Television trophies went to a string of series that have been frequently honored over the past several months, including FX's spy family drama The Americans, earning the drama series honor for its final season.

A new play by The Americans writer Hilary Bettis is among a trio of new works announced for the Roundabout Theatre Company’s 2019-2020 Off Broadway season.

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​The world premiere of Bettis’ 72 Miles to Go… is set for a winter 2020 bow at the Roundabout’s Laura Pels Theatre, the company’s artistic director/CEO Todd Haimes announced today. The Off Broadway season will also include the world premiere of a Roundabout commission ...what the end will be by Jiréh Breon Holder; and the new musical Darling Grenadine, with book, music & lyrics by Daniel Zaitchik.

The Susan Smith Blackburn Prize is awarded annually to celebrate women who have written works of outstanding quality for the English-speaking theatre. Administered in Houston, New York and London, the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize is named after the noted American actor and writer who grew up in Houston and lived in London during the last 15 years of her life. Susan believed that society urgently needed more influence from talented women.  It is the purpose of the Prize is to honor excellence and to perpetuate the high standards, creativity and vitality that were characteristic of Susan's life. 

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​Judges for the 2019 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize are:  Michael Buffong (U.K.) Artistic Director of Talawa Theatre;  Maria Goyanes(U.S.) Artistic Director of the Woolly Mammoth Theatre; Tony and Olivier Award-winning stage director Marianne Elliott, OBE (U.K.); Playwright and winner of the 2011 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize for The Nether, Jennifer Haley (U.S.);  and celebrated stage, television and film actors, Tamsin Greig (U.K.) and Marin Ireland (U.S.).

The WGA on Thursday unveiled its nominations for in TV, new media, news, radio/audio and promotional writing for 2018, with writers for Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale and NBC’s Saturday Night Live among last year’s winners to make the cut.

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DRAMA SERIES

The Americans, Written by Peter Ackerman, Hilary Bettis, Joshua Brand, Joel Fields, Sarah Nolen, Stephen Schiff, Justin Weinberger, Joe Weisberg, Tracey Scott Wilson; FX Networks

The Kilroys, a collective of playwrights and producers dedicated to furthering the voices of female and trans playwrights, has announced the new members in its coalition. They are Jaclyn Backhaus, Hilary Bettis, Jennifer Chambers, Claudia de Vasco, Emma Goidel, Christina Ham, Jessica Hanna, Monet Hurst-Mendoza, Obehi Janice, Hansol Jung, Chelsea Marcantel, Caroline V. McGraw, Bianca Sams, and Gina Young.

The lineup includes two workshop performances by Alley All New alums Hilary Bettis (2018 Alley All New Festival's Queen of Basel) and Claire Kiechel (2018 Alley All New Festival's Early Draft Preview and the 2017 Alley All New reading of Pilgrims). Hilary Bettis, a writer on the Emmy-nominated television show "The Americans," transports us to Tucson, Arizona, Nogales, Mexico and all the distance in between with her new family drama, 72 Miles to Go... The play follows deported immigrant Anita and her American-born husband and children over a decade as they come of age against the backdrop of deportation, DACA, and changing immigration laws. The workshop performance is directed by Jose Zayas, who directed Hilary's play Queen of Basel at last year's festival.

Barefoot Theatre Company celebrates the third annual Vassallo Awards with a Fall Gala beginning at 8pm at the SVA THEATRE in NYC on 333 W 23rd Street in Manhattan. Actor David Zayas (Showtime's DEXTER, FOX's Gotham, OZ on HBO); acclaimed writer, Hilary Bettis (FX's Emmy Award winning, The Americans), Actress Shirley Rumierk (NBC's RISE) are among those honored for artistic achievements. 

This season's PlayFest lineup will feature groundbreaking new works from Hilary Bettis, Mark Brown, Robert Moulthrop, Meridith Friedman, Steven Dietz, Deborah Brevoort, and Emily Dendinger.

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​PlayFest is a nationally recognized program, representing one of the strongest commitments to new plays in the United States. Since its inception in 2003, PlayFest has helped nurture and develop over 100 new plays-many of which have received subsequent productions in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Seattle, Washington, D.C., and across the country

Sundance Institute has selected nine original TV pilots for its fifth annual Episodic Lab, which runs from September 27-October 2 at the Sundance Mountain Resort in Utah. Topics and formats range from half-hour comedies about friendships put to the test to historical dramas about the struggle for Native American land sovereignty. 

