Scott Icenhower is a member of the Dramatists Guild and an award-winning playwright with productions in the Southeast and West Coast. He has a children's holiday play published with Contemporary Drama, and two adult comedies, The Twelve Months of Christmas and No Kidding, published with Eldridge. His "jukebox musicals" The Service at Rocky Bluff and One Mo' Chance were performed at the Barn Dinner Theatre (Greensboro, NC), with The Service at Rocky Bluff returning in unprecedented back to back seasons due to popular demand and both runs having record-breaking pre-sales. Scott writes, acts and sends out a lot of query letters with his actress, director/choreographer wife, Katie Jo, in North Carolina.
Christopher Innvar is a native of Huntington, NY. Chris attended the United States Naval Academy and Syracuse University. His plays have been produced at Barrington Stage Company (Higher Ground, Exhilaration) Phoenix Stage Company (Exhilaration) and Nylon Fusion in NYC (Signals). Applause Books published his play Turtles in the acting series 5-Minute Plays For Teens. A professional actor/director/ teacher for 30 plus years, his acting credits include: Broadway - Victor/Victoria, Les Miserables, The Threepenny Opera, 110 in the Shade, The People in the Picture, The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess and The Snow Geese. Off-Broadway projects include the title role in Floyd Collins at Playwrights Horizons, recorded on Nonesuch Records, NYSF's King Lear at the Delacorte, Atlantic Theater, Vineyard, Transport Group, Red Bull, MTC and Lincoln Center. He is an affiliated artist with The Shakespeare Theatre Company in DC, and a founding associate artist with the Barrington Stage Company.
Bryan Jager is an Orlando-based playwright, director, artist, and performer who's in continual disbelief that he hasn't been revealed to be three raccoons in a trench-coat. His work includes the award winning Oh Hi, Johnny! The Room-sical Parody (Most Innovative Musical, Chicago Musical Theatre Festival 2019), Mean Gays (Patron's Pick, Orlando Fringe 2019), and a number of titles commissioned & produced by the Orlando Repertory Theatre. Bryan is also the co-creator of the web-series DCOM Abridged, and has performed at Walt Disney World, Universal Orlando, and SeaWorld. He graduated from Marymount Manhattan College with a B.A. in Directing & Writing for the Stage. Much thanks to his parents, Jarrett, and (as always) Danielle Rudess.
Lesley James has a B.A. in Creative Writing and Theatre from Hampshire College, a Master of Library and Information Science from the University of Washington, and a Master of Arts in Teaching English from Western Governors University. She worked as a Teen Services Librarian at The Seattle Public Library for many years and now works at a school teaching information literacy. She began writing short plays to help her students learn about topics ranging from plagiarism to fake news. Then one year the drama teacher had an unusually large class and couldn't find a play with enough parts, so Lesley wrote one for her. She lives in Seattle with her husband and her cat, who is immortal.
Leviticus Jelks III was born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia. He received a BA in English from Clayton State University, where he also studied theatre and playwriting. He went on to pursue further study of playwriting from The Horizon Theatre as a Playwriting Fellow and The Alliance Theatre as a Literary Intern. Afterwards, he was accepted into the MFA Dramatic Writing program at Carnegie Mellon School of Drama. In his graduate years, he received the Sloan Screenwriting Award for River Gods and the Lorraine Hansberry Award for A Is for Apron. His play Day of Saturn was accepted for a staged reading at the Blank Theatre in Los Angeles, received The Play LA Humanitas Award and will be featured in The Road Theatre Summer Reading Festival. Shortly after moving to Los Angeles, he joined the Los Angeles Playwrights' Union as an official member.
Jeffery S. Jenkins, recently awarded the Playwrights in Our Schools grant, fall 2020, Scout's Honor. He completed a residency with the TYE Center, winner, the Old Miner Children's Playwriting competition. He is a two-time semi-finalist with Write Now and NYU's New Plays for Young Audiences. Plays which have been workshopped or produced include Minotaur of Warren Park (TYA/USA One Theatre World, staged reading, dir. Kim Peter Kovac); Timmon and the Magic Shoes (TYA/USA One Theatre World, staged reading of 10-minute version, dir. Kim Peter Kovac); Monarch Ashes (Arizona State University, Pam Sterling/Bradford Forehand); The Purple Heart (Adventure Stage Chicago, 10-Minute Play festival, dir. Sarah Rose Graber); Scout's Honor (Adventure Stage Chicago, Scratch Festival, dir. Sarah Anne Dickey); and reading - (Northwestern University, Rives Collins). Jeff serves as co-chair of the Playwrights Network for AATE and also serves on the Young Playwrights for Change National Competition selection committee (AATE, TYA/USA).
Marianne Kallen has been a member of the Musical Writers’ Workshop at Theatre Building Chicago since 1992. Her musical What’s in the Picture? was produced at Roosevelt University in 2001. Her musical The Prairie was commissioned for Stages Festival 2000 (Chicago) and had a studio production at Theatre Building Chicago in March, 2004. Her children’s musical Tantrum on the Tracks was produced at Chernin Center for the Arts (Chicago) in 2004 and 2005, and at Theatre Building Chicago in 2007 and 2009. Her children’s musical The Adventures of Anansi the Spider was produced at Chernin Center for the Arts (Chicago) in November, 2005 and at Theatre Building Chicago in 2007. Her new children’s musical, The Magic Paintbrush, was produced at Theatre Building Chicago in October, 2007. She has released two CD’s of original songs: Lullababies and Little Bits of Rainbow. She is an Artist-in-Residence at Snow City Arts, Department of Pediatrics, Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke’s Medical Center in Chicago.
Zachary Israel Nobile Kampler is an active composer, arranger, conductor, and performer. Mr. Kampler is the founder, Artistic Director, and Conductor of the Eastern Festival Symphony Orchestra. A graduate of the Juilliard Pre-College program, he has performed in Alice Tully Hall and Julliard Hall. Equally at home on stage and in the pit, Mr. Kampler has conducted for Nickel City Opera, Crystal Opera, and TAB Productions, in addition to holding the position of Assistant Conductor with the Stamford Young Artists Philharmonic and Tri-Cities Opera. Previous musical direction engagements include City of Angels, The Sound of Music, Urinetown, The Pirates of Penzance, and West Side Story. Mr. Kampler holds a B.A. in music from New York University and an M.M in Orchestral Conducting, with a concentration in Opera, from SUNY Binghamton.
