Jonathan Dorf is a Los Angeles-based playwright, screenwriter, teacher and script consultant, whose plays have been produced in nearly every state in the US, as well as in Canada, Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia and New Zealand. He is Co-Chair of the Alliance of Los Angeles Playwrights and the Resident Playwriting Expert for Final Draft and The Writers Store. He directed the theatre program at The Haverford School and spent three years at Choate Rosemary Hall Summer Arts Conservatory as playwright-in-residence. He is a frequent guest artist at Thespian conferences and schools, and has served as Visiting Professor of Theatre in the MFA Playwriting and Children's Literature programs at Hollins University, and as United States cultural envoy to Barbados. He holds a BA in Dramatic Writing and Literature from Harvard College and an MFA in Playwriting from UCLA.  His website is http://jonathandorf.com.

Ed Shockley, MFA is author of more than fifty plays. His works have set five box office records and been honored with numerous awards, including the Stephen Sondheim Award for Outstanding Contributions to American Musical Theatre, a Pew Fellowship in the Arts and PA State Arts Council Playwrights Fellowship. He has received commissions for youth theatre plays from Seattle Children's Theatre, Children's Theatre of Charlotte, Dallas Children's Theatre, Black Spectrum Theatre and the Harlem Renaissance Theatre. His historical short film, Stone Mansion, aired on Showtime television.  Website: http://edshockley.com.

Deanna Alisa Ableser is a theatre teacher at Dana Middle School in Hawthorne, California. Deanna was the recipient of the 2006 VSA Playwright Discovery Teacher Award and was honored at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. She has a Masters of Fine Arts in Theatre and a Masters in Education from the University of Southern California. She has been teaching and directing award-winning youth theatre for the past twelve years. Deanna believes that theatre allows children to play, create, explore, and discover the amazing spirit and passion that resides within them. 

Nicole B. Adkins is currently completing her MFA in Children’s Literature with an emphasis in playwriting at Hollins University. She has a BA in Theatre Arts from the University of Central Oklahoma, and studied Shakespeare at London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts.  She has worked with children's theatres as a performer and teacher for many years, including the Children’s Theatre of Charlotte, where she was a member of their professional troupe, theTarradiddle Players. A playwright for youth and adults, she was a finalist in the 2008 Francelia Butler Conference, was invited to participate in the 2009 Bonderman Symposium Playwright Slam, and has been showcased in the annual Best of No Shame Theatre Virginia. She is a member of The Dramatists Guild of America, Inc., Alliance of Los Angeles Playwrights, and the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. Website:  www.nicolebadkins.com.

Dan Berkowitz is Co-Chair of The Alliance of Los Angeles Playwrights, and is the former Los Angeles Regional Rep of The Dramatists Guild of America, the professional association of playwrights, composers, and lyricists. His writing for the stage has been produced off-Broadway, in major regional theatres, in college and amateur theatres throughout the United States, and in Canada.  He is the author of four optioned screenplays, and was principal scriptwriter for The Movie Channel’s hosted format with Robert Osborne. A former Senior Story Analyst for RHI Entertainment, a division of Hallmark, Dan is a consultant for stage, film, and television scripts.  In addition to writing, Dan has produced and/or directed, scores of plays, musicals, and cabaret revues, as well as several seasons of syndicated television programming, and a raft of commercials and industrial and educational videos.  His website is http://danberkowitz.com.

Will Boersma, 17, currently attends Niles North High School in Skokie, Illinois. There, he is very active in the theatre department.  He has played such roles as Sir Toby Belch in Twelfth Night, David Carson/Lord Cumulus in Warp: My Battlefield my Body, and Jean in Ms. Julie. He also took part in the New Playwrights Showcase at Niles North, which featured his ten-minute play Animals. He is looking forward to studying playwriting in college and pursuing that as a career in the future. Until then, Will studies hard and wants to thank his family, his friend Clark Fox, and his dog, Angel.

John Bolen’s plays have been produced throughout the U.S.  They include: Count Down the Thunder (New Jersey Repertory, Longbranch NJ; Stages Theatre, Fullerton, CA), Best Chance, Chance Best (Chance Theater, Anaheim Hills, CA; Cabrillo Playhouse, San Clemente, CA), Waiting (Theatre@First, Somerville, MA; NewGate Theatre, Providence, RI; Newport Theatre Arts Center, Newport Beach, CA; Thalian Hall Studio Center, Wilmington, NC; Costa Mesa Playhouse, Costa Mesa, CA), For Bidden (Secret Rose Theatre, North Hollywood, CA; The Asylum Theatre, Hollywood, CA), A Song for Me (Secret Rose), Goodnight, Joe (Lincoln Square Theatre, Chicago, IL; Costa Mesa Playhouse), Nothing for Christmas (Malibu Stage Company, Malibu, CA; Chance Theater; Costa Mesa Playhouse), Sands of Discontent (Vanguard Theatre, Fullerton, CA; Costa Mesa Playhouse), Sunday (Garden Grove Playhouse, Garden Grove, CA; Vanguard Theatre; staged readings at Palm Springs Playwrights Circle, Palm Springs, CA and Don Cribb Theatre, Santa Ana, CA), Loreto (Vanguard), ‘Tween Time (Gallery Theatre, Anaheim, CA), A Christmas Frail (Empire Theatre, Santa Ana, CA), Kris’ Hopes (Chance), Expectations (Chance), Believing (Chance), Rudy in Saigon (Chance), Not Larabie (Costa Mesa),  David (Costa Mesa),  Lawanda (staged readings: Genesius Theatre Guild, New York, NY; Theatre Neo, Los Angeles, CA; Underground Theatre, Hollywood CA),  A Tangled Affair (staged reading: Empire Theatre), and The Hidden Dark (staged reading: Theatre Neo).  He is the Producing Artistic Director for the New Voices Playwrights’ Theatre.

A professional writer for four decades, Nancy Brewka-Clark began her career after graduating from Wheaton College by covering Boston theater for many newspapers and magazines, interviewing luminaries such as legendary queen of the Yiddish theater Molly Picon, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Jane Powell, Leonard Nimoy, Sandy Dennis, Robert Brustein and Israel Horovitz.  It wasn’t until 1997 that she wrote her first ten-minute comedy for a Boston competition to be judged by Craig Lucas. Although an April ice storm prevented both her and him from actually seeing the performance, her determination was fixed: she would think big and write small. Since then her plays have been produced in venues as varied as Brooklyn, New York and Harrogate, England, and many of her comic monologues have been published by Smith and Kraus.

Kenyon Brown is an award-winning playwright whose productions include Pillow Fight, Notification, All A-Twitter, In View of, Pride Trash, and Ashes to Snatches, Dust to Bust. He has been produced in SF, NYC, and LA as well as internationally. His professional theatre experience includes working at Circle Repertory Company in NYC. He was awarded the Hopwood Award for Drama from the University of Michigan. He is a member of The Playwrights' Center, The Dramatists Guild of America, Inc., TCG, and The Writer’s Center of Indiana.

Matt Buchanan is a New England-based professional playwright and composer specializing in theatre with and for young people. His plays and musicals have been performed across the United States and in several foreign countries. He is also an accomplished stage and music director, as well as a performing musician. He was a founding member of the Boston rock band System Underload. Matt has a BA in Music from Harvard College and an MFA in Child Drama from the University of Texas at Austin.

