<\/p>\n
CRIS ELI BLAK<\/strong> BARBARA BLATNER<\/strong> JOHN P. BRAY<\/strong> DAMON CHUA<\/strong> SARAH CONGRESS<\/strong> RICHARD LYONS CONLON<\/strong> ALEXENDRA DE WITT<\/strong> J. LOIS DIAMOND<\/strong> WAYNE L. FIRESTONE<\/strong> ANNA FOX<\/strong> SVEN FREIHEIT<\/strong> RAND HIGBEE<\/strong> EIZABETH HESS<\/strong> JUDIT HOLLOS<\/strong> ARLENE HUTTON<\/strong> STEPHEN KAPLAN<\/strong> MOLLY KIRSCHNER<\/strong> JUDY KLASS<\/strong> ERIC LANE<\/strong> DEBORAH ZOE LAUFER<\/strong> Deb is a recipient of the Helen Merrill Playwriting Award, the Lilly Award, The ATCA Steinberg citation, and grants and commissions from the NEA, The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, The Edgerton Foundation, The National New Play Network, and the Lincoln Center Foundation. She is a graduate of Juilliard and a Dramatists Guild Council member.<\/p>\n DONNA LATHAM<\/strong> JOAN LIPKIN<\/strong> She has been featured on network television, National Public Radio, the BBC, American Theatre and the Associated Press. Her work is included in Embodied Playwriting,\u00a0 Amazon All Stars, Mythic Women\/Real Women,\u00a0 The Future is Not Fixed,\u00a0 Best American Short Plays, We\/Us,\u00a0 Immigrant Voices In the Pandemic, and numerous other publications. Some awards include a Lifetime Achievement, Visionary, Arts Innovator of the Year and Leadership in Community Based Theatre and Civic Engagement.\u00a0 In April, she will be inducted into the College of Fellows of the American Theatre.<\/p>\n JAMES MCLINDON<\/strong> ALLYSON MORGAN ERIN MOUGHON<\/strong> JOE SUTTON<\/strong> KATHERINE SWAN<\/strong> NATALIE WELBER<\/strong> JACOB T. ZACK<\/strong> THE PLAYWRIGHTS Of UNBOUND SCENES from UKRAINE CRIS ELI BLAK Cris Eli Blak is an emerging, proud Black playwright whose work has been performed around the world. He is a staff writer on the hit series Power Book III: Raising Kanan. He is the inaugural winner of the Black Broadway Men Playwriting Initiative, the […]Read More<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-6610","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/townsquareproductions.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6610","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/townsquareproductions.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/townsquareproductions.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/townsquareproductions.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/townsquareproductions.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6610"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/townsquareproductions.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6610\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6630,"href":"https:\/\/townsquareproductions.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6610\/revisions\/6630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/townsquareproductions.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nCris Eli Blak is an emerging, proud Black playwright whose work has been performed around the world. He is a staff writer on the hit series Power Book III: Raising Kanan. He is the inaugural winner of the Black Broadway Men Playwriting Initiative, the 2024 Charles M. Getchell New Play Award, and the Atlanta Shakespeare Company\u2019s inaugural winner of the Muse of Fire BIPOC Playwriting Festival. He is currently an artist-in-residence with Abingdon Theatre Company, Ojai Playwrights Conference, and Liberation Theatre Company, and a 2024-2027 Core Writer with The Playwrights Center. His work has been published by Smith & Kraus, Inc., Ghost Light Publications, Flowersong Press, YOUTH Plays, Applause Books, The Play Ground Experiment, New World Theatre, Breath of Fire Latina Theater Ensemble, and in the Black Theatre Review.<\/p>\n