Linda Kampley's full-length play Fastened to the Moon was given an Equity showcase in NYC. It is published by Next Stage Press and is available in the Drama Book Shop in NYC. She has written five full-length plays, several one-acts, short-plays and a collection of monologues. Her one-act play, The Color of the Evening Sky, was produced in New York City at St. Clement's, and also at St Jean's Playhouse, and in Los Angeles by the West Coast Ensemble. Her one-act Small Talk also received a production at St Clement's. In Los Angeles; and as a screenplay has received: finalist at the NYC International Screenplay Awards; quarterfinalist in 2023 Fresh Voices; quarterfinalist Vail Screenplay Contest 2023, DramaLogue called The Color of the Evening Sky "a true gem" and "remarkably intelligent and humane. Its images of human cruelty and compassion have poetry, humor and are shudderingly authentic." In New York, Kevin Grubb wrote that her dialogue was "reminiscent of Sam Shepard" and "as a character study alone, The Color of the Evening Sky lingers like a surgical scar." Linda has also had poetry published in many small presses and has worked as an actress in New York and regional theatres.
Marisa Kanai is a graduate of Reed College. As a student at the American School in Japan, they wrote and directed three one-act plays, including The Totally Life Changing Letter That Doesn't Really Matter, and discovered the magic of theatre. They currently work in lighting in New York City.
Louise Keeton is an award-winning playwright, actress and author whose work has been the delight of audiences around the country. Her more notable works include Snow White and the Super Dwarves, CATTYWAMPUSED: Tall and True Tales of American Folklore and Cinderella: The Fairy Godmother's Tale (also published by YouthPLAYS), which made its New York debut at the New York Children's Theatre Festival. In her personal mission to create quality family entertainment, Louise founded the Whistle Stop Theatre Company in Ashland, Virginia, where she writes and produces every show.
Daniel A. Kelin II has directed, acted in and written plays performed in Asia, the Pacific and the US. He has had fellowships with Theatre for Young Audiences/USA and the Children's Theatre Foundation of America. Dan was the founding director of Cabaret Tiki, a playwright collective dedicated to plays of five pages or less. His play Musical (Mis)Adventures of Goopy and Bagha was honored by an Arizona children's theatre and performed in India. Sing a Porpoise Home received a staged reading at NYU and won a New England Theatre Conference Aurand Harris Playwriting award. Donnie Q: Knight of the Third Grade won the Old Miner's Children's Playwriting Contest. Honolulu Theatre for Youth has produced many of his plays, including Keiko and Louie: Best Best Friends (Mostly) and ...and the people spoke music, which earned two Rockefeller grants, one for a tour to its place of origin, the Marshall Islands.
Skip Kennon wrote the music for Herringbone (Playwrights Horizons, Williamstown, La Jolla, McCarter, Prince), Don Juan DeMarco (Seattle Rep), and the one-act Afternoon Tea (59E59; INTAR with Ed Harris & Amy Madigan). Music & lyrics: Blanco (Goodspeed, NAMT), Time & Again (Manhattan Theatre Club, Old Globe, O'Neill), The Last Starfighter (Storm Theatre, NYMF at Theatre at St. Clements, public workshop Seattle's Village Theatre), Feathertop (WPA, PA Stage), and the one-act Plaisir d'Amour (book by Terrence McNally, 59E59). Film/video: songs in Friends & Family (Regent Entertainment) and Disney's DVD Premiere award-winning sequel Hunchback of Notre Dame Part II. Skip moderated first year of the BMI-Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop for 20 years (overseeing program for ten years). He also taught at Neighborhood Playhouse for ten years. Herringbone was named in Top 10 cast albums of 2014 by Sound Advice at Talkin Broadway; The Last Starfighter was named in Talkin Broadway's Top 10 cast albums list in 2005.
Nina Ki graduated from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dramatic Writing. Her plays have been read and produced in InspiraTO Theatre's Ten Minute Play Festival, Another Country Productions' SLAMBoston and SLAMBoston Uncensored, in the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival, in Mixed Phoenix Theater Company's Annual Fall Reading Series, and in the City Theatre of Independence Playwrights Festival. Her poetry has been published in Relationships and Other Stuff, as well as the Getting Bi poetry anthology. She is the co-founder of Pearl Girls Productions, and through this independent production group is producer and writer of an Asian American webseries. She is also a member of Koreans United for Equality, an alliance of multigenerational straight and LGBTQI Korean Americans committed to promoting sexual and gender equality. When she is not writing, directing, producing, or acting, she advocates for progressive, multicultural education as an elementary school teacher.
Vatrena King graduated from Berklee College of Music with a degree in Music Production & Engineering, with voice and piano as principal instruments. She then headed to Los Angeles, where she worked at A&M Studios, performed in local bands and joined a cappella group Vocal Nation, composed of six of LA's first-call session singers. She has performed or recorded with numerous artists, on TV and film soundtracks and several Disney children's albums and travelled for several years as a backup singer for recording artist Melissa Manchester. For five years, Vatrena co-starred alongside Renee Elise Goldsberry (Hamilton) on the hit TV show Ally McBeal, performing in the show's iconic "bar" with Vonda Shepard and a host of guest artists. She has been Music Connection Magazine's Top Unsigned Artist of the Year. Her original songs can be heard in the independent film All About Us. She is the composer of the award-winning musicals Zuccotti Park and Rumpelstiltskin, The Game of the Name.
Jeremy Kisling has taught, directed and performed for young people for over 30 years. He is the Associate Artistic Director at Lexington Children's Theatre. He is a Kentucky Theatre Association past president and current SETC state representative.