Roger Butterley (Composer) has worked with artists ranging from Michael McDonald and Phoebe Snow, to Gavin DeGraw and Jill Sobule, and has appeared on more than 20 albums. He has a longstanding relationship with Sh-K-Boom Records, having music directed many of the Sh-K-Boom Room concert series, as well as music directing and co-producing the CD of Paul Scott Goodman’s Bright Lights, Big City.  As a composer, he has written three full length musicals: Fallen Angel and Eagle Song (both with Justin Murphy), and Turandot: The Rumble For The Ring with Randy Weiner and Diane Paulus.  Roger has also composed music for commercials and industrials for clients including Avis, Symbol Technologies, and Chase Manhattan.  He recently completed music for a new ride at Hershey Park, The Reese’s Extreme Cup Challenge.

Maura Campbell is a playwright, director, screenwriter and screenwriting teacher who divides her time between New York City and Burlington, Vermont.  She is the author of more than twenty plays and her work has been produced regionally and abroad.  Campbell is a member of the Dramatists Guild and an MFA in playwriting candidate at Hollins University in Roanoke, VA. Please visit her website at mauracampbellplaywright.com.

Ruth Cantrell is an award-winning playwright. Her scripts have been produced by the Dallas Theatre Center, the Nashville Academy Theatre, the Creede Repertory Theatre and various universities around the country. Her play Back Home won “Outstanding Play” from the Rio Grande Theatre Festival and The Stonecutter received "Best Children’s Play" from the Southwest Theatre Association in 1998. Ruth received her BA and MFA from Trinity University. She was recipient of the state of New Mexico’s highest arts award, the Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts, in 2002. She was awarded the American Alliance for Theatre and Education’s (AATE) Special Recognition Award in 1991.   She is a member of Actor’s Equity Association. Currently, Ruth is a professor of Theatre Arts at New Mexico State University, and the founding director of the Children’s Theatre Workshop.

Maryann Carolan is a playwright, screenwriter, designer and teacher. She is the Co-Founder and Co-Artistic Director of Fourteen out of Ten Productions, whose mission is to combine the vitality of students with the experience of professionals in a collaborative theatrical environment. Her work for the stage includes: Love (Awkwardly) (Winner - Audience Favorite Award at Manhattan Theatre Source & Nominated for 6 MSU Theatre Night Awards), Storage, Something About Friendship, Teacher of the Year, and The Boarding House. Maryann received a Writing & Philosophy Fellowship from the University of St. Andrews, Scotland and was a finalist in the Hanger Theatre’s Playwriting Lab Residency. She also serves as Director of the Union Catholic Performing Arts Company in Scotch Plains, NJ. Her website is www.14outof10.org.

Keaton Cockrell is a graduate of Etiwanda High School, class of 2011. He is an aspiring filmmaker from Southern California with a passion for theatre and art. Keaton’s influences include Hunter S. Thompson, Quentin Tarrantino, Adam Duritz, and many more. Purple Cows Do Exist is his first published work. He has directed and acted in various productions in addition. “Imagination is the only skin I’ve ever been comfortable wearing.” -K.C. In the future he hopes to one day be able to direct his own features “and actually get paid for it!”

Steph DeFerie grew up on Cape Cod and lives there still. The many terrific hours she spent performing in, studying and attending shows at the Harwich Junior Theatre comprise the majority of her theatrical training. Although she also writes for adults, for the last eight years she has worked with the Chatham Middle School Drama Club because she loves introducing kids to the fun of performing. Her favorite part of writing for young audiences is incorporating audience participation into her work. She has published 16 scripts which have received countless productions in this country and abroad and won several awards. Two of her plays comprised the inaugural summer of the Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theatre's W.H.A.T. For Kids series. Her most popular works include Once Upon A Wolf, Mother Goose Is Eaten By Werewolves, I Hate Shakespeare! and Nick Tickle, Fairy Tale Detective. Out of almost 100 entries, her 10-minute play Nick Tickle In Witch Crook Took The Book? was voted "Audience Favorite" in the 2009 "Summer Shorts 4 Festival" in Williston, North Dakota. She is extremely proud that her script Puss 'N Boots - A Tale Of A Tail won First Place in the 2010 East Valley Children's Theatre Playwrights Contest, Second Place in the 2009 NETC Aurand Harris Memorial Playwriting Competition and premiered at the Harwich Junior Theatre in August 2010. Visit her website www.freewebs.com/stephsplays for more info on her work.

Noelle Donfeld, lyricist, bookwriter and composer, has had eleven musicals, including three commissions, produced in the last ten years in Chicago, Ft. Worth, Houston, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, London, Dayton (OH), and Birmingham (AL). Recent productions include: Carjacked at the 10 by 10 at the Triangle of the Arts Center (Carrboro, NC); The Spark, Hannah Senesh at Theatre Building Chicago; The Revolution of Betsy Loring at Casa Manana (Ft. Worth, TX) and Encore Theater (Dayton, OH); Squeak at the La Canada Theatre; Ghost(s), at the Lyric Theatre (Los Angeles), Powder Puff Pilots for University of Irvine, and Miss Vulcan 1939 at Red Mountain Theatre (Birmingham) and at Actors Co-op in Hollywood.  A member of the Dramatists Guild, the Academy for New Musical Theatre, ASCAP and the Alliance of Los Angeles Playwrights (ALAP), she is a triple semi-finalist of the Eugene O’Neill Musical Theatre Project, and a finalist at Stages in Chicago.

Paul E. Doniger teaches drama and English (and runs the theatre program) at Pomperaug High School (Southbury, CT), and was a founding member of the prestigious CSC Repertory Theatre (Classic Stage Company) in New York City, where he was trained as a classical actor.  At CSC, Mr. Doniger served as a leading actor and Board of Directors member.  After leaving CSC, Mr. Doniger worked in numerous theatres and worked regularly in film and television.  He moved to Connecticut with his wife Nancy in 1979.  Mr. Doniger also served as an adjunct English professor at Western Connecticut State University, from where he holds a Master of Arts in English.  He has been published several times, including in Syntax in the Schools and English Journal, and is a contributing author for Grammar Alive: A Guide for Teachers.  In recent years he could be seen on stage as Sir Toby Belch in Twelfth Night at Shakespeare Ventures (Fairfield University) and as Prospero in The Tempest at The Town Players (Newtown, CT). He is also the treasurer and archivist of the Connecticut Drama Association.

Joël Doty has written several adult plays that have been produced around the country.  Her play Action and Reaction is a finalist for the Actors Theatre of Louisville Heideman Award.  Furry Tales is her first play for children, inspired by working as a volunteer in children’s community theatre productions. Her goal is to write plays for children to perform which are fun for them and full of comedy and nuance for the audiences (usually their parents!)  Her “day job” is counseling at a community college, but writing has always been a big part of her daily enjoyment.

Kitty Dubin is a widely produced playwright whose productions include Mirrors, The Last Resort, Ties That Bind, Change Of Life, The Day We Met, Dance Like No One’s Watching, Coming Of Age, and The Blank Page. Her work has appeared in theaters throughout Michigan as well as New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles and Austin (TX). One acts including Tough As Nails, Mimi And Me, Blockbuster, The Prom Dress, Mystical Body, Bye Bye Love, Skin Deep, Strictly Personal, The Joy Of Sex, The Other Side, and Boob Job have been performed in numerous festivals and competitions. Kitty was awarded two individual artist grants in playwriting from the Michigan Council for the Arts and Cultural Affair and has been teaching classes in playwriting at Oakland University (Rochester, MI) for the past fourteen years. She is also Playwright in Residence at the Jewish Ensemble Theatre, where six of her plays have been produced.

