The 53rd State Occasional No. 3

For each edition of the Occasional, guest editors invite artists, thinkers, and members of our community to consider questions that we have and topics that move us. For Occasional No. 3, playwrights Lucas Baisch and Emma Horwitz have invited Liza Birkenmeier, Theresa Buchheister, Lisa D'Amour, dots, Diane Exavier, Zoë Geltman, Miguel Gutierrez, nazareth hassan, Orlando Hernández, Julia Izumi, Imani Elizabeth Jackson, Kate Kremer, Lisa Kron, Shayan Lotfi, Sam Max, Kate McGee, Eli Nixon, Marissa Joyce Stamps, reid tang, Jesús I. Valles, Noah Weinman, and Bailey Williams to respond to the question, “What are you obsessed with? And how are you holding it?”

Emma Horwitz is a writer from New York City who was born during a cold month in the early 90s.


Lucas Baisch is a playwright, artist, and educator from San Francisco. His play 404 Not Found is available through 53rd State Press.


Liza Birkenmeier is the author of Grief Hotel, Dr. Ride’s American Beach House, and other things.

Theresa Buchheister (they/them) is a director / writer / producer / curator / appropriately-occasional-performer from Kansas. They moved to NY to work for Richard Foreman and are currently the artistic director of The Brick/Brick Aux, The Exponential Festival and Title:Point and direct, engineer, teach and perform in the various realms of voice over. www.theresabuchheister.com

Lisa D’Amour is a playwright, interdisciplinary artist, educator and mischief-maker living in New Orleans, LA. With Katie Pearl, she is Co-Artistic Director of PearlDamour. Find out more at lisadamour.com and pearldamour.com.

dots is a multi-disciplinary design collective creating environments for theater, film, commercials, and immersive experiences. Hailing from Colombia, South Africa, and Japan, we are Santiago Orjuela-Laverde, Andrew Moerdyk, and Kimie Nishikawa. As collaborators, we believe that the whole is greater than the sum of its individual parts.

Diane Exavier is a writer living and working in Brooklyn, usually dispatching from Flatbush or somewhere very far away.

Zoë Geltman is a performer and a writer and a born-and-bred New Yorker.

Miguel Gutierrez (he/him) is multi-disciplinary artist based in Lenapehoking/Brooklyn, NY and Tovaangar/Los Angeles. He creates empathetic and irreverent spaces for himself and other QTPOC folx to dream. www.miguelgutierrez.org

nazareth hassan is an interdisciplinary artist working in writing, performance, music, and imagemaking. They are from Atlanta and live in Brooklyn.

Orlando Hernández is a tap dancer and writer. He's been researching the knee-heart connection.

Julia Izumi is unfortunately not a penguin yet, but she's trying. In the meantime, she is a playwright, a teacher, and an occasional performer.

Imani Elizabeth Jackson is a poet from Chicago. She makes a very good sweet potato pound cake.

Kate Kremer is a playwright and the publisher of 53rd State Press. katekremer.com

Lisa Kron is a writer and performer whose plays include Well, and 2.5 Minute Ride and the libretto for the Tony Award winning musical Fun Home. She’s also a founding member of the OBIE-Award-winning theater company, The Five Lesbian Brothers.

Shayan Lotfi is a writer whose obsessions in his work include globalization, migration, cultural autonomy, political institutions, economic systems, and notions of pluralism.

Sam Max is a writer, director, filmmaker, and critic working in New York and Berlin.

Kate McGee is a multi-hyphenate theater artist/designer living and working in New York City.

Eli Nixon is an interdisciplinary multitude and celebrant of BLOODTIDE- a new holiday in homage to Horseshoe Crabs. Their illustrated manual for holiday activation is available at the3rdthing.press

Marissa Joyce Stamps is a Black, Haitian-American Afrosurreal writer, director, actor, and educator. Her plays include Being Up in Here... (2023 Princess Grace Playwriting Award), …Twisted Juniper (O’Neill NPC 2022), and Blue Fire… (Exponential Festival 2021). marissjoycestamps.com

reid tang is a playwright and maker of weird internet experiments.

Jesús I. Valles is a Mexican writer-performer who wishes to echo Rasha Abdulhadi’s call to you, dear reader, to refuse and resist the genocide of Palestinian people.

Noah Weinman lives in Los Angeles but dreams of being elsewhere. He writes, records, and produces music for his own project, Runnner, in addition to many others. His debut album Like Dying Stars, We're Reaching Out and an ambient reassembly of that album Starsdust are both available now on Run For Cover Records and hey if you like them maybe go see him on tour.

Bailey Williams is a writer interested in how people tell on themselves by telling stories about themselves. This interest makes it nearly impossible to write a bio and yet, somehow, against all odds, she has overcome, persevered, and written this.