He received his B.A. in Theatre Arts from the University of Northern Iowa and his M.F.A. in Drama and Theatre for Youth from the University of Texas at Austin. Jeremy is a part-time instructor at the University of Kentucky. He authored stage versions of Why Mosquitoes Buzz, Anansi the Spider and The Princess Who Lost her Hair. He was the recipient of the 2017 Sara Spencer Child Drama Award and the 2019 Tom Behm Award from the Southeastern Theatre Conference.
Krista Knutsen-Marushy is an actor/playwright currently based in Calgary, Alberta. Originally hailing from Seattle, Krista holds an M.F.A. in Playwriting from the Playwrights' Lab at Hollins University and a B.A. in Theatre from Trinity Western University. Her full-length plays have been performed at Fire Exit Theatre, Pacific Theatre, Trinity Western University, and won Best of Fest at the Calgary International Fringe Festival. Her podcast plays have been produced with Burnt Thicket Theatre and Jupiter Theatre's (exp)Lore series. Krista also teaches, directs, and produces with Naked Thieves Theatre Collective.
Bob Kolsby has an MFA from Brandeis University, where he was a Shubert Fellow in Dramatic Writing. He has written many full-length and one-act plays which have been staged in New York, Philadelphia, Boston and Los Angeles. He has also written the books for four children's musicals which perform in rotating repertory at the celebrated Merkin Concert Hall near Lincoln Center. One of these musicals, Holy Moses! (published by Dramatic Publishing), has been performed throughout North America, as well as in New Zealand and Scotland. He was a member of the Columbia Pictures Talent Program, and the studio has optioned his screenplay Radical Change. He has taught writing and playwriting at Brandeis University and CCNY and has worked as a guest artist at Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven, Connecticut.
Steven Korbar's full-length and one-act plays have been produced in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and throughout the United States. His drama, Table for Four, opened at The Source Festival (Washington, DC) last June and will be published in Smith and Kraus' Best Short Plays of 2010, as will his comedy Mrs. Jansen Isn't Here Now. Other productions include I Understand Your Frustration at the Turtleshell Theatre (New York, NY), Let Go at Future Ten (Pittsburgh, PA) and Our Little Angel at the 78th Street Theatre (New York, NY), as well as in Los Angeles and San Diego. His new full-length comedy Third Bull Run recently had its first reading at Elephant Stageworks (Los Angeles, CA).
Nathaniel Kressen is a Brooklyn-based playwright, screenwriter, and novelist. His plays have been published by YouthPLAYS, The Good Ear Review, and One Act Play Depot. Productions and workshops include PS 122, Soho Rep Walkerspace, The American Globe Theatre, Alive Theatre (CA), The Source Festival (DC), Longwood University (VA), Venture Theatre (MT), Hovey Players (MA), Old Armory Theatre (ND), Connecticut Heritage Productions, Prophecy Productions, FACT NYC, Spare Change Theater, The Lee Strasberg Institute, and NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. His screenplay Adopting Skins won first place in The Relevance Group’s American Details Competition, and wrapped shooting in 2011. The same year, his debut novel Concrete Fever was released in a hand-bound, illustrated limited edition by Second Skin Books that went on to sell in stores throughout Brooklyn. At the time of publication, he is at work on new projects for the stage, screen, and shelf.
Ralph Gregory Krumins is a playwright/composer from SW Florida. He graduated from the University of Central Florida with an M.F.A. in Theatre for Young Audiences. His original musicals include Millions of Boxes, Prince(cess), Jason & the Argonauts and Haunted High. His greatest accomplishments in life are his two children, Benji and Mabel—his wrestler and his gremlin.
Patricia Lamkin discovered her love of playwriting in the '90s working as an actor for the Philadelphia Zoo Treehouse Troupe. She has since had 12 plays produced in Philadelphia, Delaware, Los Angeles and the UK. Philladelphia productions include The Trestle, Teasing, Tarzan and Jane Share Their Erotic Jungle Fantasies, and Last Wishes, which won the Brick Playhouse Best of IT award. The Trestle has since been produced at City Theatre Company in Delaware, and most recently at Hurstpieperpoint College in West Sussex, United Kingdom. Patricia's latest play, Fishtales From the Milky Way, made its debut in the New Orleans Faux/Real Festival as the first play of the Dramatist Guild Footlight Series in the Gulf Coast Region, where she now resides. She is a member of the Alliance of Los Angeles Playwrights (ALAP) and the Dramatist Guild, and the Gulf Coast Playwrights, a writing group that meets monthly in New Orleans. She holds an M.F.A. in Acting from the University of Southern Mississippi.
Fred Landau's writing got a Finalist slot (top 6 of over 100 writers) in the Ebb Award competition for theatre writers; and two Midtown Int'l Theatre Festival nominations for production and book/lyrics for I Never Miss a Larry Kramer Musical (NYC's Roy Arias Theater). Noah Remnick in the NY Times called him "lyrically gifted" (New York Today column), and his online humor and parody writing was called "a local treasure" by Broadway's Lin-Manuel Miranda (on Twitter, Nov. 2015). Other productions: book for The Last Starfighter (Storm Theatre, NYMF at Theatre at St Clements, public workshop Seattle's Village Theater); book/score for The Happiest of Times (NYC's Triangle Theater, workshops BMI, ASCAP, Circle Rep). Video and Books: His work was excerpted on CNN (AC360, Situation Room). His book 21st Century Oldies hit Amazon's Top 100 in "Humor-Parody" twice, with follow-up volumes on lighter sides of global warming & 2016 politics. Fred graduated from Harvard Law, and received Masters degrees from NYU Law School and Brooklyn College.
Liz Lawson (formerly E. J. C. Calvert, a.k.a. your dog's other best friend) is from St. Louis, Missouri, currently living in Chicago. Other plays for young audiences include Sarazad and the Monster-King, which premiered at the Canal Park Playhouse in NYC, produced by The TRUF, and The Infinity Carrot, a shadow puppet show which premieres at Piccolo Theatre in Evanston, IL. Her short play The Bear (A Tragedy) was a winner of the Samuel French Off-Off Broadway Festival and is published in their 35th anthology. Other productions include Commit (Art House Productions, NYC), We Are All of Us Haunted (American Theater Company, Chicago), Fast in Fire (Theatre HAN, NYC), The 500 Rabbits (The Flea Theatre, NYC), Testify! (Roy Arias Studios, NYC; Audience Favorite Award winner), Cadaver Synod (The Brecht Forum, NYC).