Kelly DuMar is an award-winning playwright, creative arts workshop facilitator and author of a non-fiction book for parents, Before You Forget – The Wisdom of Writing Diaries for Your Children. Kelly’s plays have been produced around the US and in Canada, and her award winning one-act plays and monologues have been published by a variety of publishers. Kelly is a long-time member and past president of Playwrights’ Platform, Boston, and she produces the annual Our Voices Festival of Boston area women playwrights. Kelly received her Master’s Degree in Education from the Harvard University Graduate School of Education and her BA in English with Honors from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Kelly is a certified psychodramatist and Fellow in the American Society for Group Psychotherapy, and she is artistic director of The Red Suitcase Playerz, a Playback Theatre Troupe for kids. She lives in the Boston area with her husband and three children.

Julia Edwards is an LA-based playwright, children’s author and illustrator, and teacher. Her plays—some of which include Family Planning, The Rats Are Getting Bigger, The Ravaging, and Lockdown--have been seen at The Public Theatre (NYC), the LAByrinth Theatre (NYC), The Flea (NYC), South Coast Repertory Theatre (Costa Mesa), Chalk Repertory Company (LA), Circle X (LA), and Salvage Vanguard Theatre (Austin) among others. Family Planning, produced in LA-area residential homes, won the LA Ovation Award for Best Production. She is a member of the Playwrights Union of LA. Her website is: www.JuliaEdwards.com.

Wysteria Edwards is a native of Washington State. She holds her degrees in Education and Theater from Whitworth College (B.A.) and from Washington State University (Ed.M.), a Masters in Reading and Literacy. After participating in the theater for over 25 years, she began the journey of crafting her first script, Broken Thread. This script marked her debut as a playwright in Chicago, where she serves as a Resident Playwright/Literary Manager for the Urban Theater Company. Recently she has adapted several works for the stage including The Disappeared, Belle Prater’s Boy, Dovey Coe, and the catalogue of Don Freeman picture books. Her play Mrs. Murphy's Porch was a Play Lab Selection for the Last Frontier Theater Conference 2010 (Valdez, AK) and The Disappeared received an “Honorable Mention” from the She Writes Festival.  She is a member of the Dramatists Guild of America, Chicago Dramatists and International Centre for Female Playwrights and the Northwest Playwrights’ Alliance. Wysteria has studied privately under the mentorship of Stuart Spencer (NYC) and has participated in workshops with playwrights such as Steven Dietz.

David C. Field is a former ad man who wrote plays when the boss wasn’t looking. In the early ‘90s, an idea born on a restaurant napkin turned into A Legendary Christmas. The play was invited to the Sundance Children’s Play Lab, where it was workshopped into its present form. The world premiere was later staged at Actors Alley Repertory Theatre (North Hollywood, CA). Symmetry, a psychological power struggle set in academia, premiered at Chicago’s Victory Gardens Theatre and earned a Joseph Jefferson Award nomination for best new play. Other successes include comedies, one-acts and his own homemade granola.

Stephen Flowers is a middle school general music teacher in the northwest suburbs of Chicago, IL, and has been teaching music for 18 years. He has loved composing music ever since he was a teenager. Stephen has written and produced two musicals, a 10-minute play (The Proposal) which received a staged reading at Oakton Community College (Des Plaines, IL). He has composed several pieces for the Harper College Steel Band (Palatine, IL) and performs with a professional steel band named Pan Go.  Stephen received the Who's Who Among America's Teachers Award in 2002 and The Village of Mount Prospect Shining Star Champion For Youth Award in 2009. He holds a Bachelor's Degree in Music Education from the University of Illinois and a Master's Degree from Olivet Nazarene University (Bourbonnais, IL).

Judy Freed has seen her plays and musicals performed in London, New York, Chicago, California, Washington, Massachusetts, and throughout the Midwest. Her writing has been recognized by such organizations as the National Music Theater Conference and the American Alliance for Theatre & Education. Musicals include Sleepy Hollow (developed at the ASCAP/Disney Musical Theater Workshop), Emma & Company (named a Back Stage “Theatrical Highlight of 2001”), Through the Door (presented at Trafalgar Studios, London), Mom! The Musical (selected for the TRU Voices New Musicals Series), and Somebody Else’s Troubles (featuring the songs of Grammy-winner Steve Goodman). Four of her plays for young readers have been published by Pearson Scott Foresman. She is a member of The Dramatists Guild and the International Center for Women Playwrights.

Patrick Gabridge has written numerous plays, including Constant State of Panic, Pieces of Whitey, Blinders, and Reading the Mind of God, which have been staged in theatres across the country. His first novel, Tornado Siren, was by published Behler Publications. Much of his work seems to feature scientists—which might be explained by his degree from MIT. He co-founded Boston’s Rhombus writers’ group and started the on-line Playwright Submission Binge, as well as theatre companies in New York and Denver. More than thirty of his plays are published and have been used by thousands of students and teachers in performance and competition. Patrick lives in Boston with his wife and two kids (one of whom is a high schooler).

Fengar Gael’s plays include Drink Me, Touch of Rapture, The Spell Caster, The Island of No Tomorrows, Opaline, Gift of a Thousand Tongues, and Devil Dog Six. She has had workshops and productions at various theatres including the Sundance Institute, the Utah Shakespearean Festival, the InterAct Theatre of Philadelphia, New Jersey Repertory, Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey, the Moxie Theatre of San Diego, the Seanachai Theatre of Chicago, the Kitchen Dog Theatre of Dallas, the New York Stage and Film Company, and MultiStages of New York. She is a recipient of the Craig Noel Award, the Arnold Weissberger Award, the Playwrights First Award, as well as commissions from South Coast Repertory, New Jersey Repertory, and the National New Play Network, and a playwriting fellowship from the California Arts Council. She is currently working on a musical, Soul on Vinyl, with composer Dennis McCarthy, and her play, The Usher’s Ball, will be produced in New York  by the Collaborative Arts Project 21 this forthcoming summer.

Sara Glancy is an actor/playwright currently pursuing a BFA in drama at TISCH School for the Arts. As a playwright, Sara has been recognized both locally and nationally.  In 2008, her play The Cheshire Smile received a staged reading at Baltimore’s CENTERSTAGE as part of their Young Playwright’s Festival. This play then went on to become a finalist in the Young Playwrights, Inc. national playwriting competition and received an off-Broadway staged reading at the Cherry Lane Studio Theatre in 2010.  She thanks her family and friends for their constant support of all her crazy artistic endeavors.

Neeley Gossett is an MFA candidate at the Playwright's Lab at Hollins University and is a member of The Dramatists Guild of America. She holds an MA in English from The University of North Carolina Wilmington and a BA in Theater Arts from Marymount Manhattan College. Her works have previously received productions and readings at The Coastal Empire New Play Festival, The Great Plains Theatre Conference, Mill Mountain Theatre, Riverside Theatre, and Big Dawg Theater. She worked as a literary intern with Celise Kalke at The Alliance Theater and was dramaturge for the world premiere of Class of 3000 at The Alliance Theatre. Neeley also teaches English at Georgia Perimeter College. 