\nBARBARA BLATNER\u2019s plays have been produced across the United States and internationally. Her verse play, No Star Shines Sharper, published by Baker\u2019s Plays, aired repeatedly on Christmas night on NPR stations and was acquired by the Museum of TV and Radio. The award-winning Years of Sky was produced by Scripts Up! at 59E59 Theatres; Secret Places was produced by New Circle Theatre Company. Jane, Queen\u2019s Foole placed second in the Julie Harris Contest, was Finalist in the Judith Royer Contest and part of Centenary Stage\u2019s Women Playwrights Series. Barbara has composed music for the Renaissance fusion band Urban Myth, and for short plays and operas. New York Quarterly Books published two poetry collections, The Still Position (2010) and Living with You (2012). Poetry and reviews have appeared in Beloved on this Earth, Heliotrope, House Organ, Poetry Northwest, The New York Quarterly, Li[, Apalachee Quarterly, 13th Moon, and others.<\/p>\n
\nJohn P. Bray’s plays have been produced or presented in the U.S., Canada, Ireland, England, Italy, and South Korea. They are published with Next Stage Press, Original Works Publishing, Off the Wall Plays, Heartland Plays, and in journals and anthologies. He has been a Semifinalist for the O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, Semifinalist for the Princess Grace Foundation\u2019s Playwriting Award, and Winner at Barter Theatre\u2019s Appalachian Festival of Playwrights and Plays. Also an indie screenwriter, anthology editor, and scholar, John teaches at the University of Georgia. He has an MFA in Playwriting from The Actors Studio Drama School at The New School and PhD in Theatre from LSU.<\/p>\n
\nDamon Chua is the recipient of an Ovation Award (Best New Play) for FILM CHINOIS, which made its Off-Broadway debut with Pan Asian Repertory Theatre. Other Off-Broadway plays include WARRIOR SISTERS OF WU and THE EMPEROR\u2019S NIGHTINGALE. Damon is an alumnus of The Public Theater\u2019s Emerging Writers Group and Ma-Yi Theater Company\u2019s Writers Lab and has worked with Climate Change Theater Action on combating global warming. One of his short plays on the climate crisis is taught in Danish schools. Commissions include works for Adventure Theatre MTC, Compass Needle, New York City Children\u2019s Theater and Pan Asian Repertory Theatre. Damon\u2019s plays are published by Applause Books, Concord Theatricals (Samuel French), Plays for New Audiences and Smith & Kraus. He has received grants from the Dramatists Guild Fund, Durfee Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, Time Warner Foundation and UNESCO.<\/p>\n
\nSarah Congress is an award-winning playwright and screenwriter. Her comedy \u201cBig Yikes!\u201d will be read January 12th in the Dead of Winter Reading Series at UP Theatre. Her play \u201cMelting\u201d was produced October at Siena College for their Climate Justice plays series, and December at the Tank for the 2024 International Human Rights Festival. She co-wrote the screenplay \u201cI Can\u2019t Hear You,\u201d which won BEST COMEDY in the 2024 Jersey Shore Film Festival and 2nd place in the APin3 Film Challenge. Her comedy \u201cOverdose\u201d won 2nd place for Best Short in the 2023 Downtown Urban Arts Festival at Playwrights Horizons. She teaches playwriting\/screenwriting and works part-time for the Dean\u2019s Office at Columbia University, School of the Arts.<\/p>\n
\nRichard is a Resident Playwright Alum at Chicago Dramatists and proud Lifetime Member of the Dramatists Guild. His social satire 7 MINUTES TO LIVE recently closed an extended-run world premiere at Chicago Dramatists. Kerry Reid of the Chicago Reader called it: \u201cHighly entertaining\u201d, \u201cfunny, sexy, action-packed\u201d with \u201cwhip-smart dialogue\u201d and “the edgy, high-talent, low-budget ingredients Chicago storefront theatre is famous for\u201d. Richard\u2019s work has increasingly taken a political and social issue turn over the last 15 to 20 years as he\u2019s watched with growing alarm the rise of right-wing agendas in all areas of modern life. He believes now, more than ever, is the time for artists to stand up and be a radical voice for the underdog, the oppressed, the struggling. Recently, his short play \u201cI am Charlotte\u201d was named a semi-finalist for the New York City Playwrights\u2019 Resisting Fascism Festival.<\/p>\n