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Blood & Dust
Written by Hilary Bettis

Stormy Proctor has one shot at becoming the first woman bull rider on the professional rodeo circuit, but she’ll have to face rough bulls, hard cowboys, and her personal demons along the way.

Hilary Bettis is an award-winning playwright based in Brooklyn. After graduating from The Juilliard School’s playwriting program in 2015, she wrote on the Emmy-nominated series The Americans for the final two seasons and was nominated for the 2018 WGA Award. She has developed and sold multiple original TV shows and is currently adapting the Colombian hit-series La Niña for the US with FX and Propagate producing. Her other life passion is riding horses, which she’s been doing since she was three.

2018 California Repertory Company begins its 2018-2019 season with The Ghosts of Lote Bravo by Hilary Bettis. The play centers on a mother and daughter who struggle to survive in violent Ciudad Juárez. Guided by La Santa Muerte, Juanda sees her daughter Raquel in a new light, ultimately learning about Raquel's hidden hopes, dreams, and courage. It is a gritty and emotional new work exposing the raw underbelly of The United States' relationship with Mexico and shows the human carnage left in NAFTA's wake.

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...Chair Jeff Janisheski says, "Bettis' characters find hope and redemption through the power of faith but also through the power of storytelling and I hope we can all listen." Ultimately, The Ghosts of Lote Bravo is a play about great hope amid relentless fear, poverty, and grief.

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...Director Denise Blasor is the Associate Artistic Director at Bilingual Foundation of the Arts and founding member of LAAFO and KOAN at the Odyssey Theater and East LA Classic Theater. She says "Ghosts... is a play about what we as human beings do in order to survive. It's a poetic piece about love and what a mother will do to protect her children."

FX is developing the hit Colombian format La Niña for the U.S. market, with The Americans scribe Hilary Bettis attached to pen the adaptation for the Caracol Televisión series, and Ben Silverman and Howard T. Owens’ Propagate Content executive producing.

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In La Niña, after escaping a forced life of servitude to a ruthless cartel in Mexico, a woman known as “La Nina” struggles to recapture her once promising life and keep the past behind her.

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Bettis also executive produces with Silverman, Owens and Jay Weisleder for Propagate. FX Productions is the studio.

QUEEN OF BASEL will receive it's world premiere at Studio Theatre this 2018-2019 season. Director to be announced. 

The WGA has nominated "The Americans" for a WGA Award for Best Drama. 

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​The Americans, Written by Peter Ackerman, Hilary Bettis, Joshua Brand, Joel Fields, Stephen Schiff, Joe Weisberg, Tracey Scott Wilson; FX Networks

Queen of Basel will receive it's World Premiere at Miami New Drama April 2018. The bilingual adaptation of Miss Julie was commissioned by Miami New Drama in 2016. It will be directed by Michel Hausmann.

Every year The Kilroys puts out The List of the industry's most recommended plays.

MAGIC CITY, commissioned by Miami New Drama, is one of six plays selected for development at this year's Bay Area Playwrights Festival in San Francisco. I'm so excited to spend July working with this awesome organization, and hangin' with some super cool writers.

Daniel Octano, Graham Ulicny and Sean Smith heard a reading of Alligator in Omaha in 2012, so when they heard there was finally a production they drove across the country, slept on floors for three months and showed up every day with smiles on their faces. I'm so thrilled their incredible music is being honored with a Drama Desk nomination. 

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Citizen Media producer Paul Wesley sets four upcoming projects, including Finding Natalie at Fox21 TV Studios.  Hilary Bettis will write.  Read full press release here.

HAMILTON's Lin-Manuel Miranda donates to The Sol Project for ALLIGATOR.  Read full press release here.

The world premiere of ALLIGATOR has found its cast.  Read full press release here.

The Sol Project launches to increase the visibility of Latino/a writers.  Read the full press release here.

ALLIGATOR world premiere set for New Georges' 25th anniversary season.  Read full press release here.