Adam J. Goldberg is a comic, performance poet, playwright, and reporter.  When he's not writing, performing, or comicking, he loves watching 50s movies about dangerous teenagers. His website is http://AdamUltraberg.com

D.W. Gregory is a resident playwright with New Jersey Rep and a member of the Dramatists Guild.  She writes frequently about the American working class experience and is best known for Radium Girls, an historical drama about dialpainters poisoned on the job in the 1920s.  A popular title in high school and college theatre, it has received more than 130 productions worldwide, including in London, Chicago, Boston, and Toronto.  The other feather in her cap is The Good Daughter, about a Missouri farm family struggling with rapid social change after World War I, which was her first project with New Jersey Rep and was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize when it premiered there in 2003.  Gregory's work in youth theatre was launched with a residency at Imagination Stage (Bethesda, MD), where she wrote and premiered Miracle in Mudville and four other plays for young audiences.  Two of those works, Penny Candy and The Secret Lives of Toads, are available through Dramatic Publishing.  In addition to writing plays, Gregory has worked as a theatre critic, writing for The Washington Post, and as a teaching artist.  She is a founding member of The Playwrights Gymnasium, a process-oriented playwrights' workshop based in Washington, D.C. More information about her plays is available on her web site, http://www.dwgregory.com.

James Grob is an established writer, author and playwright and is currently a sports editor as well as a sports columnist and viewpoints columnist in his home state of Iowa.  James has written for television, radio and advertising companies.  He also wrote dialogue for a daily comic strip which appeared in newspapers throughout the Midwest.  He majored in English and Communication at the University of Iowa and minored in Theatre Arts.  While at the University of Iowa, he earned special permission to work in the playwriting graduate program as an undergrad and was honored to be able to successfully participate in the prestigious Playwright's Ensemble program.  He is fluent in all genres of playwriting and has had several plays produced.  He was also a co-founder of the Iowa Radio Workshop while living in Iowa City, where he conceived, wrote, voiced and produced radio comic and dramatic sketches, lampoons and song parodies.  Besides playwriting, James has written several short fiction stories and over a thousand poems. He is active in community theatre and has taken the stage many times.

Evan Guilford-Blake’s plays for children and adults have been produced internationally. They’ve won 33 playwriting competitions, including Ireland’s Eamon Keane and the Tennessee Williams one-act contest, twice (he is the only playwright to do so). Telling William Tell was honored as the winner of the 2006 Aurand Harris/New England Theatre Conference and the Jackie White Memorial competitions. A dozen of his plays have been published by Playscripts, Eldridge, Next Stage Press and others. He is a former professional storyteller; two volumes of his tandem storytelling scripts are published by Eldridge.

Evan has also won awards for his short fiction, and has pieces in several recent anthologies, as well as stories for adults and children on the web. He is a Distinguished Resident Playwright Emeritus at Chicago Dramatists and a Dramatists Guild member. He and his wife (and inspiration), writer and jewelry designer Roxanna Guilford-Blake, live in the Atlanta area. More information is available at www.guilford-blake.com.

Claudia Haas has been writing plays – primarily for teens – for eighteen years.  She has been honored with 1st Place in the 2009-10 Anna Zornio Memorial Play Writing Contest, 2007 Aurand Harris Play Writing Competition, the 2007 Bonderman Symposium at the Indiana Repertory Theatre and twice by the Jackie White Memorial Children’s Playwriting Contest.  Other honors include The Nantucket Short Play Festival and the Marilyn Hall Awards.  Many of her plays are commissioned by local theatres and schools in Minnesota with an eye towards writing for young performers.  Her plays have seen over 600 productions in every state in the U.S. as well as abroad.  She holds a B.A. in Speech and Theatre from Wagner College.  Additional theatre studies continued at Circle-in-the-Square Theatre and HB Studios in New York City.  She has been a teaching artist in the Twin Cities for 23 years.

Jean Hart is a playwright and educator who writes and teaches in Brooklyn, New York. Much earlier, she graduated from the Dramatic Arts program at the University of California, Berkeley, then moved to Montreal to study clowning and puppetry before coming to New York and taking up street performance. Weary of living hand-to-mouth, she got a real job teaching English and drama, before she re-kindled her deep love for playwriting and saw many of her works performed, including The Moor's Petard, The History of Hate, When Bimbos Attack, Red Dirt; White Trash and Nanny Lends A Hand (for the International Cringefest and Queens Players) as well as Hannah, Queen of Horror (for CoffeeBlack Productions). She has penned numerous student productions, including 'Twas the Night, The Voyage Over, Animal Magnetism and Silent Night Story.  When he isn't composing music on guitar and other digital instruments, Crawford Hart works as an image retoucher in the New York City graphics industry. His most prized possessions are his wife and collaborator, Jean, and the most recent upgrade of Garage Band.  About Wild Alice, his first foray into musical theatre, he says, "It's great to have an outlet for the swarms of melodies buzzing around my brain."

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.

Tommy Jamerson was born in North Carolina and raised in Northwest Indiana. He has been writing plays since he was in middle school, and used to beg his friends to help him perform them. While in high school, he fell in love with musical theatre, propelling him continue to his education in the arts. He attended and graduated from Indiana State University, studying theatre, with a concentration in playwriting and directing. While there, he was presented with the Angel of the Year: Humanitarian Scholarship, wrote for the Gendered Hate and Violence Conference 2007, and served as a judge for the Midwest High School Playwriting Competition. After earning his Bachelor of Science, he moved to Atlanta (GA) to work for the Horizon Theatre Company as a playwriting apprentice. He is currently a graduate student at the University of New Orleans and resides in Flushing (NY) with his dog, Remy.

Lynn-Steven Johanson holds a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and works at Western Illinois University. He is a past president of the Mid-America Theatre Conference, a Network Playwright with Chicago Dramatists, and a member of the Dramatists Guild of America. His plays have won the Snowdance Comedy Festival, the Nantucket Short Play Festival, Pend Oreille Playhouse’s Annual One-Act Play Festival, the Old Opera House’s New Voice Play Festival, the East Valley Children’s Theatre Playwriting Contest and he is a recipient of an AriZoni Theatre Award of Excellence for Best Original Play. His plays have been produced by the Turnip Theatre, American Globe Theatre, Makor Theatre, and Love Creek Productions in New York, the City Playhouse, First Stage, and The Attic Theatre in Los Angeles, and numerous other theatres throughout the United States.

Arthur M. Jolly was recognized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences with a Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting in 2006 and works as a screenwriter and playwright in Los Angeles, represented by the Brant Rose Agency. His plays have won numerous awards, and been produced internationally.

He was born in England, but also lived in Kenya, Madagascar and France until the age of 11, when his family moved to New York City. He attended Stuyvesant High School, where he cut his economics class to sit in on creative writing classes with Pulitzer Prize winner Frank McCourt - then an unknown English teacher. Arthur's early career was in the film industry in New York, where for 12 years he worked every possible below-the-line job, from stuntman and special effects artist to food stylist and cockroach wrangler. (Not the same production.) He has over 150 film and television credits, but some of them are cockroach wrangling. These days he will only admit to being a writer.  More at www.arthurjolly.com.

