Solas Nua is delighted to announce the three artists selected for the 2026 Show in a Bag program: Lilli Hokama, Milo Longenecker, and Dani Stoller.
Now entering its second year, Show In A Bag offers an opportunity for DC area performing artists to create a solo show with dramaturgy from Solas Nua and Dublin’s Fishamble: The New Play Company, The 6-month long program offers performers support to develop a solo script and a small-scale production that they can perform anywhere. At the end of the program, the selected artists will have a public-facing works-in-progress sharing of their solo shows through the support of Solas Nua.
Lilli Hokama is a multi-hyphenate theatre-making artist who has primarily worked as an actor and director. Show in a Bag expands Hokama’s practice into writing her own stories.
Movement artist and theatremaker Milo Longenecker brings an interdisciplinary practice that lives at the intersection of dance and theatre. Through movement and performance, he explores the relationship between physical and emotional embodiment and queer immateriality. He holds a BFA in theatre from NYU Tisch and is an MFA dance candidate at the University of Maryland.
Award-winning playwright and actor Dani Stoller rounds out the cohort with a body of work that spans acclaimed performances and celebrated new plays. After receiving her MFA in playwriting from Catholic University of America, she became a lecturer at the CUA Rome School of Drama, where she teaches acting, movement, and text analysis.
"We are thrilled to welcome Lilli, Milo, and Dani to this year's Show in a Bag program," said Mekala Sridhar, Solas Nua’s Creative Producer. "I am excited by the way they're each bringing in their own unique voice and style to the solo shows they are developing. The artistic rigor and expansive imaginations of these three artists is what drew us to them, and we are proud to support these incredible local artists develop their own solo shows through international collaboration.”
Show in a Bag was started by Fishamble:The New Play Company in collaboration with the Dublin Fringe and Irish Theatre Institute in 2010. Solas Nua is honored to collaborate frequently with Fishamble in producing and touring their projects, and to bring their internationally acclaimed dramaturgical practices directly to our community for a second year.
About the Artists
Lilli Hokama is a DMV-based multi-hyphenate theatre artist, originally from Denver, Colorado. Their stories have been gathered from the dry lands of the Rocky Mountains to communal Midwest spaces that should be condemned to fire escape stairs and train cars on the East Coast.
Their work as an actor has been seen on stages across DC. Select credits include: Amadeus, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Twelfth Night and Julius X at Folger Theatre. Eureka Day at Theatre J. And Death on the Nile and Age of Innocence at Arena Stage. Nationally, Lilli has performed at places like Lincoln Center Theatre, Dallas Theatre Center, The Old Globe, Baltimore Center Stage, and Colorado Shakespeare Festival among many others. They wrote and performed at The Kennedy Center for We Hear You, A Climate Archive. This story was also utilized for the UN Convening Stockholm 50+ Conference and for 77 Messages to the Future! at Dramaten, (The National Theatre of Sweden) in Stockholm. In addition to their work onstage, Lilli was recently featured in a short horror film, Jellybones, which premiered at The Mayan in Denver CO.
Her directing credits include the world premiere of Rat Jaw, and John Logan’s, Red, at her former co created theatre company Stomping Ground Theatre, Night of the Living Dead at Rorschach Theatre and Assistant Directed on As You Like it for Shakespeare in the Parks Tour, and Dracula: Comedy of Terrors at Constellation Theatre. Lilli holds a performance degree in theater and an associates in psychology from The University and Evansville in Indiana.
Milo Longenecker is a movement artist and theatremaker based in DC by way of NYC. He holds a BFA in theatre from NYU Tisch and is an MFA dance candidate at the University of Maryland. His research lives at the intersection of dance and theatre, exploring the connection between the physical and emotional bodies and investigating queer immateriality through movement. Longenecker’s dance background includes jazz, ballet, tap, and modern. He also specializes in movement practices that bridge dance and theatre including viewpoints, butoh, and contact improvisation. His choreography has appeared Off-Broadway, in academic theatre, and on festival stages.
His theatre resume includes roles at The Public Theater, Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre, The Connelly, Ars Nova, Theatre Row, 92NY, Joe’s Pub, and 54 Below. He has collaborated on the development of new works at Labyrinth Theater Company, Pipeline Theater Company, New York Theatre Workshop, LaMaMa, and beyond. Longenecker is an instructor of record at the University of Maryland’s School of Theatre, Dance and Performance Studies, and has served as a guest artist at Pace University’s Sands College of Performing Arts.
This year, in addition to being named a 2026 Solas Nua x Fishamble New Play Company “Show In A Bag” artist, Longenecker received grants from the Maya Brin Foundation, the Goldhaber Foundation, and the UMD school of Theatre, Dance and Performance Studies to present his paper “Liminalia: the Queer Interdisciplinarity of Falling in Performance” at the Pop Culture Association conference in Atlanta in April and will perform his solo “Divining Instrument” at the Queer Butoh Festival in NYC in June. www.milolongenecker.com
Dani Stoller is an award-winning playwright and actor currently based in Washington, DC. Performance credits include: This Much I Know (59E59 off Broadway), originating the role of Chaya in Jonathan Spector’s Birthright at Miami New Drama, Which Way to the Stage, Ragtime (Signature Theatre, Helen Hayes Nomination for Best Supporting Performer); My Body, No Choice (Arena Stage, Helen Hayes Nomination for Best Supporting Performer); As You Like It, Midsummer, District Merchants (Folger Theatre); The Joy That Carries You, The Humans, The Diary of Anne Frank, The Crucible (Olney Theatre Center); This Much I Know, Hester Street (Helen Hayes Nomination for Best Supporting Performer), Prayer for the French Republic (Helen Hayes Nomination for Best Supporting Performer) (Theater J). She has also performed at Studio Theatre, 1st Stage, Keegan Theatre, and The Kennedy Center. Playwriting credits: Easy Women Smoking Loose Cigarettes (Signature Theater) Just Great: an adaptation of some book by F Scott Fitzgerald (recently published by Broadway Licensing), The Voices of Blackwell Island, The Possumneck Playhouse Presents..., Failureland (Signature Theater SIS Program), Girlhood (Round House Theatre TPC commission), The Joy That Carries You, co-written with Awa Sal Secka (Olney Theatre Center, Winner of the Helen Hayes Charles MacArthur Award for Best New Play) Education: BFA Ithaca College, MFA CUA.