THE IRON WAREHOUSE was one of 31 short films selected for inclusion in this year’s EMIFF in Palma de Mallorca, Spain.

To read the full press release, click here.

THE IRON WAREHOUSE was selected for this year’s LA Shorts Fest, screening at LA Live.

“The 2015 LA Shorts Fest showcased 265 films from 26 countries, including the USA, Canada, Australia, Turkey, Switzerland, Peru, Cyprus, South Africa, Germany, Denmark, New Zealand, Taiwan, Finland, Belgium, Austria, UK, Italy, Dominican Republic, France, Brazil, Japan, United Arab Emirates, Argentina, Mexico, India and China.”

To read the full press release, click here: http://lashortsfest.com/content.asp?PageID=2

“The Lark is proud to announce that seven plays by eight writers have been chosen, through its open access program, for the 22nd Annual Playwrights’ Week. This year’s plays and playwrights are: The Ghosts of Lote Bravo by Hilary Bettis, People Sitting in Darkness by Clarence Coo, Nothing Left to Burn by Adi Hanash and Patrick Vassel,Moon Man Walk by James Ijames, Abominable or The Misappropriation of Beverly Onion by Forces Beyond her Control by Katie May, Human Error by Eric Pfeffingerand Dear Galileo by Claire Willett. Playwrights’ Week will culminate in a festival of public readings, which will take place October 4th – 8th, 2015.  For the full schedule and for information regarding tickets, visit our Events page.

“For the first time ever, our number of submissions hit a staggering four figures. These seven plays stood out as richly imagined and definitively theatrical explorations,” said Andrea Hiebler, Lark’s Director of Scouting and Submissions.  “Whether invoking far-off lands, the distant past or the very immediate here and now,they offer distinct perspectives on how we go about navigating our worlds and the stories that guide those journeys.”

To read the full press release, click here.

I wrote F*it Club’s piece this year! It’s a crazy ten-minute play about the infamous night Megan Hill, Larry Powell, Dennis Allen II, Andrea Hiebler and I spent at Billy Bob’s karaoke bar. Robert Durst smokes crack and we saved a baby. You should come see it because there will also be a dance party and booze.

Here’s the info:

“F*It Club, the New York Innovative Award-winning film and theatre company, joins acclaimed partner companies The Assembly, EST/Youngblood, The Mad Ones, Naked Angels, Slant Theatre Project and The TEAM at The Green Building in Brooklyn with GAP Presents! The Green Plays 2.0, seven new short plays developed and created by each individual company.

Join Gowanus Art + Production (GAP) and co-producer Allyson Morgan for an exciting evening featuring original music by acclaimed house band The Lobbyists (Seawife), seven commissioned plays specifically for the Green Building from some of New York’s most notable up-and-coming theater companies (The Assembly, EST/Youngblood, F*It Club, The Mad Ones, Naked Angels, Slant Theatre Project, and The TEAM), and a FREE after-party to mix and mingle on our beautiful outdoor patio featuring drinks sponsored by Tirado Distillery.

Performances will be at The Green Building on Wednesday, September 9th and Thursday, September 10th at 8pm. Tickets are $15 and available at eventbrite.comand at the door. The Green Building is located at 452 Union Street in Brooklyn, NY. For more information, visit http://bit.ly/1DQmKta.”

Here’s the full press release.

I had the opportunity to spend a week in Cape Cod this summer working on some new plays. And eating lobster rolls on the beach. And hanging out on the beach. And getting sunburned on the beach.

Here’s a link for the 2015 season.

I’m really excited to be in the company of two of my classmates this year!

The Ghosts of Lote Bravo was a runner-up with Tatiana Suerz-Pico’s Flesh and Blood.

Boo Killebrew’s beautiful Miller, Mississippi won! (This is a great play and someone should produce it)

For the full link, click here.

Pretty much the best birthday present EVER (well, aside from shirtless Ryan Gosling bringing me a pony, then professing his undying love on one knee, then galloping off into the sunset together) is waking up to The Kilroys The List. This year THE GHOSTS OF LOTE BRAVO made the #3 spot on The List, and THE HISTORY OF AMERICAN PORNOGRAPHY made the #35 spot.

Here is a link to The List.