\nAlex De Witt is a Playwright, Screenwriter and Actress in New York. \u00a0Produced Plays; \u201cFriction, L.A. Variation\u201d (Bee and Cee Productions, Mint Theatre, NYC)\u00a0\u201dPrime Time\u201d (Cosmic Breeez, Inc.) \u201cThe Lunch\u201d (Liquid Productions), \u201cJoe and the Cat Burglar\u201d (Oak Creek Theater) \u201cThe Man Who Wore Skirts\u201d (Oak Creek Theater) \u201cA Whole New World\u201d (One Act Version: work-shopped at Chicago Dramatists, then produced at Second City, Chicago. Now a full length play) \u201cCourage, Mr. Collingsworth\u201d (Landmark Festival, Chicago) Miscommunications\u201d and \u201cMulti-Talented\u201d (Write \/ Act NYC) \u201cEverybody Talks\u201d (Telephone Theater, NYC) \u201cAn Absolute Queen\u201d (On the Square, NYC.) \u201cHoly Terror\u201d (staged reading at Centre Stage – South Carolina.) Produced Screenplays: \u201cIn Tents\u201d, Screenplays in post production: \u201cTwinkle\u201d; \u201cKiko & Nora.\u201d\u00a0 Commissions \u2013 Pearl, book for a musical to be produced in Shanghai, China.<\/p>\n
\nJ.Lois Diamond\u2019s work has been performed off-off B\u2019way, regionally, Toronto, Canada, London U.K., @ International Human Rights Art Festival & Inge Festival. Growl Downtown Urban Arts Festival, Theatre Odyssey, (runner up best play), Valdez Theatre Conference. Monologues published Smith & Kraus\u2019 Anthologies, Applause Books\u2019 She Persisted and in The Bishop Arts Theatre Center\u2019s Monologue Project 2024, an online resource for audition-length monologues for Women of the African Diaspora. She is committed to telling the stories of historic women, as a way to promote the value of all women. She is a proud member of Honor Roll!, Polaris North and The Dramatists Guild, where she recently studied with Tina Howe.\u00a0 jloisdiamond.com<\/p>\n
\nWayne L. Firestone is a Denver, Colorado based playwright, festival producer and civil society thought leader. He is a descendant of Ukrainian grandparents and prior to the War visited universities in Kiev and Kharkiv. In 2022, he co-wrote a satirical war protest play with a fellow Ukrainian heritage playwright \u2013 State of Dis\u2019 Union that was produced in NYC at the Rogue Theatre Festival. Wayne successfully completed the London, UK based 28 Plays Later challenge three times–writing 28 short plays in 28 days (2022-24). Over two dozen of his plays have appeared in festivals or publications around the world. In March 2022, he was named the Jewish Plays Project inaugural 21st Century Playwright Fellow and was resident in San Juan, Puerto Rico for a year-long playwriting sabbatical. He is a graduate of the University of Miami, FL and the Georgetown University Law Center.<\/p>\n
\nAnna Fox is a playwright, performer, teacher and astrologer. Her work has been seen at The Williamstown Theatre Festival, The Sam French Off-Off Broadway Short Play Festival, The Last Frontier Theater Conference, Fusion Theater Company, Live Girls! Theatre, Theater Masters National MFA Playwriting Competition, and more. Her plays have been recorded for soundplay.media\u2019s Bare Wire Theater Podcast, and are published by Samuel French, The Dionysian and Bare Fiction Literary Magazine. Residencies: MacDowell, Monson Arts, The Cabins and Waterman\u2019s PD. Groups: The Vagrancy, Echo Theater\u2019s Los Angeles Young Playwrights, EST LA\u2019s New West Playwrights Group and Ignite Project. She also adapts foreign films and television for Netflix and Disney+. BS Skidmore College. MFA UCLA, where she has taught playwriting<\/p>\n