Jonathan Josephson's original plays have been read and produced throughout Southern California, including The Chance Theater, Theatre40/Wicked Literature, The High Street Arts Center, Pasadena Playhouse Balcony Theatre, The Syzygy Theatre Group, The Dana Point Theatre Company, The Westchester Playhouse, Moving Arts, and across the country including The Actor’s Theater of Louisville (27 Ways I Didn’t Say ‘Hi’ to Laurence Fishburne – finalist for the Heideman Award), Seattle Repertory Theatre, The Great Plains Theatre Conference (Omaha), N4th Art Center (Albuquerque), and The Remmy Bumpo Theatre (Chicago). His play The Giant and the Pixie was named a Finalist for the Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, and his short play Beluga Room is published by Original Works Publishing and is included in Northwest Publishing’s “To the Sea” Anthology. BA in Theatre: Playwriting from UCSD and a proud member of The Dramatists' Guild of America and the Alliance of Los Angeles Playwrights.

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.

Linda Kampley has written 5 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, 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.

Donna Kaz has had her plays and musicals produced across the US and UK and in NYC at The Director's Company, HERE, Tribeca Performing Arts Center, Expanded Arts, New York Musical Theatre Festival and The Century Center.  She recently created and directed Performing Tribute, the stories of 9/11 for the Tribute Center at the WTC.  She wrote and directed JOAN for Endurance Theatre, which received a Jason Miller Award.  Donna studied with Sanford Meisner and recently apprenticed with Nagoya Musume Kabuki, the only all female kabuki troupe in Japan.  She is the recipient of residency fellowships from Yaddo, Djerassi, The Blue Mountain Center, The Ucross Foundation and The New Lyric Institute for New Musicals.  She is an alum of the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop. 

Christian Kiley is a teacher and playwright who lives in Southern California. He earned a B.A. in Theatre from Gonzaga University and an M.F.A. in Theatre from California State University, Fullerton where he directed the A.C.T.F. Regional Finalist Easter by August Strindberg. Christian has written the award-winning plays POUND, Odd Duck, The Art of Rejection, and Strings Attached. To find out more information about Christian's work as a playwright, please visit 
http://home.earthlink.net/~cmkiley/.

 Henry W. Kimmel is an Atlanta-based playwright, who is a founding member of Working Title Playwrights, a theatre company dedicated to the development of playwrights and new plays. He has been a regular guest artist at Woodward Academy (GA) and the Hotchkiss School (CT), where he has helped high school students develop original work. His goal is to have his work produced in 50 states, and he is more than halfway toward his goal. Hank is a graduate of Brown University, the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and the Emory University School of Law.

Kris Knutsen is an actor/playwright currently based in Calgary, Alberta.  Originally hailing from Seattle, Kris holds a B.A. in Theatre from Trinity Western University, and is currently pursuing her M.F.A. in Playwriting from Hollins University in Virginia.  An adjunct professor of theatre at Trinity Western and Rosebud School of the Arts, Kris also directs “playmakings”: creating original theatrical works within a limited time frame with students and camps.

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 78^th 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's plays include Incomplete and Beautiful, Jumper's with the Gypsy, When Someone Finds You, We Have to Kill the Hipsters, Five Years to the Day, and Flashlights. Shorts include The Network, Prototype of the Perfect Man, Foul Mouth Wants The Money, Gopher Lake, Up A Tree, Last Day on Earth Fondue Party, A Half-Inch Soft, and Erectus Mortis. His work has been performed and workshopped at PS 122, Soho Rep Walkerspace, The American Globe Theatre, The Source Festival (DC), Alive Theatre (CA), Longwood University (VA), Old Armory Theatre (ND), Connecticut Heritage Productions, FACT NYC, Spare Change Theater, Prophecy Productions, The Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute, and NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife Jessie, their dog Charlie, and kittens Pepper and Porter.

Coming soon.

Steve Lambert has written more than 20 plays. His work has been performed at UK venues in Bristol, Bath, Exeter, Salisbury, and in London at Camden People’s Theatre, Theatre503 and Upstairs at the Gatehouse. Work includes Last Train, Showing the Monster, Aftercare, Still, Little Deaths and Touch. A Good Send-Off was among the winners in 2009’s Pint-sized Plays competition in Wales. A common theme of his work is how people’s lives are affected by their sexuality. Steve is a member of the Heads & Tales story-telling group, whose series of Bristol audio stories can be downloaded for free (www.headsandtales.org.uk). For more details and reviews of Steve’s plays, please visit www.writewords.org.uk/steve_lambert.

Patricia Lamkin discovered her love of playwriting in the 90s working as an actor for the Philadelphia Zoo Treehouse Troupe, where she wrote or helped develop a dozen environmental education plays for children, including It's a Scavenger's Life and Witling. Commissioned museum works followed: Bat Tales for the Franklin Institute, as well as All the World’s a Stage and Haym Solomon: A Remarkable Man for Historic Philadelphia, Inc.  In Philadelphia, Patricia was a member of the Brick Playhouse, where she developed and premiered several short plays, including The Trestle, Teasing, and the one act, Last Wishes, which won the Brick's prestigious Best of IT award. Patricia now resides in Los Angeles and is a member of the Alliance of Los Angeles Playwrights (ALAP) and ReWrights playwriting group.  She was most recently seen performing in her real-life satire, Angel City, at the Next Stage Theatre. She holds an M.F.A. in Acting from the University of Southern Mississippi.

Meron Langsner was one of three writers in the country to be chosen for the pilot year of the National New Play Network Emerging Playwright Residencies in 2007. His work has been performed around the country and overseas, and his other publishers include Smith & Kraus, Applause, JAC, NorthNorthWest, and Lamia Ink. His scholarly work has been published by McFarland, Oxford University Press, Puppetry International, and EJMAS. Meron is also active as a professional fight director and director. He holds an MFA in Playwriting from Brandeis and an MA in Performance Studies from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. Meron is currently a doctoral candidate at Tufts University writing his dissertation on martial arts on the American stage.

Carol S. Lashof is a playwright, librettist, and educator. Her plays have been produced by the Magic Theatre of San Francisco, Bay Area Radio Drama, Palo Alto TheatreWorks, and Fringe Benefits Theatre in Los Angeles, as well as at schools, colleges, and community theatres around the world from Barstow, California to Beijing, China. Publications include Medusa's Tale in Plays in One Act (Ecco Press) and two short plays for elementary school audiences in Cootie Shots: Theatrical Inoculations Against Bigotry (Theatre Communications Group). Two monologues from Gap are included in One on One: The Best Men’s Monologues for the 21st Century (Applause Books). Scenes from Gap and from Persephone Underground appear in DUO! Best Scenes for Two for the 21st century (Applause Books). As a librettist, Lashof collaborates with British composer James McCarthy; their opera, Threat Level, was commissioned by the Scottish National Opera.  Gap, a short film directed by Ryan Coogler and based on a scene from Carol Lashof's play of the same name, was a finalist in the BET Network's national filmmaking competition, Lens on Talent.