DAKOTA ATOLL received an Honorable Mention. Here is a link to the Honorable Mention List.

Here is a really awesome piece American Theatre Magazine just published.

“More productions is the ultimate goal, of course, but there’s an importance to canonization, too,” she said. “The impetus for the group was to fight the notion that artistic excellence has to be in some way compromised for gender parity. These plays have been developed and vetted for artistic excellence; they just happen to possess the added bonus of representing a voice that’s currently being underproduced. It’s part of a larger movement to say: There’s an embarrassment of riches here.” – Shelia Callaghan

And the New York Times.

And this really great piece that Time Out Chicago just published on The List and lack of gender parity in Chicago this season.

There’s SO MANY damn amazing female writers out there, that there’s really no valid excuse anymore not to see gender parity on our stages and screens.

I’m really super super excited about this (and have been working on my Spanish!) Here is the actual article below:

“This week, the National New Play Network (NNPN) announced that that CPT would share in an $8,000 grant to develop the world-premiere play “The Ghosts of Lote Bravo” by Hilary Bettis.

Bobgan and CPT artists will join Bettis and actors, directors and producers from Arizona’s Borderlands Theatre, Missouri’s Unicorn Theatre and Oregon’s Milagro/Miracle Theatre Group in Mexico City for a weeklong rehearsal of the new work. A date for the trip has yet to be confirmed.

(Performers and other members of Mexico City’s El Cìrculo Teatral will partner with the U.S. companies to workshop the play.)”

To read the full article, click here.

As part of the NNPN Rolling World Premiere, Borderlands Theater in Tuscon, AZ will be producing THE GHOSTS OF LOTE BRAVO this season! Former Artistic Director, Barclay Goldsmith, will be directing.

Click here for the American Theatre Magazine link.

Click here for Borderlands Theater.

THE GHOSTS OF LOTE BRAVO is receiving an NNPN Rolling World Premiere! Unicorn Theatre in Kansas City has officially announced it as part of their season. Ian R. Crawford is directing.

Click here for American Theatre Magazine link.

Click here for Unicorn Theatre link.

Click here for the Kansas City Star piece.

THE GHOSTS OF LOTE BRAVO received a staged reading as part of the Nuestras Voces National Playwriting Competition on Thursday, June 11th. Elena Araoz directed. The wonderful cast list is below:

JUANDA CANTU Claudia Acosta
“EL RELOJ” Sean Carvajal
CAMILLE Adriana Sananes
ROBERTO CASTILLO Reza Salazar
MAN IN A BLACK HAT Gilbert Cruz
LA SANTA MUERTE  Maria-Christina Oliveras
RAQUEL CANTU Dea Julien
PEDRO LOPEZ Cliff Rivera

I’m a little behind posting stuff. This reading was on May 4th at my home away from home New York Theatre Workshop.

THE GHOSTS OF LOTE BRAVO 
written by Hilary Bettis
directed by Pirronne Yousefzadeh

In Cuidad Juarez, Mexico young girls often disappear. Many turn up murdered. Juanda Cantu’s daughter, Raquel, is one of these girls. Through visions offered by La Santa Muerte, Juanda is shown Raquel’s past only to discover that her daughter had hopes, dreams and courage Juanda knew nothing about. The Ghosts of Lote Bravo is a play about great hope in the midst of relentless violence, poverty and grief.

Got this fun little ten-minute play called HOME happening at The Tank April 24ht and 25th directed by Sidney Erik Wright! Seven playwrights were asked to write short plays based on 7 rules (we each came up with one) so it should be a crazy night of humor, beer and self-deprecation (which is pretty much how I live my life in general).

Here is an interview.

Elena Aaroz is directing The Ghosts of Lote Bravo as part of Project Y’s reading series. The event is open to the public.

Project Y Theatre Company presents:

THE GHOSTS OF LOTE BRAVO

By Hilary Bettis

Directed by Elena Araoz

Monday, April 13th at 7:30pm

ART/NY 520 8th Avenue, 3rd Floor

The Bruce Mitchell Room

Click here for more info.