\nSven Freiheit is a theatre professional with 15 years of experience working behind the scenes on various international projects. He is a fresh, new voice in the playwriting world, yet brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise to his craft. Hailing from the Midwest, he earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in theatre from a small university which has since discontinued its theatre program. Sven is passionate about storytelling and is dedicated to creating compelling and meaningful theatrical works. He is married and has two children, constantly doing his best to balance his family life with his artistic pursuits.<\/p>\n
\nOriginally from Spearfish, South Dakota, Rand Higbee obtained a Master of Fine Arts in Playwriting from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. While at UNLV his first full-length play, Sir Isaac\u2019s Duel, was named as an alternate to the National American College Theatre Festival held at the Kennedy Center.\u00a0 Since UNLV days Rand has become known for his \u201cfamily friendly\u201d comedies. His short play Next! has become one of the most often performed high school one-acts in the country. The debut production of his full length A Girl Named Destiny at the Venus Theater in Laurel, Maryland, was named as one of the best plays of the year by DC Metro Theatre Arts. His short play Oh, No! I Flew Too Close to the Sun! will be included in the Smith and Kraus anthology The Best 10 Minute Plays of 2024. Rand currently lives in Yachats, Oregon<\/p>\n
\nElizabeth Hess is a performer, playwright, director, Arts educator, and Artistic Director of The Hess Collective – produced at La MaMa, Dixon Place, Theaterlab. She has developed multidisciplinary projects with The O\u2019Neill Theater Center, NYU, The New Group and The Lark. Her book, ACTING & BEING: Explorations in Embodied Performance (Macmillan) is based on her approach to global performance practices honed over 20 years of teaching primarily at NYU and international workshops. Ms. Hess\u2019 acclaimed solo work has been performed around the globe, and in New York: Off-Broadway and at the UN Conference on Gender Violence. Ms. Hess was an American Cultural Specialist to Armenia; jury member of ITI Mono Festivals in Germany and Mongolia; North America representative of Women Playwrights International; collaborator at ITI\/UNESCO in The Philippines; workshop leader in Kosovo, Chile, Italy. Awards include Mandolin Cervantes Grant; ITI Armmono Festival Director\u2019s Award; ITI Thespis Mono Festival Organizers Award.<\/p>\n
\nJudit Hollos is an emerging playwright, poet, essayist and journalist. Some of her short stories, poems, translations and articles have been featured in English, Swedish and Hungarian in literary magazines, periodicals and anthologies. She graduated in playwriting and screenwriting from the Institute of Theatre and Film in Budapest, and in 2023, she earned a degree in Classical Tibetan language and literature and Buddhist Studies. She wrote her BA thesis on the topic of traditional Tibetan opera and theatre. She is the author of two chapbook collections of Japanese-style poetry and short prose. Her monologues and short plays have been produced and received staged readings at theaters and festivals in Glasgow, San Francisco, London, Leicester, Liverpool, Birmingham and Kyiv.<\/p>\n
\nArlene Hutton is the author of BLOOD OF THE LAMB, which premiered Off-Broadway at 59E59 after winning the Critics Circle Award at the 2024 Adelaide Fringe Festival. Major works include LETTERS TO SALA, AS IT IS IN HEAVEN, LAST TRAIN TO NIBROC, (Drama League Best Play nomination) and GULF VIEW DRIVE\u00a0(Ovation Award). Her plays have been presented Off- and Off-off Broadway, regionally, in London and throughout the world, including the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.\u00a0An alumna of New Dramatists and member of Ensemble Studio Theatre, New Circle Theatre Company, New Light Theatre Project, and Honor Roll!, Hutton is a three-time winner of the Samuel French Short Play Festival, three-time semi-finalist for the O\u2019Neill, nine-time finalist for the Heideman Award, Francesca Primus Prize finalist, and recipient of an EST\/Sloan Commission and NYFA Fellowship. Residencies include the William Inge Center, the Lark, the MacDowell Colony, SPACE at Ryder Farm, and Yaddo.<\/p>\n
