Heather Dunmore A recent graduate of both the Royal Court and Oxford Playmaker Playwriting Programmes, Heather Dunmore was a journalist before turning to playwriting. In the past year her play Faceless has won both the Woking and Welwyn Drama Festivals. Stage plays include Blue, published by Samuel French and Casualties of War, a winner of the Sandpit Arts Bulbul Competition 2013 which received a professional performance in Brighton. She was a finalist in the Oxford Canal Heritage Radio Playwriting Competition with Revisiting the Trap Grounds available as a broadcast on their website, http://www.oxfordcanalheritage.org/radio-plays.
Heather Forgie is the artistic director of R-G Productions, in Winnipeg, MB. She is an actor, writer, director, teacher and mom of 2 boys.
Heather L. Lee is currently working as a Family Nurse Practitioner in Rochester NY. Her plays include: “The Last Struggle for Mrs. Stokes”, “Crush”, “Complexities of Love”, “One Man’s Garbage”, “Catapult”, and “A Small Flame”. Her work has been produced by Flour City Theatre Company and at the State University of New York at Brockport. She also enjoys writing short stories and novels.
Heather Meyer is a writer and performer in Minneapolis, MN. Heather’s plays have been produced in NYC, LA, Chicago, Washington DC, Minneapolis and exotic Madison, Wisconsin. Heather produces and directs her sketch comedy show Women’s History Month: The Historical Comedybration (with fabulous prizes) every March in Minneapolis. Also a screenwriter, her film, Zombie Sweater, was selected as top ten in the Women Stand-up and Shoot Film Competition. In August 2014, Heather’s play WAITRIX: Dominatrix Waitress premiered at the Minneapolis Fringe Festival. Heather has studied comedy writing with the Second City and Dudley Riggs’ Brave New Workshop. Heather is an MFA Candidate in playwriting and screenwriting in Spalding University Low-Res Creative Writing Program. Follow Heather on Twitter @HeatherMeyer2.
Heide Arbitter‘s plays have been produced in New York City and regionally. Some of these productions include a one-act, HAND WASHED, LINE DRIED at The Joseph Papp Public Theatre; a full-length, FROGS FROM THE MOON, at The American Theatre of Actors; and a one-act, TILL WE MEET, at Unboxed Voices. A full-length, THE POWER OF TREES, was commissioned by The Joseph Papp Public Theatre. Smith & Kraus and Excalibur published JILLY ROSE, POPPY, and SHARON. A short story, SANCTUARY, is published in Adelaide Literary Magazine.
Hemavathy Guha is a writer and visual artist.She writes on art,architecture and travelogues.Her writings have been published in several magazines in India.Her paintings have been exhibted at the National and international level.
Hilary Kaiser, a San Francisco native, has lived in Paris, France, for many years and is a dual American and French national. After a career teaching at the University of Paris, she returned to the Bay Area part-time for several years and studied with award-winning playwright Anthony Clarvoe. Hilary has written four full-length plays, all of which have had developmental readings in Paris and California, and numerous ten-minute plays. Her plays, her two published non-fiction books about WWII, her public story telling, and her novel in progress often address historical or cross-cultural issues.
Holli Harms is a Dramatists Guild Fellow recipient, Terrence G Hall Fellowship recipient and EST/Sloan Foundation recipient for her play about the first death in space. She is a member of Dramatist Guild, Ensemble Studio Theatre and a contributing writer for Verbal Supply Company.
Hope McIntyre – Hope has a BFA in acting, an MFA in directing and completed a performance apprenticeship in England. She is founding Artistic Director of Sarasvàti Productions. She is a published playwright and free-lance director. Hope was awarded the YWCA Women of Distinction Award (2006) and the Bra D’Or Award (2008) for her support of female artists. She has taught at Mount Allison, Brandon University and the University of Manitoba. She currently teaches at the University of Winnipeg. She is a former President of the Playwrights Guild of Canada and on the Board of the North End Women’s Centre.
Ian Low is a playwright from Carnoustie in Scotland. He started writing in his final year at art college while studying animation at the University of Dundee. Since then he has adapted the poem The Buke of The Howlat for the stage and co-written a sequel to Shakespeare’s As You Like It. Ian has had various plays performed throughout the UK most notably, One Gun at Oran Mor’s famous A Play A Pie & A Pint lunchtime theatre strand in Glasgow and JOOT Theatre Company’s stage adaptation of Derek Jarman’s unfilmed script Bob-Up-A-Down at Kings College Greenwood Theatre, London.
Ilana Turner’s award-winning O RÉJANE, premiered in 2014, winning the Stage Raw Los Angeles Theater Award for Female Leading Performance, and earning two additional nominations, including one for Ilana as playwright. Her monologue SUGAR COAT IT is in LGBT COMEDIC MONOLOGUES THAT ARE ACTUALLY FUNNY (Applause Theatre and Cinema Books, 2016). Award nominated Exec Producers and Directors just hired her to write and appear in their respective, yet-to-be-announced features. On screen credits also include work for HBO, SyFy Channel, Spike TV. Ilana holds a BA in theater and dance from Hampshire College.
Inge Martín San Juan I’m a spanish actress, producer and cultural staff writer. I studied in RESAD in Madrid and London and have been working on the stages for the last 15 years. Now I’m developing a play about María Blanchard and thought it could fit in your project.