Donna Latham has been making up stuff, writing it down, and acting it out forever. Her plays have been produced from coast to coast. MyFace received its world premiere at the EstroGenius Festival and was part of F.A.C.T.’s WORDS & WINE Reading Series, both in New York. Do These Jeans Make My Butt Look Massive? received its first New York production at The Looking Glass Theatre. Proverbs was a finalist in the Irish Fest Play Contest at the Irish American Heritage Center (Chicago, IL), appeared at the Snowdance Comedy Festival (Racine, WI) and ran in a double-Irish bill with Paddy and the Mermaid at the Odyssey Stage Theatre (Chapel Hill, NC). Corner Critics opened Nothing Without a Company’s Word Circus II (Chicago, IL), and schools throughout the States have performed her series Grappling With Grammar.

Laura Lewis-Barr has been writing, directing, performing and teaching theatre for over 20 years.  Recent productions of Laura’s work include Chernobyl’s Fire and Cloistered Honey (Inspirare Theatre:  "Earnest, funny, introspective”—The Daily Herald); Addicted to Mars (Pittsburgh New Works Festival:  "Intriguing and carefully drawn…  Lewis-Barr’s writing drives the production.”—Pittsburgh Post Gazette); Golden Chalices (LoveCreek Productions and The Riant Theatre, New York, NY); Dove Killers (the side project in Chicago: “Riveting”—Windy City Times).  Laura has also adapted her romantic-comedy, Cloistered Honey, for the screen and is seeking a producer.  Laura’s Master's Degree in Drama is from San Francisco State University.  Before her move to the country (to work as Artistic Director/Theatre Professor at Sauk Valley College), Laura was a member of the Playwrights Collective and Chicago Dramatists.

Paul Lewis is a Seattle-based composer and playwright whose staged projects include the musicals Alley Dog, Hail and Reign and The Recollection of Flight; The World Below, a children’s opera; and an evening-length choral and orchestral piece, Last Poem on Earth: A Jazz Requiem. His lyric to a ballad by jazz legend Bill Evans has been recorded by jazz vocalists around the world. His work has received awards from Artist Trust, the American Music Center, and the Bainbridge Island Arts and Humanities Fund. He is currently working on a second children’s opera as well as a small-cast musical based on a 19th-century literary romance. Paul is a member of Artist Trust, BMI (Broadcast Music International), and The Dramatists Guild.

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 almost 200 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 Nov. 2005.  Her short play Here to Serve You won the 2008 Goshen Peace Play Prize.  In 2011 she was Playwright-in-Residence for New Voices for the Theater, a two week playwriting intensive for teens produced annually by SPARC (School of the Performing Arts in the Richmond Community) in VA.   Babs is a fifth generation Californian living in Seattle, WA, married to an amazing man, and ridiculously happy. 

Jean Lorrah has published over twenty books, several of which have won awards.  Among her works are three children's books about the Loch Ness Monster, written with Lois Wickstrom. Jean has recently been studying screenwriting with an eye toward feature films.  She often teaches writing workshops, and is a frequent international traveler.  She lives in Kentucky with her dog Kadi, and two cats, Dudley and Splotch, who are therapy pets for the local humane society. See Jean's daily TipsOnWriting on Twitter, or get all her latest news at www.jeanlorrah.com.

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 a Playwright-in-Residence at SkyPilot Theatre in Los Angeles, and a founding member of the Hell-Tro Theatre Collective (Brooklyn, NY). She has been a high school Latin teacher, an EMT, polo player, and guinea pig enthusiast, but is now a full-time writer. Her favorite color is pink.

Nina Mansfield is a playwright and fiction writer whose plays have been produced professionally and by academic and community theatres throughout the United States and in Canada.  Her produced plays include: Bona Fide; Clean; Crash Bound; Erasing the Brain; Missed Exit; No Epilogue; Pedestrian Casualty: Bronx, USA; Smile; Text Misdirected and The Tea Exercise. Nina holds an M.A. in Educational Theatre with Teaching English 7-12 from New York University and a B.A. in Theatre and Sociology from Vanderbilt University.  She studied acting and directing at the Moscow Art Theatre in Russia and is a member of the Actors’ Equity Association and the Screen Actors Guild.  She is also a proud member of The Dramatists Guild, the Society of Children’s Writers and Illustrators, Mystery Writers of America and Sisters in Crime. Nina currently teaches Drama and English in the state of New York.

James McBride is an author, Grammy Award-winning songwriter, musician and screenwriter. His landmark memoir, The Color of Water, is considered an American classic and read in schools and universities across the United States. His debut novel, Miracle at St. Anna, was translated into a major motion picture directed by American film icon Spike Lee. His newest novel, Song Yet Sung, was recently released in paperback.

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 Lovecreek Festival, and both November Women and Getting Sasha have received several international productions. Philadelphia area credits: Philadelphia Fringe Festival, Walking Fish Theatre, Women’s Place Theatre and the Women’s Theatre Festival.  Kate is a member of the Philadelphia Dramatists Center, and holds an MA in Theatre from Villanova University.

 David Muncaster is a playwright from the United Kingdom who has won awards at festivals on both sides of the Atlantic. He specialises in comedies and has written more than a dozen full length and one act plays as well as several hundred sketches. His writing has been praised for characters that are authentic and dialogue that has pace, humour and momentum. In addition to writing for the theatre, David also writes about the theatre with regular articles in several newspapers in the northwest of England, and he is the new script reviewer for the Amateur Stage Magazine. He also enjoys acting and directing and is an active member of his nearest community theatre.

Forrest Musselman lives in the beautiful southeastern corner of Minnesota with his wife and two children.  Along with YouthPLAYS, he has plays available through Brooklyn Publishers, Heuer, Big Dog Plays, and Contemporary Drama Service.  You can follow his latest antics on Facebook and at his website: www.forrestmusselman.com.

A Newington-Cropsey Fellowship recipient for dramatic writing and research (2008), Rocco P. Natale is the author of seventeen plays and musicals. The latest of which, Smoke Signals, holds the distinction of receiving the Siff Grant for educational performance and was developed to tour with HAI, Inc. In addition to this distinction, his two-hander, Room at the End of the Hall, was a semi-finalist in the Eugene O’Neill National Playwright’s Conference.  His adaptation and concert work has been presented in staged readings and productions throughout New England and New York, and his one-act comedy I Like Husband is the winner of the “Long and Short of It” competition.  For his work on the boards, Mr. Natale has been honored with Connecticut Drama Association’s highest honor, the “Best Actor Award” and has served on the staff of various regional and Off-Broadway theatre companies- most recently The Mirror Repertory Company and Signature Theatre Company.  Mr. Natale holds dual B.A. Degrees in both Psychology and Dramatic Studies as well as an M.A. from NYU.

Bio and pictures coming soon!

Robin Pond has been writing sporadically for almost 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 numerous productions in schools and community theatres throughout the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Robin lives with his wife and three grown sons in Toronto, Canada. Many years ago, when his 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.

Composer/lyricist and librettist Miriam Raiken-Kolb is a native of Buffalo and a graduate of Oberlin College.  While pursuing an acting career in NYC she began to write music-- including the first songs for a full-length musical, Sara Crewe, which was premiered by the Needham Community Theatre in 2007 and is published by Dramatic Publishing Inc.  Other works for the musical theatre include a full-length adaptation of another famous Burnett work, The Secret Garden, published by YouthPLAYS, and a one-act musical, two-character play about Emily Dickinson, I Dwell in Possibility.  She has also composed an adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s Alice Through the Looking Glass.  Raiken-Kolb is currently working on a new musical, Precious Bane, based on the celebrated novel by Mary Webb.  She and her collaborator Geralyn Horton have been developing this work under the auspices of the Advanced Writers’ Lab, a writers’ workshop that meets at the Berklee School of Music in Boston, MA.  She lives in Somerville, Massachusetts, with husband Roger Kolb and daughter Gwen.