\nSelected awards and productions: NNPN Rolling World Premiere: Tracy Jones (Finalist: ScreenCraft Stage Play Contest, B Street New Comedies Festival); Long Drive Home (Theatre Aspen Solo Flights, Cell Theatre Residency); Un Hombre: A Golem Story (Winner: Barbour Award; Finalist: Gulfshore Playhouse New Works Festival, Jewish Plays Project, Development: NJ PlayLab); Branwell (and other Bront\u00ebs) (Semi-Finalist: O\u2019Neill); Community (Finalist: Seven Devils; Road Less Traveled National Residency, Semi-Finalist: Premiere Stages, March Forth Productions); Exquisite Potential (Theatre Ariel, Dezart Performs, Project Rushmore; Winner: NJ Playwrights Contest, Finalist: Woodward\/Newman Award, Semi-Finalist: Seven Devils); A Real Boy (59E59 Theatre; Semi-Finalist: PlayPenn, Ashland New Play Festival, Dayton Playhouse FutureFest). SPACE at Ryder Farm. MFA: Point Park University. Stephen is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild and serves on its national council. www.bystephenkaplan.com<\/p>\n
\nMolly Kirschner, poet, dramatist, performer, and educator, is a teaching artist at Vermont Stage. She debuted her original solo show \u201cDouble Dose of Molly\u201d as part of the inaugural 2024 SNAP Festival at The Flynn Center in Burlington, VT. Monologues from her plays L\u2019appel du Vide (Panelist for ThinkTank Theatre\u2019s 2021 TYA Playwrights Festival) and Woman With A Parasol have been published in Smith and Kraus\u2019 Best Men\u2019s Stage Monologues and Best Women\u2019s Stage Monologues anthologies. Kirschner\u2019s poems have appeared in journals including The Southern Review, The New Ohio Review, and One Magazine. Her new manuscript was a Finalist for the 2021 Four Way Books Levis Prize in Poetry. Kirschner is currently a graduate student at Saint Michael\u2019s College in the TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) program.<\/p>\n
\nJudy was born in NYC and now lives in Nashville, Tennessee. She writes songs, plays, screenplays and musicals, and teaches at Vanderbilt University. Eight of her full-length plays have been produced onstage. Cell was in a Kentucky mystery festival and is published by Concord Theatricals. After Tartuffe was in the Fresh Fruit Festival in NYC and is published by Next Stage Press. Country Fried Murder won the SOPS competition, was produced at the Shawnee Playhouse in Pennsylvania and is published by Lazy Bee Scripts in the UK. Forty-two of Judy\u2019s one-act plays have been produced onstage, all over the US. A few have been produced in the United Kingdom, Ireland and Canada. A number of her plays, short and long, have been produced as podcasts. In 2024, Judy\u2019s short play called Bug Rescuing was translated into Ukrainian and had a staged reading with TEATR NA ZHUKAKH in Kharkiv.<\/p>\n
\nEric Lane is an award-winning playwright, screenwriter and book editor. Plays include \u201cA Thousand Faces: The Lon Chaney Musical\u201d (book writer, Encore Musical Theatre), \u201cFilming O\u2019Keeffe\u201d and \u201cTimes of War\u201d (Adirondack Theatre Festival), \u201cRide\u201d (WHAT), \u201cIbis\u201d and \u201cRiverbed\u201d (59E59), and \u201cDancing on Checkers\u2019 Grave,\u201d which starred Jennifer Aniston. Eric wrote and produced the short films \u201cFirst Breath\u201d (starring Oscar-winner Melissa Leo) and \u201cCater-Waiter,\u201d which he also directed. Both films played in over 40 cities worldwide. For ABC-TV\u2019s \u201cRyan\u2019s Hope,\u201d he received a Writer\u2019s Guild Award. With Nina Shengold, he edited 14 contemporary play anthologies for Viking Penguin and Vintage Books, earning a Lambda Literary Award nomination. Honors include the La MaMa Playwright Award, the Berrilla Kerr Award, an ATF Founders Fund commission, plus fellowships at Yaddo and St. James Cavalier in Malta. Eric is a member artist at Ensemble Studio Theatre and is an honors graduate of Brown University. www.ericlanewrites.com<\/a><\/p>\n
