Fellowship.
Created in honor of playwright Lorraine Hansberry (A Raisin in the Sun, The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window), the fellowships ensure that the next generation of women and non-binary playwrights of color are able to follow in Hansberry's footsteps, allowing them to create new work and develop their writing careers regardless of their economic situation.
Each recipient receives a $25,000 stipend for each year of matriculation at select writing programs across the country, with up to $75,000 available to subsidize living expenses not covered by tuition. Past recipients of the Hansberry-Lilly Fellowship are Darrin Terpstra and Morgan Webber-Ottey (2024), and Amalia Oliva Rojas and Danielle Stagger (2023).
Charlene Adhiambo is an MFA candidate in playwriting at Columbia University. She is a proud Kenyan-American dramatist raised in Atlanta and based in Harlem. She was a semi-finalist for The Hearth Theater's 2023 Virtual Retreat, receiving support for her eco-horror SEED, and her one-act, time-travel play Guardian was stage read at Saudade Theatre鈥檚 Re-Descobrimentos Festival in 2020. She previously worked as an artistic associate at Obie-award winning PlayCo.
Amy B. Tiong is a Chinese-American director and writer. Inspired by her immigrant parents, she has devoted herself to a lifelong love of learning, becoming a Gates Millennium Scholar and NYU Tisch Dean鈥檚 Scholar. She is currently pursuing her MFA in Writing for the Screen and Stage at Northwestern University. Tiong鈥檚 work explores themes of solidarity and generational healing through genre-bending storytelling. Her feature script, When You鈥檙e Ready To Go鈥攁 horror immigration story鈥攔anked in the top three percent on Coverfly, and was a finalist in WeScreenplay, Stowe Story Labs, and ScreenCraft competitions. She has written and directed short films in partnership with The Dolby Institute, Ghetto Film School, Bustle Media, PictureStart, Wavelength Productions, and The NAACP. She also holds a Master鈥檚 in Human Nutrition.