Spencer Robelen, a native of Fort Lauderdale Florida, was involved in the performing arts all through high school. He participated in the annual Florida State Thespian Competitions, winning several superior ratings for Solo Music and two Critic’s Choice Awards for Playwriting. He has also won a total of four Cappie Awards for Theater Excellence in Broward County, including Creativity in Music Composition and Best Comic Actor in a Play. Spencer is an alumnus of Saint Thomas Aquinas High School and the Lovewell Institute for the Creative Arts; he currently attends the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music. 

Amelia Denyven Ross is a Children’s Librarian for the Roanoke County Public Library System in Virginia, and the leader of the library’s Teen Creative Writing Club. She is currently pursuing an MFA in Children’s Literature from Hollins University, possesses a Bachelor’s Degree in Creative Writing from Brevard College, and has earned a Certificate in Irish Studies from University College Cork, Ireland. Amelia is a member of the Society for Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI). Visit her blog at www.thescribblerross.wordpress.com.

Danny Rothschild was born in Italy, spent his childhood throughout Africa, and is currently finishing his senior year in Northern Michigan. He wrote A Ninth Time while visiting the village of Oudiah, the former capitol of slavery on the west coast of Africa. The slave monuments moved him, and the tales he was told inspired him to write a play about a storyteller who keeps their spirits alive. He has been published in several anthologies, and has earned Scholastic, YoungArts, and Norman Mailer awards for nonfiction, poetry and plays. He dreams of becoming a playwright, but if that plan falls though he will open up a bakery and build forts for the rest of his life.

Sharyn Rothstein’s plays have been produced and workshopped in New York and around the country by companies such as The Williamstown Theatre Festival, Ensemble Studio Theatre, New Georges, 3Graces Theater Co., Bay Area Playwrights Foundation, The Vital Theatre and Soho Think Tank. She holds an MFA in dramatic writing from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, where she was the recipient of the Television Department’s Award for Excellence, and is the recipient of a 2008 Ensemble Studio Theater/Sloan commission. Her play March was a finalist for the Yale Drama Series Competition, and her newest full-length play, The Invested, which will be produced in New York in 2011, was a finalist in the SheWRITES New Play Competition at Synchronicity Theatre in Atlanta. Sharyn is also a member of Youngblood, Ensemble Studio Theatre’s collective for emerging playwrights under the age of thirty, as well as the Ars Nova Playgroup.

John Rotondo is a playwright, screenwriter, director and producer.  He is the Co-Founder and Co-Artistic Director of Fourteen Out of Ten Productions, a production company dedicated to creating a collaborative theatrical environment between students and professionals.  His work for the stage includes: Love (Awkwardly), which won the audience favorite award at Manhattan Theatre Source (New York, NY), Storage, Something About Friendship, The House She Built, Write for Me and The Boarding House.  John graduated from the Goldberg Department of Dramatic Writing in NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. He was a finalist for the Hanger Theatre’s Playwriting Lab Residency and serves as the director of fall productions for the Union Catholic Performing Arts Company. His website is www.14outof10.org.

Keegon Schuett is a playwright, actor, and director who is currently living and working in Memphis (TN).  He studies theatre at the University of Memphis, where he is pursuing a BFA in Theatre Design and Technology and works as a freelance photographer.  He discovered a passion for storytelling at a very young age while growing up in the suburbs outside of Philadelphia.  He later cultivated an interest in theatre and began performing.  He has appeared in over 20 productions, in addition to directing and writing several shows.  He has worked in theatre for over 10 years and is very grateful for the support of his family, friends, and mentors that have helped him through creative roadblocks over the years so far.

Three times nominated for the prime-time Emmy Awards, Grammy-winning songwriter Michael Silversher has spent more than 40 years working in music, theatre, films and television, beginning with a staff-writing position with the Fifth Dimension in 1969, followed by ten years as founding composer/musical director of Theatreworks (Palo Alto, CA). Since 1986, Michael has written, composed and created sound design for Tony Award-winning theatre companies, The Mark Taper Forum (Los Angeles, CA) and South Coast Repertory (Costa Mesa, CA), and has toured the world in support of theatre, working regularly with the Kennedy Center (Washington, DC) and serving as resident composer for the Sundance Playwrights' Lab for five years.  He composed the score for 75 episodes of the hit television series Dinosaur Train, all of the songs for Pajanimals, and has worked on numerous other television and film projects.

Tom Smith's published plays include The Wild and Wacky Rhyming Stories of Miss Henrietta Humpledowning, ESL, What Comes Around, and Johnny and Sally Ann... (YouthPLAYS), Marguerita's Secret Diary (Baker's Plays); Gray (Original Works Online); and The Pathmaker, Comedy of Errors (editor), Much Ado About Nothing (editor), Two Gentlemen of Verona (editor), and Love's Labour's Lost (editor) for Encore Performance Publishing as well as Dangerous, The Odyssey and Drinking Habits, published by Playscripts. His other plays have received productions both nationally and internationally. Tom is the recipient of the Robert J. Pickering Award for Excellence in Playwriting, the ATHE Playworks Award, the Orlin R. Corey Outstanding Regional Playwright Award, the Richard Odlin Award, a Seattle Footlights Award, and has been a selected participant in numerous playwriting festivals across the country. He is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild. Feel free to check out his website at www.tomsmithplaywright.com.

Donna Spector’s play Golden Ladder (Women Playwrights: Best Plays of 2002 , Smith & Kraus) was produced Off Broadway, as was her first play, Another Paradise. Her plays have also appeared Off Off Broadway, regionally and in Canada, Ireland and Greece. A member of the Dramatists Guild, Poets & Writers and the International Centre for Women Playwrights, she received N.E.H. grants to study in Greece and production grants from the Dodge Foundation and the New York Council for the Arts. Winner of the Sunwall Comedy Prize and the Eileen Heckart Senior Drama Award, she was a finalist in the Beverly Hills/Julie Harris, Mill Mountain Theatre, and Theatre Unbound contests. Her play Short-Term Affairs (35 IN 10: Thirty-Five Ten-Minute Plays, Dramatic Publishing) won the Palm Springs National Short Play Fest and was produced at Playwrights Circle (Palm Springs, CA), Gallery Players (Brooklyn, NY) and Actors on the Verge (New York, NY). Her poems, stories, scenes and monologues have appeared in many literary magazines and anthologies.