David LeMaster has published over 40 plays and scenes and recently produced a novel. He has taught drama, English, and speech on the college level for the last twenty years. In addition to writing, LeMaster is a photographer, stage director and a (rather poor) actor. He's working on a second novel and plans to start a podcast this fall chronicling his work as a writer and his 8-year fight with Early Onset Parkinson's Disease.
Paul Lewis is a Seattle-based playwright and composer whose work includes musical adaptations of two iconic children's books—The Runaway Bunny and Caps for Sale—both of which premiered at Boston Children's Theatre; Lost in the Hills, a musical adapted from a novel by Zane Grey; Jill Trent Science Sleuth (Cayuga College); The Crossing, A Musical (Theater Schmeater and Jewel Box Theatre), winner of a Seattle Times Footlights Award for promising new work; the full-length play Oblivion (Driftwood); and The Hours of Life, A Musical (Theatre22). His play The Names has had developmental readings at Equity Library Theatre of Chicago, FUSION, Atlantic Stage and The Field (NYC). Paul's one-act plays have been staged at theatres across North America and in the U.K, winning Best of Festival awards at a number of these. He is a member of BMI and the Dramatists Guild of America.
A Resident Playwright Alumnus at Chicago Dramatists, Susan Lieberman is the author of In the Shadows for BBC Radio 4. She received a Jeff Award for Arrangement for Two Violas, Jeff Award nomination for Prairie Lights (licensed by Dramatic Publishing) and two regional Emmy nominations. Her plays have been produced at Chicago Dramatists, Stage Left, Visions & Voices Theatre Co., Theatre Building Chicago, Clockwise Theatre, 20% Theatre Co., Skokie Theatre, Bloomington Playwrights Project, Pandora Productions, Gallery Players (Brooklyn), Jewish Theatre Grand Rapids, Jerusalem English Speaking Theatre and elsewhere. In addition, Susan has workshopped A Single Sea at Shattered Globe Theatre, Hilda and Mae at the Theatre School at DePaul and Echo Theatre's International New Play Contest, Netta at Ninety at Raven Theatre, Whirlybirds with Downstage Left and Stages; Cars and Quinceañeras (now licensed by YouthPLAYS as Mi Coche, Mi Quince) with American Theatre Company, Northwestern's Purple Crayon Players and Clockwise Theatre, where it received its world premiere. She has also worked with AdventureStage and Women's Theatre Alliance. Her docudrama Steamship Quanza, featured in Staging Holocaust Resistance and the upcoming documentary Voyage of Hope, is included in the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Collections.
Barbara Lindsay's first full-length play, Free, won the NY Drama League's 1989 Playwrighting Competition and was given its premiere production in London in 1991. Since then there have been more than 400 national and international productions of her plays and monologues. Her full-length play I-2195 won the Women in the Arts Award at UM St. Louis and was produced there in November 2005. Her short play Here to Serve You won the 2008 Goshen Peace Play Prize. Her one-act play Heavenly Light won the same prize in 2020. Babs is a fifth-generation Californian living in Seattle, WA, married to an amazing man, and ridiculously happy.
Samantha Macher is an MFA Playwright from Hollins University (Roanoke, VA), and holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Virginia in Religious Studies and Philosophy. During her graduate career, she has had several readings and productions, and is also a Reva Shiner Comedy Award Finalist. She is an emeritus Playwright-in-Residence at SkyPilot Theatre in Los Angeles. She has been a high school Latin teacher, an EMT, and guinea pig enthusiast, but is now a part-time writer, full-time project manager, and Sheltie mom. Her favorite color is pink.
Greg Machlin received his MFA from the Iowa Playwrights' Workshop and is a Playwright-in-Residence at SkyPilot Theatre, which recently staged a workshop production of Keith Haring: Pieces of a Life, a full-length play authorized by the Haring estate; six out of eight performances sold out. He was a Heideman finalist for his ten-minute Family Portrait and won the TUNY award for Best 24-hour play from Theatre Unleashed for Smart Phone. His work has been produced in several states, broadcast on NPR, and published by Smith & Kraus. His comedic vampire love story Bloody Lies was a Best New Script finalist at the Midtown International Theatre Festival; he was a Samuel French Finalist. Most recently, he was a writer/producer on LA Beer, the world's first multi-cam web series. With David Butler, he created the comedy web series WRNG in Studio City about reporters forced to make up fake news. He lives in LA.
As screenwriters, Flip Kobler and Cindy Marcus spent 5 years at Disney where they wrote Lion King II: Simba's Pride, as well as Beauty and the Beast II, and the sequels to Pocohantas, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and Lady and the Tramp. Kobler and Marcus also wrote for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine as well as live action feature films. Kobler and Marcus have over 30 plays published with Samuel French, Dramatic, Pioneer Drama, Contemporary Drama and Playscripts. Additionally, Marcus's books Playdate - A Parent and Teachers Guide to Putting on a Play and The Ultimate Young Actors Guide are now available through Meriwether Publishing. Together, Kobler and Marcus run a national teen theater program called Showdown, with summer camps all across the country.
Ellen Margolis is a founding member of Playwrights West in Portland, Oregon. Her plays, which have been produced at theatres and festivals throughout the United States, include Calumnies, American Soil, Splasher, What We Thought, and A Little Chatter, which appears in a collection of baseball plays from Playscripts, Inc. She has received commissions from Portland Shakespeare Project, Mile Square Theatre, Shaking-the-Tree Studio, and the Susan G. Komen Foundation. Excerpts from her plays can be seen in the Audition Arsenal series, published by Smith & Kraus. She is also the editor of Singular Voices, a book of monologues from the International Centre for Women Playwrights. Her work has been recognized by the Portland Civic Theatre Guild, the New York International Fringe Festival, the Trustus Foundation, the Jane Chambers Competition, and the National 10-Minute Play Contest. She teaches at Pacific University in Oregon, and also works as a director and dialect coach.