La Jolla Playhouse selected my newest play for their DNA Series this year. Kimberly Senior (Disgraced on B'way) will be directing. And if that was amazing enough, my BFF in the universe, Kira Sternbach, will be playing the role of Porn Actress. Kira did the very first reading of the very first play I ever wrote with me and three other people (one of them my ex) in a basement. So, yeah. we go way back.

Here are all the lovely press releases.

And here (they’re so hot).

And here.

This is my second year participating with some killer playwrights in the famous #1MPF at City Center. Portia Krieger directed my piece. For more info click here.

I got sucked into that crazy, late-night madness that is #serials at The Flea! Come see Lala’s Love Nest, a play about a dysfunctional, blue collar Brooklyn family, that navigates the ins and outs of family life and a sex shop (yeah, I have a weird fascination with strippers, prostitutes and people in the sex industry in general…) You get free beer, and if my play gets voted back I get to write more! Here’s a recent interview I did for this thing.

The amazing Robert O’Hara (Bootycandy) is directing an incredible cast of Juilliard fourth-year actors in the reading of my play THE HISTORY OF AMERICAN PORNOGRAPHY. Information about the reading is below.

“On behalf of James Houghton, the Richard Rodgers Director of the Drama Division, and Christopher Durang and Marsha Norman, Co-Directors of the Playwrights Program, it is my pleasure to invite you to a staged reading of a new work by one of our second-year playwright fellows in the Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwrights Program at Juilliard.

We would love for you to join us for THE HISTORY OF AMERICAN PORNOGRAPHY by Hilary Bettis, directed by Robert O’Hara, featuring Juilliard actors in their fourth year of training.  The dates of the reading are Saturday, December 6th at 7:00 PMand Sunday, December 7th at 2:30 PM at the Pershing Square Signature Center, Ford Studio Theatre, 480 West 42nd Street.

Please visit our online reservation form to reserve tickets:www.Juilliard.edu/drama/reservations.  Please note that seating is extremely limited. Feel free to call me at 212-799-5000 x 251 if you have any questions about the writers or their work at Juilliard this year.”

The Ghosts of Lote Bravo was selected as Runner-Up in this year’s MetLife Nuestras Voces National Playwriting Competition. Repertorio Español will do a public reading of the play this spring.

NOVEMBER 2014 – NEW YORK, NY – Repertorio Español is proud to announce the winner of the 2014 MetLife Nuestras Voces National Playwriting Competition. Mariana Carreño King of New York, NY has won first place for her play, “The Prisoner” which will be fully produced on Repertorio’s stage in the 2015-2016 Season in addition to a cash prize.

Ms. Carreño-King was chosen out of ten finalists who, in turn, were chosen from over 100 entries. “The Olmos Family Play” by Matthew Paul Olmos and “Fausto Angleró” by Aravind Enrique Adyanthaya won second and third place, respectively. Both writers will receive cash prizes.

ABOUT THE PRISONER & MARIANA CARREÑO KING

“The Prisoner” is a sharp script based on the traditional Mexican legend and opera, La mulata de Córdoba. When María is imprisoned in solitary confinement for the murder of her child, she is left utterly alone to face her tormented conscious. With only the occasional company of her corrections officer and armed only with a piece of chalk and her love of art, she must find within her the strength to remain sane in her extreme circumstances. A haunting tale about redemption and the harrowing effects of solitary confinement, The Prisoner  carries with it a universal tale of the internal battle between good and evil.  The show will be premiered in the 2015-2016 Season.

2ND PLACE
The Olmos Family Play by Matthew Paul Olmos (Brooklyn, NY)

Two mothers from an extended Mexican -American family in Los Angeles are dead set on protecting their sons no matter what the cost split apart the family on Christmas.
3RD PLACE
Fausto Angleró by Aravind Enrique Adyanthaya (Lajas, Puerto Rico)

A photographer in 1930’s Puerto Rico is enthralled with one of his subjects and her absent lover, Fausto Anglero.
RUNNERS UP
Plumas Negras by Juliette Carillo (Venice, California)

Rooted in the fertile landscape of Salinas, Plumas negras tells the story of three generations of hard working women from 1963 to the present as they struggle to forge better lives and stronger bonds.
The Ghosts of Lote Bravo by Hilary Bettis (Brooklyn, NY)

The Ghosts of Lote Bravo tells the story of Lote Bravo, the place where hundreds of women, working in the factories that spouted up between Juarez and El Paso have been murdered and their cases left unsolved.