Callan Stout’s plays have received readings in New York, London and Los Angeles. Her first children’s play, an adaptation of Aesop’s Fables, was produced in Los Angeles by The Rainbow Factory. Her other children’s plays, Brownies, Bicycles and Bigfoot, and an adaptation of The Jungle Book were both produced by the Youth Education Entertainment Series at the Santa Monica Theatre Guild, recognized with the American Alliance for Theater and Education's Outstanding New Children's Theatre Company award. The company now recognizes one adult and one child each year with the Bigfoot and Little Foot awards, after Callan’s play, for achievement and commitment to YEES. She graduated from NYU’s Tisch School for the Arts with a BFA in Dramatic Writing and holds a Masters in Folklore from the University of Aberdeen in Scotland. Her plays for adults include; More than Breakfast, The Pastry Queen, A Song for a Surfer, and Heat. Spark. Explode.  Her latest play Crap Crap Crap; or everything I don’t want to be at 40 received a reading as part of the Cherry Lane Theatre’s Tongue’s readings series. Her website is: www.callanstout.com

A former police officer still longing for her old beat in Syracuse’s diverse west end neighborhood, Donna Stuccio completed an MFA in Creative Writing/Playwriting at Goddard College and her undergraduate work in acting at Syracuse University’s Drama Department. She is Artistic Director of Armory Square Playhouse, a non-profit playwrights’ collective. Her full-length plays, Blue Moon and The Job, were produced by Salt City Playhouse. She was selected for Ithaca’s Kitchen Theatre’s 48 Hour Playwriting Marathon, during which she wrote Heart Burn. Her short play Nice Pants was selected by Wolf’s Mouth Playwrights’ Collective for its inaugural 10 Minute Play Festival, and her full-length, elegy in blue, was chosen to open the 2010-2011 season at Syracuse’s Rarely Done productions. She was selected to attend the 2010 Kennedy Center Playwriting Summer Intensive. Donna teaches playwriting, acting, and criminal justice, sometimes entertaining students and anyone else who will listen, as most former cops do, with stories of her time on the street.

 Trevor Suthers has had over 50 pieces of theatre both staged and broadcast and screened in almost 80 productions. These range from monologues and sketches, to musicals and a pantomime. He has had both one-act and full-length plays produced in the US, Manchester, London, Edinburgh, Brighton, Salisbury and all around the North West of the UK in every imaginable venue from mainstage to theatre foyer to numerous bars. He has been story editor for popular TV soap Coronation Street and has written episodes of Eastenders. He has also produced over 30 stage shows and 14 performances of topical-satire show, Headline Cabaret, since its inception in 1993. This year he produced the critically-acclaimed JB Shorts, six short plays by top TV writers, to sell-out audiences in Manchester. 

Elana Weiner-Kaplow, a graduate of Niles North High School (‘10) in Skokie, Illinois, is currently spending a year between high school and college to volunteer in Tel Aviv. She spends the majority of her volunteering time at an after-school shelter for Arab and Jewish children and teaching English, guitar, and a theatre games and storytelling class. In addition to Pitched, she has also written a one-woman show about the life of Yiddish Theatre actress Molly Picon. Next year, she will attend the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana and will major in Theatre Studies with a focus on Directing and Playwriting.

Lois June Wickstrom has been writing children's stories and fantasy professionally for over 30 years. She also develops children's science activities and currently performs as Imagenie 'If something looks like magic, design an experiment. See if you can make it happen again." on YouTube and MindTV.  She is the author of Starting With Safety, sold by American Chemical Society, and the It's Chemical series. Her science articles appear in Highlights magazine.  For income, she fixes computers. She is married, has two grown daughters, one silly dog, three grand daughters, one grandson, and loves to garden. When she refers to the "back forty" she means the back forty square feet of her small inner city back yard. Her children's books include Orange Forest Rabbit, Nessie and the Living Stone, The Lying Day, Wendell the Bully, and other titles.

Allison Williams is the author of Hamlette, Mmmbeth, and Drop Dead Juliet (an EdTA top ten most produced play), as well as a musical of The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Her radio plays have been heard on NPR, and she toured Canada with her award-winning solo show, True Story. Allison also travels the world as a trapeze artist and fire-eater with the Aerial Angels, and coaches for Starfish Circus, a school residency program. More on her exploits at www.angelsintheair.com.

Karin Diann Williams is a playwright and screenwriter whose work has been produced and published internationally. She is an Artistic Associate at NYC's Looking Glass Theater, where audiences have seen her plays Head, Time Troll, and Spirits! Her work has been produced by San Diego's Fritz Theater (where she served as playwright-in-residence from 1992-2001), the Gertrude Stein Repertory Theatre Digital Performance Institute, Art House Productions, Lamia Ink!, the Midtown International Theatre Festival, the Strawberry One Act Festival, Collaboration Theater, Boston Theaterworks, and many others.  Her full-length plays include Justine, winner of the Windmill Playwrights Festival, and Australia, winner of the UNM Centennial Playwriting Competition. As a partner in the motion media production company CulpepperWilliams, she wrote and produced The Captive -- winner of the 2010 People’s Choice Webby Award for Best Drama -- and the independent feature film Jordan (jordanthemovie.com).

In her career to date, Alison Wood's work has encompassed both music and theatre; the musical 4 A.M. is her first venture combining these as a writer. After graduating from Harvard with a degree in Dramatic Literature, she worked in professional theatre for several years as director, teacher, actor, and stage manager. From there Alison shifted her focus to music, writing and recording two albums and playing live shows with her band. Recently she's been adding film to the mix as she's taken a break from performing to focus on her writing and other creative efforts.  In 2006, Alison released her first full-length album, At Arm's Length, in 2007 she followed it up with Fairytale Endings Aside, and now that 4 A.M. has been launched, she's looking forward to working on album number three. Through all her work in various media, Alison is ever conscious of and grateful to the teachers who helped and inspired her along the way.

Randy Wyatt is a director, playwright and improv coach. His plays include Said and Meant, Synonymy, Sonata Blue, 9x9x9, Tiny Catastrophes and Rising Sun, Rising Moon. His work has been published by Heinemann, Applause Publishing, Smith & Kraus, and Playscripts, Inc. and has been produced throughout the United States and seven countries. He earned his MFA in Directing from Minnesota State University in Mankato. He is a member of The Playwrights' Center in Minneapolis. He currently is the Theatre Program Chair and Assistant Professor of Theatre at Aquinas College in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Nelson Yu is a Toronto-based playwright, screenwriter, middle-grade novelist, and video game developer. His plays and musicals have been produced in Canada. He studied under acclaimed MG/YA author Richard Scrimger at the Humber School for Writers and acting & writing at George Brown College and Second City Toronto. He is a graduate of the University of Toronto (BSc) and Humber College's Creative Writing program.

Don Zolidis is a former high school and middle school theatre teacher and is currently a professor of creative writing at Ursinus College.  Originally hailing from Wisconsin, Mr. Zolidis received his B.A. in English from Carleton College and an MFA in Playwriting from the Actor's Studio Program at the New School.  He has received numerous honors, including the 2004 Princess Grace Award for Playwriting for White Buffalo, now published by Samuel French.  His plays have appeared or been workshopped professionally at the Ensemble Studio Theatre, Stage West, Purple Rose Theatre, The Victory Theatre, Bloomington Playwright's Project, Chattyboo Productions, Mirror Stage Company, Impetuous Theatre Group, and New Dramatists.  His plays have had amateur productions in all 50 states and 16 countries and have won numerous state championships.  His screenplays have received numerous prizes, including the 2009 PAGE gold medal for drama, 1st prize in the family division for both the 2008 Screenwriting Expo and 2008 StoryPros Contest and several others.  He has one screenplay under option with Will Ferrell's Gary Sanchez Productions and a second in development with an independent producer.  He lives with his wife and his two adorable boys.