Wendy-Marie Martin is a playwright, dramaturg and director as well as the Department Chair of the Undergraduate Theatre Department at Hollins University. She has a PhD in Interdisciplinary Arts & Theatre from Ohio University with a focus on intersectional feminist theatre and 20th/21st century women-identifying playwrights. She also has an MFA in Playwriting from The Playwright's Lab at Hollins University. For over twenty-five years, Wendy-Marie has taught, directed, and performed in Europe and the U.S. Her work has been produced in Germany, The Netherlands, Australia, Japan, Ireland, New Zealand and the U.S and published by YouthPLAYS, Theatrefolk and Smith & Kraus. Wendy-Marie is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild.
Jackie Martin is a teacher and playwright from Norwood, Massachusetts. Her plays have been produced by Open Theatre Project, Firehouse Center for the Arts, Shadblow Theatre, The Warner Theatre, 2Cents Theatre, Playwrights Round Table, Taphouse Theatre, and others. Her full-length play Impressions was a finalist in the B Street Theatre's New Comedies Festival. Awards include the Firehouse Center for the Arts' Peter Honegger Prizes for Corrections and Hallmark Doesn't Make Cards for Us, as well as an Audience Choice Award for Hallmark Doesn't Make Cards for Us from the Shadblow Theatre Short Play Festival. A monologue from her short play, Goodbye, Denny Jacobs, was selected for publication in the Smith and Kraus collection Best Men's Monologues, 2020.
Brenna McBride is the author of the one-act plays If and Scripted, both of which premiered at Old Academy Players in Phildelphia, PA. Her full-length play for young audiences, The Beggar Prince, won first place in the 2014 Jackie White Memorial Playwriting Contest sponsored by Columbia Entertainment Company in Columbia, MO; and received a workshop performance from Philadelphia's Brick Door Productions. Brenna has studied playwriting at PlayPenn and Villanova University, and has also acted and stage managed at various theaters throughout the Philadelphia area. Brenna holds a bachelor's degree in Writing/English from Loyola University in Baltimore, MD; and currently lives in Bryn Mawr, PA. By day, she is the Associate Director of Foundation and Corporate Relations at Drexel University.
Kelly McBurnette-Andronicos. A small town, American playwright raised in Alabama, New Mexico and West Texas, Kelly’s aesthetic view is a fusion of Southern Appalachian and Southwest U.S. culture, and heavily influenced by the literary genres of Magical Realism, Romanticism and Gothicism. A member of the Dramatists Guild, Kelly is the Winner of the Southern Playwrights Competition, StageRaw (LA) playwriting award, a BAPF Finalist and Semi-Finalist, a Garry Marshall Finalist, a Stowe Story Labs Finalist, an O’Neill Semi-Finalist, and a two-time Princess Grace Semi-Finalist. Her plays have been produced or developed by theaters from Off-Off-Broadway to LA, Chicago to Chile and published by YouthPLAYS.
Jessica McGettrick teaches theatre arts in Newton, Massachusetts to middle school students. She has her undergraduate degree in Theatre Arts from Brandeis University and her MA in Theatre Education from Emerson College. She has appeared in several dozen productions in the Boston area and has proudly directed premieres of original works at several area festivals.
Kate McGrath’s numerous plays have been performed in Philadelphia, Boston, New York and beyond. Seafood, with music by Charles Pettee, was selected as Best Play of North Carolina and produced by the Perihelion Theatre Company, and was a finalist at Boston’s Theatre In Process National Playwriting Competition. November Women was a finalist at the Love Creek Festival, and both November Women and Getting Sasha have received several international productions. Up from the Ashes was commissioned and produced by IronAge Theatre. Kate is a founding member of the Philadelphia Dramatists Center and holds an MA in Theatre from Villanova University. Several of her plays are available on the New Play Exchange.
Matthew Mezzacappa has loved musical theatre ever since his mother brought back the audiotape of Les Miserables and played it for him at age 5. He performed sections of Les Mis in 2nd grade on top of a desk (with teacher's approval). He originated the role of Tiny Tim in A Christmas Carol at MSG and has performed at the Kennedy Center. He holds an MFA in Musical Theatre Writing (NYU), where he wrote Jennifer the Unspecial (Ronald Ruble New Play Festival winner, Weston Playhouse New Musical nomination). His one-act, Singing in the Shower, was performed at the Old Academy Players alongside pieces by Tennessee Williams and Neil Simon. His play Take Part in History played at the Constitution Center on Pearl Harbor Day. He co-wrote and directed Kidnapped By the Books, an unprecedented collaboration among over one hundred parents, students, teachers and administrators at PSIS 266 in Queens.
Michele A. Miller is a writer of plays, screenplays, fiction and occasional poetry whose writing often centers on strong yet vulnerable women trying to thrive in a turbulent world. Michele's play, Real Estate, was a semi-finalist in the American Theatre Coop Playwriting Contest and her one-act, Products of Conception, was produced in the Estrogenius and Strawberry Festivals. The New Perspectives Theatre produced her full-length comedy, Mother of God!, a Princess Grace Awards finalist, and her one-act, Power Girls Support Group. During the pandemic, Michele's plays were presented virtually by Primary Stages, Naked Angels, Theatre Resources Unlimited, Fringe Black Box Festival, The Drawing Board, ScriptRead and On Stage/Off-Stage. Her short film, Change of Plans, screened at many international film festivals. Her latest play, A Final Toast, was semi-finalist at the Garry Marshall New Works Festival, finalist at the Ashland New Plays Festival and B-Street Theatre New Comedies Festival and honorable mention at the Epiphanies/Wild Imaginings Festival.