\nDeborah Zoe Laufer is a playwright, director, and actor. Her plays have had hundreds of productions around the world. Plays include The Last Yiddish Speaker (which received a Lortel Alcove commission, won The 2024 Jewish Play Project, and received an NNPN rolling world premiere), Be Here Now, End Days, Rooted, Informed Consent (NYTimes critic\u2019s pick), Leveling Up, Out of Sterno, The Last Schwartz, Sirens, Meta, The Three Sisters of Weehawken, Fortune, dozens of short plays, and the musicals, Window Treatment, and By Any Other Name, written with composer, Daniel Green.<\/p>\n
\nPlaywright Donna Latham grew up in a haunted house in the wilds of Chicagoland and has been fascinated with ghosts forever. Her play ALL THE WAY BACK recently received the Prize for Climate Justice. Her plays are anthologized in Smith & Kraus WE\/US: Monologues for Gender Minority Characters, Smith & Kraus Best Men\u2019s Stage Monologues 2024, Smith & Kraus Best Women\u2019s Stage Monologues 2022, She Persisted: New Plays By Women Over 40, 2021, Laughter Is The Best Medicine: Short Plays From The Days of the Coronavirus, 2016\u2019s Best Ten-Minute Plays, Best American Short Plays 2016-2017, and Best American Short Plays 2014- 2015. A first-generation college grad, she\u2019s a member of Honor Roll! Playwrights and a proud member of the Dramatists Guild.<\/p>\n
\nJoan Lipkin is a multi-discipline artist\/activist\/educator who works at the intersection of performance and civic engagement nationally and in Europe. Known for her work in short plays, rapid response theatre, docudrama and devising, she is widely published and produced. Some areas of focus have included disability, climate change, gun sense, immigration, war, racial and gender justice, LGBTQ+ and voting rights.<\/p>\n
\nJames is a member of the Nylon Fusion Theatre Company in New York. His plays have been produced or developed at theaters across America and around the world including the O\u2019Neill National Playwrights Conference (selection and six-time semifinalist), Lark, PlayPenn, Edinburgh Fringe Festival, hotINK Festival, Irish Repertory, CAP21, Samuel French Festival, Victory Gardens, Hudson Stage Company, Abingdon, New Repertory, Lyric Stage, Detroit Rep, Great Plains Theatre Conference, Seven Devils, Telluride Playwrights Festival, Ashland New Plays Festival, Boston Playwrights Theatre, Colony Theatre, Theatricum Botanicum, Circus Theatricals, and Arkansas Rep. They have been published by Dramatic Publishing, Smith & Kraus, Brooklyn Publishing, Applause Books, Next Stage Press, and Original Works Publishing.<\/p>\n
\n<\/strong>Allyson Morgan is an award-winning writer, producer, and performer. Allyson\u2019s short film Need For Speed (Dating) premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival, while her next short, Sitting, won “Outstanding Narrative Short” at Tallgrass Film Festival. First Date, her short produced by 20th Digital Studio, is airing on Hulu in their “Bite Size Halloween” series. Allyson adapted First Date into a feature film for Hulu, titled Jagged Mind, which the LA Times called \u201cedgy\u201d and \u201cpowerful.\u201d Her newest short, The Ghost, which also serves as her directorial debut, made its world premiere at the River Run International Film Festival. Additionally, she has been awarded an Ensemble Studio Theatre\/Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Commission, a Djerassi Artist Residency (California), an NG Art Creative Residency (France), a Monson Arts Residency (Maine), a Vashon Artist Residency (Washington), a Wassaic Project \u201cHaunted Mill\u201d residency (NY), and multiple Juno Leadership Residencies through the Omega Institute (NY).<\/p>\n
