Else Went (she/her) is the author of Initiative, Degenerates, An Oxford Man, and other works for the stage. She has received development and support from The Public Theater, Playwrights Horizons, New York Theatre Workshop, Ars Nova, Atlantic Theater Company, WP, Playwrights Realm, MTC, South Coast Rep, The Tank, Breaking the Binary, Trans Theater Lab, Mercury Store, MacDowell, Queer Art Mentorship, and other institutions. Her work has been recognized by the Tow Foundation, Susan Smith Blackburn Awards, Sloane Foundation, Princess Grace, O'Neill Conference, and Jerome Foundation. Else is the co-founder of The Renovationists, an artistic collective dedicated to queering the canon through new work and adaptation, as well as an amateur sound-designer.
Emma Rosa Went is a brooklyn-based theatre director who makes new and classic text plays. Recent work: Initiative (Public Theater, Vulture's Best Plays of 2025;) Romeo and Juliet (Hudson Valley Shakespeare, tour;) Much Ado About Nothing (Opera House Arts, ME;) and new work developed at The Public, Playwrights Horizons, Mercury Store, NYTW, MTC, Ars Nova, South Coast Rep, and many other venues. Emma is on staff as the inaugural Directing Fellow at the Public Theater from 2024-2026. Also in 2026: As You Like It (Public Theater, Mobile Unit.) SDC Member. Rep: WME. www.emmawent.com
From the writer and director of Initiative (Vulture's Best Theater of 2025)
The boys are fucked. And they know it. In their own obscure corner of the internet, they offer each other proof that the game is rigged against men: it was over before it began, they will never be loved, better just to lay down and rot. When an unexpected relationship begins to form, the consequences of the boys’ fatalism are made painfully clear. Degenerates offers a telescopic, darkly funny view of one insular community, formed on the bedrock of shared and infinite miseries.
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