PlayPenn Presents Eboni Booth (Author of "Primary Trust")

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“Eboni Booth’s ‘Primary Trust’ is the play we need to restore our souls.” - Los Angeles Times

“Eboni Booth crafts a profound meditation on grief and self-preservation, intricately balancing humor and heartbreak.” - Broad Street Review

Join us for an intimate evening with acclaimed playwright Eboni Booth, author of Primary Trust, the Pulitzer Prize winning play known for its quiet emotional depth and its exploration of friendship, loneliness, and hope.

Primary Trust was recently produced at Philadelphia Theatre Company as part of its 2025–2026 season and is one of the most produced plays in the country. It is currently making its Los Angeles premiere at Center Theatre Group’s Mark Taper Forum, further cementing its place as one of the defining American plays of the past decade.

Booth’s work has been praised for its clarity, restraint, and humanity, establishing her as one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary American theater.

This special event is part of our 2026 New Play Development Conference and offers a unique opportunity to hear Eboni discuss her creative process and her approach to writing intimate, character driven work for the stage.

Seating is limited. Reserve your spot now for a thoughtful and inspiring conversation.

About the Playwright

Eboni Booth is a writer and actor from New York City. Her plays include Primary Trust (Roundabout Theatre) and Paris (Atlantic Theater). For television, she has written for Hulu’s We Were the Lucky Ones and HBO Max’s Julia. As an actor, Eboni has appeared in productions at Playwrights Horizons, LCT3, Manhattan Theater Club, Ars Nova, WP Theater, Page 73, Soho Rep., Clubbed Thumb, and more. Eboni is a resident playwright at New Dramatists and the recipient of a Steinberg Playwright Award, a Helen Merrill Award for Playwriting, and a John Gassner award. She is a graduate of Juilliard’s playwriting program and the University of Vermont.

About the 2026 New Play Development Conference

PlayPenn’s nationally recognized New Play Development Conference brings together readings of new plays alongside a citywide series of civic gatherings, workshops, artist exchanges, and public conversations focusing on art, democracy, historical memory, belonging, and collective imagination. This community-focused approach to new play development reflects a broader vision of theatre in a shared civic life that illuminates what theatre can do, who participates in it, how it unfolds, and why it matters. 

The 19-event Conference brings together 22 playwrights participating across workshops, conversations, and five new work presentations while expanding its scope to include an interview with Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Eboni Booth (Primary Trust), free playwriting workshops for adults, teens, and women over 50, and a public conversation examining constitutional history and civic identity.

Additional programming includes a community workshop for queer theatre makers; a convening on innovation in theatre-making with leaders from Philadelphia Fringe Festival, Cannonball Festival, Pig Iron Theatre Company, Lemonade Stand, and Tiny Dynamite; and an acting lab focused on approaches to new play development and cross-community exchanges among theatre artists.