20. David Wiseman, 24, designer-artist.
Wiseman’s bronze and porcelain vases are shaped like angular river rocks. His hat racks are shaped like deer heads. His work is admired (and sold) by tastemakers uptown, at the Whitney Museum, and downtown, at Nolita’s A Détacher.

21. Elizabeth Meriwether, 24, playwright.
Meriwether has two plays opening in the next four months: Heddatron, an adaptation of Hedda Gabler with robots as actors, and the all-new The Mistakes Madeline Made, about a girl who develops a fear of bathing.

22. Donald Glover, 22, comedian.
As a freshman at NYU, Glover and eight friends formed a sketch-comedy troupe called Hammerkatz, which got him noticed by the Upright Citizens Brigade, Conan O’Brien, and Comedy Central, where he and his partners now have a scriptwriting deal.

23. Karen Russell, 24, writer.
Shortly after placing a short story in The New Yorker, she signed a two-book deal. Her short-story collection will be published in 2006; her novel, Swamp Landia, arrives in the fall of 2007.

24. Adam Plitt, 24, saucier.
Recruited by Le Bernardin while working in Boston, Plitt landed a job in Eric Ripert’s kitchen. The restaurant landed three stars in the new Michelin guide.

25. Jennifer Poe, 20, filmmaker.
At the age of 15, Poe emerged from the Lower East Side poetry underground with Caged Byrd, a short film she wrote and directed. Now she’s at work on her second: a documentary about Donyale Luna and Pat Hartley, the only black women to be part of Warhol’s Factory.

26. Dolev Azaria, 23, campaign-finance director.
Two years ago, Congressman Anthony Weiner tapped Azaria to be his campaign-finance director; she oversaw a staff of six, some of whom were Ph.D.’s fifteen years her senior. Now she’s launching her own political-consultancy firm.

27. Colin Francis, 15, shortboard prodigy.
The best surfer in Brooklyn is half-Italian, half-Jamaican, and lives in Williamsburg with his mom. But when the waves are breaking big at Far Rockaway, he’s pulling off skateboard-inspired tricks on the lip of a breaking wave, and then zooming down its face to get barreled inside.

Next: Because We Forgive

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• Archive: “Features”
• Articles by Sarah Bernard
• Table of Contents: Dec 26, 2005 issue of New York | Subscribe!