For more information click here.

My play MEXICO has been selected for Partial Comfort’s reading series! Details below:

Partial Comfort Productions (Obie Award winner and Drama Desk nominee A Bright New Boise) kicks off its 12th season with THE WELCOME MAT READING SERIES, a collection of bold and groundbreaking new plays by four of the country’s fastest-rising female playwrights.

THE WELCOME MAT READING SERIES runs December 6th & 7th at 3pm & 7pm. All readings will be held at The Sheen Center, located at 18 Bleecker Street. Admission is free and no advance reservations are required.

The series will feature free readings of Mexico by Hillary Bettis and directed by Mia Rovegno (Dec. 6 @ 3pm), A Funny Thing Happened… by Halley Feiffer and directed by Moritz Von Stuelpnagel (Dec. 6 @ 7pm), Serial Black Face by Janine Nabers and directed by Benjamin Kamine (Dec. 7 @ 3pm), and Still by Jen Silverman and directed by Carolyn Cantor (Dec. 7 @ 7pm).

For more info click here.

THE IRON WAREHOUSE, a short-film project that has been in the making since August, shot this weekend in Brooklyn, NY. It was a magical set, and one of the best experiences I’ve had as a writer. The next step, post-production and the festival circuit! Below are some stills for the project.

Director      Laura Gomez (from Orange is the New Black)
Writer         Hilary Bettis
Producers  Alfredo Narciso and Mariso Viola
DP               Ed Trucco

Cast

Cathy Curtin (from Orange is the New Black)
Mark Borkowski (from Boardwalk Empire)
Sarah Sokolovic (from ‘Detroit’ Off-Broadway)
Dion Graham (from The Wire)

Crew

Yesenia Perez       AD
Joel Luna              Still Photographer
David Valentino  Art Direction
Gabriel Ureña      AC
Elliot Issac            Sound
Gene Patterson    Sound
Christine Hohl     Hair and Makeup
Sam Gilberg          PA
Freddy Vargas      PA

I’m super excited that The Ghosts of Lote Bravo has been selected for NNPN’s National Showcase at Florida Studio Theatre in Sarasota, FL! (It will also be nice to escape cold NYC for a few days.)

You can read more about it here.

The Bronze Serpent is one of nine plays chosen for Panglossian Productions ten minute festival “What I Did on My Summer Vacation”. The festival takes place in Williamsburg, VA and will air live on HowlRound TV on August 31 at 2pm. There are tons of awesome playwrights with pieces (including Georgina Escobar and Tori Keenan-Zelt!) so you should totally check it out. Plus, my play is about a stripper and a preacher so what could be more awesome than the combination of church and debauchery?

For more info go here.

Come watch me write dirty words in front of impressionable children and unsuspecting tourists at the Drama Book Shop on Friday, August 22nd from 3 pm – 5 pm! This will be the second time I’ve participated in Theaterspeak’s WOF event. Last time I participated the New York Times showed up out of nowhere and interviewed me. You can find that interview here. 

For more information, and to see the AMAZING list of 125 playwrights click here.

THE GHOSTS OF LOTE BRAVO has been selected for this year’s Crossing Border Festival at Two River Theater in NJ. Jerry Ruiz is directing. The public reading is Friday, August 15th at 7:30 pm.

For more information click here.

I spent Fourth of July weekend hanging out with the NTI kids at The O’Neill. They spent a few days working on scenes from ALLIGATOR (my O’Neill NPC 2012 play) with Suzie Agins (my awesome NPC 2012 director).

Also, I saw a skunk, got a weird tan line on my leg and hung out on the infamous farm house porch drinking whiskey till all hours of the night. Home sweet home.

Really excited to have two of my plays, Alligator and Dakota Atoll, nominated for the first annual The List from The Kilroys.

For the full list of nominated plays click here.

My newest play, The Ghosts of Lote Bravo, will be developed this July at the Kennedy Center in DC. Loretta Greco (Magic Theatre) is directing, and Barclay Goldsmith (Borderlands Theater) is dramaturging.

For more information you can read here.