John Minigan is a recent Massachusetts Artist Fellow in Dramatic Writing. He has had plays commissioned and produced by Gloucester Stage Company and Lyric Stage Company of Boston, and presented by Greater Boston Stage Company, Centastage, 6th Street Playhouse, at the Edinburgh Fringe, and elsewhere. Queen of Sad Mischance won the Judith Royer Award from The Kennedy Center/ATHE and Gold Prize in the Clauder Competition for New England plays. Noir Hamlet was a Boston Globe Critics' Pick and an EDGEMedia Best of Boston Theater. He is a winner of the Firehouse New Works Contest, the Nantucket Short Play Contest, the Rover Dramawerks Competition, the Longwood 0-60 Contest, the Nor'Eastern Playwriting Contest, Seoul Players Contest, and the KNOCK International Short Play Competition. After three decades running a high school theater program, he now teaches at Emerson College and serves as Dramatists Guild Ambassador for Eastern New England.
Dominic Mishler has worked as a board operator, stage manager and wardrobe manager for academic, community, and small theatres for the last eight years. He received his BA in Theatre and MFA in Creative Writing for the Performing Arts from the University of California, Riverside. While at UCR he worked with the Theatre Facility Unit to provide technical support to international performers and national tours as well as student productions. From 2008 to 2010 he was the stage manager and board operator on several plays for the Long Beach Playhouse including Sabrina Fair and The Violet Hour. He started with SkyPilot in March of 2011 as the dramaturge on The Emancipation of Alabaster McGill and was most recently the stage manager on their world premiere of Lights Off, Eyes Closed.
Thomas J. Misuraca studied writing at Emerson College in his hometown of Boston. After graduation, he moved to Los Angeles where he splits his time between writing and graphic design. Over eighty of his short stories have appeared in publications worldwide. Two of his novels have been published: young adult comic book adaptation, 10th Muse and the Maze of the Minotaur, and the vampire parody novel, Lifestyles of the Damned. Tom was a late bloomer in the theatre world, but took to it quickly. Over 150 of his one-act plays and 13 of his full-lengths have been produced globally. He's won multiple audience favorite awards, including Youth Education on Stage's Summer Shorts. He was also the winner of the Robert J. Pickering Award for Playwriting Excellence and the Las Vegas Little Theatre's NewWorks Festival (three times). Tom is a member of the Alliance of Los Angeles Playwrights and FirstStage L.A. He is also writer-in-residence for Roaring Epiphany Production Company, creating work for actors that are often a minority in theatre, including those of differing abilities, races, genders, orientations and body types.
Ramiz Monsef is a Los Angeles-based actor and writer. Regionally he has appeared at Berkeley Rep (Eurydice, Arabian Nights, Fêtes de la Nuit), ACT (The Time of Your Life, The Unfortunates), Yale Rep (Eurydice), Seattle Rep, Actors Theatre of Louisville (Chad Deity, Glory of the World), The Mark Taper Forum (Archduke), The Kirk Douglas (Vicuna), The Geffen Playhouse (Guards at the Taj, Mysterious Circumstances), and seven seasons at The Oregon Shakespeare Festival where he premiered the musical he co-wrote, The Unfortunates. New York credits include SecondStage (Eurydice), The Culture Project (Betrayed) and New York Theatre Workshop (All the I Will Ever Be). On TV you may have seen Ramiz on NCIS, Training Day, SWAT, SEAL Team, Kidding, Shameless, Modern Family, Young Sheldon and Comedy Central's The Watchlist. He also is in the film SYNCHRONIC. As a writer, Ramiz is a member of the 2019 Geffen Writers Room and is currently workshopping his newest show The Ants at the Ojai Playwrights Conference.
Rebecca Moretti was born in Los Angeles and raised in Rome until age eight, when her family moved to the United States. In Los Angeles, Rebecca attended high school at Harvard-Westlake, where she developed her love of writing, theatre, and film. Her plays have been selected for production at the Harvard-Westlake Playwrights Festival, and she directed the annual statewide Harvard-Westlake Film Festival, in which her film House of Time was screened. Her play Platform Nine was produced by the Blank Theatre for its nationwide Young Playwrights Festival at the Stella Adler Theatre in Hollywood and starred Ariel Winter, from ABC's Modern Family. Her one-act play, Seesaw, was also published by YouthPLAYS and produced in Los Angeles. Rebecca is fluent in English, Italian, French, and Hebrew.
Scott Mullen's ten-minute plays have been produced over 700 times across the United States and around the world, including at the South Pole. He is also a longtime Hollywood screenplay analyst and screenwriter, who wrote the TV movies The Summoning, In Broad Daylight, Blood On Her Badge, Line Sisters and Stalker. He also won Amazon Studio's Best Screenplay of the month prize twice, with Touching Blue and In the Silences. A collection of his short comedies, A Night of S.M., ran for two weeks in Hollywood.
Katy Muzikar's publications include co-authorship of "1H and 13C NMR Assignments for the Cyanine Dyes SYBR Safe and Thiazole Orange" (The Journal of Organic Chemistry) and "Repression of DNA-binding Dependent Glucocorticoid Receptor-mediated Gene Expression (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences). Dr. Muzikar spends most of her time teaching, thinking about, and writing about chemistry and science education at Pomona College in Claremont, CA. In the spirit of embracing liberal arts education and maintaining a well-balanced life perspective, she has recently been collaborating with her husband, playwright Jonathan Josephson on short, silly plays. BS in Biochemistry/Chemistry, UCSD. PhD in Organic Chemistry, Caltech.
Rocco Natale is Newington-Cropsey Fellowship recipient for dramatic writing and research. His adaptation of Great Expectations is published by YouthPLAYS. His play Smoke Signals holds the distinction of receiving the Siff Grant for educational performance and was developed to tour with Hospital Audiences, Inc. Mr. Natale's work Room At the End of The Hall has been a semi-finalist in the Eugene O'Neill National Playwrights Conference and Premiere Stages, and he has had the pleasure of working with Signature Theatre Company, Hospital Audiences, Mirror Repertory Company, The University of Connecticut and Shakespeare on the Sound. Mr. Natale is currently a member of the BMI Musical Theatre Workshop. MA, New York University; BA, New York University, CAS: The University of Bridgeport.