\nErin Moughon is an award-winning playwright and teacher based in New York City.\u00a0 Her plays have been produced across the U.S. and in England, Canada, Australia, and France. Selected short plays can be found in editions of The Best Ten Minute Plays edited by Lawrence Harbison and Debbie Lamedman and her monologues can be found in Voices of America Vol 1, 3, & 4 edited by Mike Lesser of the Playground Experiment. Her play Prewritten won the 2024 best play award from the Loved Ones series by Broken Arts Entertainment. She was commissioned by the Educational Theatre Association to write short adaptations for their design lesson plans.\u00a0 She is a proud member of the Dramatist Guild and an Arthur Miller Fellow.<\/p>\n
\nJoe Sutton\u2019s plays include Voir Dire,\u00a0Complicit,\u00a0Orwell in America,\u00a0As It is in Heaven,\u00a0The Winner,\u00a0The Third Army, and\u00a0Restoring the Sun.\u00a0 U.S. theatres producing Joe\u2019s plays include New York Theater Workshop, BAM, Long Wharf, Seattle Rep, Arena Stage, the Cleveland Play House, and the Old Globe. Internationally, Joe\u2019s plays have been produced throughout Europe (Germany, Czechia, Greece, Turkey, Egypt), as well as by London\u2019s historic \u201cOld Vic\u201d.\u00a0 Joe is a recipient of numerous awards and honors, including nominations for the Pulitzer Prize and the American Theatre Critics Association\u2019s Best Play Award, along with fellowships from the NYFA, the NEA, and NJ Arts.\u00a0In addition to his theatre work, Joe has also developed a pilot for the USA Network.<\/p>\n
\nKatherine Swan is a playwright, director, and actor who lives in Chicago. Her plays include\u00a0Some Other Woman Like Me, a finalist for the Henley Rose Award, and\u00a0Act V, which was developed at A Red Orchid Theatre’s Incubator Series. Her work has been performed in London, Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York, and her play\u00a0Pony\u00a0was a winner of the Carlow Little Theatre’s 2021-22 International One Act Play Competition in Carlow, Ireland. Her plays have been anthologized by Smith & Kraus in their collections\u00a0Best Ten-Minute Plays\u00a0and\u00a0Best Women\u2019s Monologues. She is a member of the Dramatists Guild, the Playground Chicago Writers Pool, and the Chicago based performance collective The Feast.<\/p>\n
\nNatalie Welber is a Dublin and Chicago-based playwright and scholar. Her plays include JUDITH IMEINU, a contemporary gloss of the apocryphal Book of Judith exploring communal responsibility and state-restricted drinking water access (Jewish Plays Project semifinalist), Romeo & Juliet remix WHEN SHE WENT TO MANTUA (Black Cat Theatre), and family adventure I KNOW A LOT OF FACTS ABOUT OUTER SPACE. Her 10-minute comedy, MONDAY MORNING STILL IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE earned Judges\u2019 First Prize at the Edmonds Driftwood Players\u2019 2023 Festival of Shorts. Natalie holds a BA in Theatre and Religious Studies from Northwestern University and is currently studying toward her MPhil in Contextual Theologies and Interfaith Relations at Trinity College Dublin. For more, visit nataliewelber.com<\/p>\n
\nJacob T. Zack is a playwright from New Jersey. Jacob crafts comedic meditations on language, alienation, and the human condition. Jacob\u2019s plays have been produced by nearly a dozen theaters across the country. Jacob\u2019s 90-minute absurdist comedy, Proclivity for Kiting, won the B-Street New Comedies Festival. Several of Jacob\u2019s plays have been published. For more information on Jacob\u2019s theatrical work, see www.jacobtzack.com. Jacob also works as a foreign policy researcher and analyst. Jacob helped create the U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP) report on Elite Capture and Corruption of Security Sectors, which includes a case study focused on the Ukrainian judiciary. Jacob also helped create USIP\u2019s report on the Future of the Security Sector in Ukraine. Jacob\u2019s analysis of EU Assistance to Ukraine has been published by USIP.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"