Play Development Lab

To say I'm stoked is an understatement! My one-on-one sessions with cohort members of the 2025/26 Play Development Lab cohort have begun and these women are on FIRE!

Play Development Lab (PDL) is a development incubator offering comprehensive play development support to professional Black women playwrights. I created PDL as part of my commitment to my academic creative research and to collaborate with the Howard University Department of Theatre Art's New Works Initiative.

Through this initiative my goal is to help professional Black women playwrights advance creative process, enhance craft, and foster long-term careers.

Meet me there!

In theatre we’re fond of saying the show MUST go on.” Starting today, let’s get in the habit of asking “but at what cost”.

NEW Article alert…”Theatre Performers Wellbeing: why it’s just as important as yours”

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Theatre Performers Wellbeing: why it’s just as important as yours In theatre we’re fond of saying the show MUST go on.” Starting today, let’s get in the habit of asking “but at what cost”.

It’s official…

“Building bridges between arts, culture and science.”

Founded in 2024 by Professor Denise J. Hart, Restorative Theatre Performance Project (RTPP), is a collaborative arts-based research initiative that employs restorative practices to build bridges between arts, culture and science to engender social change.

Restorative practices have ancient roots in Indigenous cultures worldwide that focus on repairing harm. It employs the idea that a thriving community is interconnected and when harm occurs it does not simply affect those involved, but the entire community.

The arts are inherently multi-disciplinary and have always been used to incite change, thus, RTPP develops arts centric multi-disciplinary programming and provides performing arts training reimagined that uses restorative practices to offer the arts community new paradigms for ways of thinking, knowing and being.

Denise is experienced in creating transformational trainings that support arts leaders, educators and practitioners, helping them learn from the past, create meaningful change and elevate organizational narrative and image.

Through its programming and training RTPP seeks to disrupt and intervene to create social change for the betterment of humanity.

It's official! Announcing the Play Development Lab 2025/2026 cohort of Black women playwrights! The lab is an incubator to help Black women playwrights advance process, craft and career. Learn about their plays and careers here ->> https://sites.google.com/view/djharttheatrewebsite/play-development-lab/20252026-cohort?authuser=0