Anne Negri is a playwright and K-8 Drama Specialist in the Evanston/Skokie District 65 public schools of Illinois. She is a graduate of Arizona State University's MFA program in theatre for youth. She earned her BA in Theatre/French/Education from Ripon College in Ripon, Wisconsin. Her play With Two Wings, published by Dramatic Publishing, has been produced nationally (Childsplay, Northwestern University, The Growing Stage) and internationally (Theatre Ma, Japan, National University of Tainan, Taiwan). Her short play for elementary audiences, The Case of the Missing Rooster, was published and anthologized by YouthPLAYS. Other plays that have received productions/ tours/workshops/development include Oz: The Land That Time Forgot, Girls Who Wear Glasses, Cave Boys, The JunGirl Book, Maddi's Fridge, Not a Test and The Dancing Dog!
Dr. John Newman is an associate professor and chair of the theatre department at Utah Valley University. He taught and directed theatre at Highland High School in Salt Lake City for 18 years, where he developed and premiered a dozen new plays by playwrights including Sandra Fenichel Asher, Moses Goldberg, Doug Cooney and others. Dr. Newman has adapted novels by Newbery medalists Paul Fleischman, Richard Peck, Jean Lee Latham, and Avi. He is co-author of Tell Your Story: The Plays and Playwriting of Sandra Fenichel Asher and author of Playwriting in Schools: Dramatic Navigation. In addition to YouthPLAYS, he has published scripts with Dramatic Publishing, Eldridge Plays, and Leicester Bay Theatricals. Dr. Newman facilitates the Playwrights In Our Schools Project for the American Alliance for Theatre and Education. He received The John C. Barner Award from AATE and was the first recipient of the Children's Theatre Foundation of America's Reba R. Robertson Award.
Hannah K. Nieuwveld is a student at the University of Pennsylvania, studying linguistics and creative writing. She has been writing for as long as she can remember, exploring mediums including but not limited to poetry, short stories and plays. Her work can be read in literary magazines such as Inkblots or La Piccioletta Barca, as well as academic publications in the field of linguistics, including The Descriptivist. Outside of writing, Hannah is a passionate artist, musician, language-learner and reader; she especially enjoys literary fiction and fantasy. While she has lived all over the world, she currently splits her time between Texas, Maine and Philadelphia.
Cary Nothnagel is the theatre teacher and sponsor of the Lancer Theatre Company and International Thespian Society troupe at Manchester High School in Midlothian, Virginia where he is soon to begin his 22nd year of "crazy normal" theater work. Cary has been a professional scenic designer, technical director, stage manager, and actor. Some of his most memorable roles were C.C. Showers from The Diviners, Lloyd from Lloyd's Prayer and Bill Sykes from Oliver. He has directed over 40 productions including Dark of the Moon, Children of Eden, Medea, Much Ado About Nothing and Chicago. He served on the board for the Virginia Theatre Association and remains a member of that dynamic organization. He recently jumped back onto the professional stage playing the role of Ferris Layman in Cat Theatre's production of his favorite play The Diviners. Cary lives in Richmond with his wife, two sons, and two dogs. If he were to ever get "inked," he would use his favorite quote: A show is only as strong as its weakest link.
Dean O'Carroll is a playwright and parodist originally from Amherst, Massachusetts. His parody plays Back to the 80s: A Risky, Goonie, Breakfasty Tale of Totally Tubular Time Travel; Star Stars: The Franchise Awakens; Marvelous Squad: A Super-Heroic Tale with Avengeance; The Humor Games, and the Sally Cotter trilogy are published by Playscripts and have been staged by schools and theatres around the world. His online play Choose Your Heist is published by Heuer Publishing. Dean has also written material for "Weekend Update" on Saturday Night Live and several children's books about DC Comics superheroes. Dean holds a BA in Drama from Vassar College and an MFA in Playwriting from Brandeis University. He was taught writing at Quinnipiac University, Simmons College, CUNY, Occidental College, and Widener University. He lives outside Philadelphia with his wife and their four children.
Matthew Onufrak is an up-and-coming author and filmmaker looking to write something you'll remember! His works range from dramatic to comedic. However, consistent among them all is his sarcastic and occasionally absurd sense of humor. He developed this sense of humor working on films with his friends, where the scripts were laced with irony and ludicrous premises. This absurdity and sarcasm can be seen even in his work today. Beyond this play, his repertoire includes writing and directing films. This includes Doubt, a short film that won "Best Writing" at the Ramapo Film Festival, Burning Daylight, a short film shot with quarantine restrictions, and Ajay v. Matt, an absurdist feature-length film. He also enjoys acting, playing jazz piano and learning more about our nation's history and government. But above all else, he hopes you enjoy his play, and any of his other work you happen to come across!
Marshall Opie, Artistic Director and Founder of ROLL ON! Productions, LLC (ROLL ON!), obtained his Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics with a minor in civil engineering from Howard University. Since his undergraduate experience, Marshall has gained over 10 years of corporate management experience and well over 25 years of experience teaching, serving and supporting urban schools, churches, and inner-city families throughout the Washington, DC, Metropolitan area, and has written, directed, and produced numerous plays. Marshall was a recipient of National Theatre's New Playwright Grant Award for his first play, entitled Roll On!—a drama with music—the brainchild of ROLL ON!, the production company. Through ROLL ON!, Marshall has produced several theatrical plays with acclaimed national and international performing artists including Tony Award Winner Melba Moore, Stellar Nominee Shirley Murdock, and Grammy Award Winners Michael and Regina Winans. Marshall is completing his M.F.A. in Playwriting at Hollins University.
Brandi Owensby is a theatre educator and director at White Knoll High School in Red Bank, SC. She graduated from Winthrop University with a B.A. in Theatre Education and received her MEd in Educational Administration from USC Columbia. She has had a passion for writing from a very young age, first published in her 2nd grade classroom with a short story about dinosaurs. Brandi is the author of the award-winning one-act dramedy, Know Your Role. She adores her students and the role she gets to play in nurturing their development as artists, thinkers, citizens, and creative leaders. She lives in Irmo, SC with her husband of 14 years and 6-year-old daughter.
Allison Page is a nationally produced playwright and comedy writer whose work has been published by YouthPLAYS, Penguin Australia and EXIT Press. For 10 years, she worked regularly for San Francisco's largest sketch comedy company, Killing My Lobster, as a writer, head writer and award-winning performer. She received a 2024 Tennessee Playwrights Studio Fellowship to write her play Roberta at the Bottom of the Pool. She tends to write about monsters which are also sometimes people. You can find some of her other plays, including Hellhound, The Jersey Devil Play, The Son of Sam is in the Bathroom at the Drunken Horse and others at https://newplayexchange.org/users/3403/allison-page.
Maureen Paraventi is an award-winning playwright whose one-act and full-length plays have been produced by dozens of theatre companies in multiple states. Her drama, Cora Lynn Beauty Can Change Your Life, won the Community Theatre Association of Michigan's 2022 Playwriting Award. Maureen writes for both adult and youth groups. In addition to plays, Maureen has written novels and nonfiction books. Her favorite hobbies are people watching and eavesdropping—both of which help her in her playwriting. She loves to explore the complexities of relationships in a way that is both thought-provoking and entertaining. Maureen is a member of the Extra Mile Playwrights Theatre, a diverse group of writers that debuts original staged readings and full productions in Detroit's University District. When she's not writing, Maureen acts in local theatrical productions, sings in a pop/rock/Irish band (McLaughlin's Alley band) and posts way too many pictures of her pets on Facebook.
Ashley Patterson is a dedicated theatre teacher at Fremont High School in Plain City, Utah. She juggles her role as an educator, director, designer and playwright alongside being a full-time mom and wife. After her public-school years where she spent a majority of her time immersed in theatre, she continued her education at Weber State University (Ogden, Utah), where she received her Bachelor of Arts in Acting and Directing. Ashley is excited to see what her future holds and eagerly awaits her next playwriting inspiration.
christopher oscar peña is a storyteller originally from California, now residing in New York and LA. The Clarence Brown Theatre commissioned and produced the world premiere of his play The Strangers. In New York, the Flea Theatre produced the world premiere of his play a cautionary tail. His NEA award-winning play how to make an American Son will be produced by the Arizona Theatre Company, where he is an Artistic Associate, before moving Off-Broadway to the Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre. In television, he was a writer on the Golden Globe-nominated debut season of the CW show Jane the Virgin and the critically acclaimed HBO show Insecure, as well as the Starz show Sweetbitter and the Freeform series Motherland: Fort Salem. He is currently adapting Pedro Almodovar's ground-breaking film Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown as a television series for Apple+.
Shawn Peters is a father, husband, author and theatre/D&D nerd living in New England with his wife, two kids, a cat and a dog. In the last three decades, he has been a professional writer for television, commercials, magazines, fantasy sports websites and digital marketing campaigns, crafting words about everything from car chases to business banking and anything in between. He is also an author of Middle Grade books, and his debut novel, The Unforgettable Logan Foster, is due to be released by a major publisher in early 2022. When he isn't in front of a keyboard, Shawn enjoys running, golf, rolling dice, making painful dad jokes and playing rhyming improv games on long car rides.
Robin Pond has been writing sporadically for over 40 years, but his first foray into short play writing occurred in 1997, when he was asked by his employer to write a comedy sketch about pension fund investing as part of a promotional exercise. Over the past few years, his plays have received over a hundred productions in schools and community theatres throughout the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Robin has also published a mystery novel (Last Voyage, 2008) and numerous short stories, most in the science fiction and fantasy genres. Many years ago, when his three sons were little, Robin wrote a children's story for each of them. DragonSlay is the play version of the story that he wrote for his oldest son, Prince Simon.
Dennis Poore hails from Texas but his music spans the globe. At the beginning of his career he traveled to England, where he co-wrote and produced the European dance hits Strange Desire and Young Men for PolyDor Records in London. Dennis then met comedienne Julie Brown. Together they penned the cult favorites Cause I'm a Blond and Brand New Girl for the film Earth Girls are Easy. Earth Girls has continued to keep Dennis in the limelight. He also co-wrote the song Two Of Them for Disney's Suite Life of Zach and Cody and scored the films Maximum Breakout, Lyla Wolf and All Hallows Eve among others. In theatre, Dennis has composed the music for the Off-Broadway production of An American Cantata along with the show Incoming, which made its premiere at the prestigious Berkshire Theatre Festival. He has over 10 musicals published worldwide. He is currently working on the stage musical of Earth Girls Are Easy.
Bridgette Dutta Portman is a playwright, teacher, and novelist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. More than two dozen of her plays have been produced locally, nationally and internationally. She is president of the Pear Theatre board of directors and a member of the Pear Playwrights' Guild, the SF PlayGround writers pool and the Dramatists Guild of America. She received the 2023 June Anne Baker Prize from PlayGround and has been a finalist for the Bay Area Playwrights' Festival, the Theatre Bay Area TITAN award, the PlayPenn Conference, the Kentucky Women's Theatre Conference Prize for Women Writers, the New Dramatists playwrights' residency and more. She holds a PhD in political science (UC Irvine) and an MFA in creative writing (Spalding University). She teaches composition and creative writing at UC Berkeley.
Bob Pritchard is new to playwriting but not theatre. He has directed/produced/written or acted in over 100 productions. He is the co-founder of the Jacksonville Stage Company and past President of Players by the Sea. He has a BA from Towson University in his hometown of Baltimore, MD where he minored in Theatre. Along with playwriting, Bob has had an extensive acting career from National Broadway Tours of Fiddler on the Roof and Wizard of OZ and regional productions of ART, Dinner with Friends, I Love You, You're Perfect...Now Change and SideMen. His other plays include The Entrepreneur, Rock is My Life and A Star. 7190 W Sunset Blvd #301
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