Inmaculada Alvear Nace en Madrid. Se doctora en Historia Antigua por la Universidad Complutense de Madrid sobre la Tragedia Griega. En 2002 entra en el colectivo en el teatro del Astillero. En 2004 gana el Premio Calderón de la Barca por su obra El sonido de tu boca, y el Accésit al Premio Maria Teresa León por Mi vida gira alrededor de 500 metros. ha estrenado en España, Italia, Costa Rica, Francia y ha sido traducida a varios idiomas.
Irene Zabytko‘s first book, THE SKY UNWASHED (Algonquin Books), is a novel about Chernobyl. It was a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Book, and A Book Sense ’76 Pick Selection. The e-book version was rated Number One on Amazon.com and appeared on “The New York Times Bestseller E-Books List.” She is currently producing, writing and co-directing a documentary about the real life Chernobyl survivors: LIFE IN THE DEAD ZONE (www.lifeinthedeadzone.com) Her second book, the short story collection WHEN LUBA LEAVES HOME (Algonquin Books) is based on the Chicago Ukrainian community. Also, is writing plays and the next novel.
Ivan Faute, graduate of the Program for Writers at the University of Illinois at Chicago writes prose and plays and occasionally takes photographs, but only with film. His short stories have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, the Calvino Prize, and the Rannu Fund. His dramatic work has been seen at NY Fringe, Planet Connectivity, the Last Frontier Theater Congference, and City Lit Theatre (Chicago). www.ivanfaute.org
J.S. Puller is an award-winning playwright. She is an ensemble member of the Piccolo Theatre Company. In addition, she’s a proud member of the American Alliance for Theatre in Education. She’s a two-time winner of their Unpublished Play Reading Contest, for WOMEN WHO WEAVE (now published by Playscripts, Inc.) and THE CREATOR. Other awards include the Beverly Hills Theatre Guild Marilyn Hall Play Competition for Youth Theatre, the Growing Stage New Works Festival, the Helen-Jean Play contest, and the Las Vegas Little Theatre New Works Competition. Her debut middle grade novel, CAPTAIN SUPERLATIVE, will be published by Disney*Hyperion. Website: https://pullerwrites.wordpress.com/
J.Lois Diamond is a playwright, poet and performer. Her full length, one-act, and ten-minute plays have been performed off-off Broadway, regionally and in Canada, Her 365 plays have been included in HERSTORY NOPlays Festival, The Voire Dire Project at Theater for the New City’s Dream Up Festival, at Itinerant Theatre’s Women Leading: New Play Series, The William Inge Theatre Festival, The Downtown Urban Arts Festival, The Shattered Glass Project, and Theatre Odyssey. She is a member of Polaris North and The Dramatists Guild and recently studied with Tina Howe. jloisdiamond.com
JACK GILHOOLEY – double NEA awardee (Individual Artist and International to Centaur Theatre, Montreal), NY Foundation For The Arts grant, O’Neill Conference Guest Playwright, double Fulbright Guest Artist (Spain and Ireland), four-time Florida State Arts Council grants, double Puffin Fdt awards, first winner John Ringling Artists Fellowship Award, Pilgrim Project award, etc. Artist Colony residencies – Yaddo. MacDowell, Millay, Djerassi, Edward Albee, Dorset, Hawthornden Castle (SCOT), Tyrone Guthrie Institute (IRE). Playwright residencies – Sundance, Aspen, Fest of Southern Theatre, Carnegie Mellon New Play Series, Jan McArt New Play Series, Mount Sequoyah Retreat, etc.
Jaclyn Perlmutter is a writer based in Brooklyn, New York. Most recently, Jaclyn’s full-length play JULY, about a girls’ cabin at a sleepaway camp, was selected as a semifinalist for the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center’s 2016 National Playwrights Conference. In 2015, JULY received a reading at The Old Globe Theatre in San Diego, California with PlayGround @ The Old Globe. Jaclyn led creative writing workshops for three years at Bayview Correctional Facility, a medium-security women’s prison in NYC. B.A.: Pomona College, Religious Studies. M.F.A.: NYU-Tisch, Dramatic Writing.
James E Burnside In September, 2000, I began writing full-time, thanks to my wife and her hard work. I have written a dozen full-length screenplays, two novel, various and sundry articles, short stories, poetry, and four full-length plays including “The Canard of Vaucanson” which saw a professional production at the Overtime Theatre in San Antonio this year (2014.) Hobbies: Chess, golf. I am a sports fan with a special love for Formula 1 Racing. I watch lots of television and old movies. My wife and I are foster parents to two teenage girls.
James Colgan is an author and award-winning playwright currently residing in Kentucky. His sexy farce, The Story of Oh (Revised and Abridged), won the Critic’s Award for Best Play in the Fringe of Marin in 2010 and was a finalist in the Samuel French 2011 OOB Festival. His drama, Making It Home, was a finalist in both the 2013 AACT New Play Fest and the 2016 New Play Festival by What If? Theatre. Hitler’s Whore (under the title The Fuhrer’s Mistress) won Best Play in the Jewel Box Theatre 2016 new play contest. His short story, “Shelter,” was published by the Sewanee Review in its Spring 2016 edition.
James O’Connor is an Ohio-born playwright and theatre critic living in the Bronx. Playwright highlights include productions of Glomar in Los Angeles, Deep to Center in New York, and Rosemary in Philadelphia and Chicago, where it won the Joseph Jefferson Citation for “Outstanding New Work.” He is an RN and actor, and recent head coach of women’s D III softball at the College of Mount St. Vincent. He is at work on a new play, and writing theatre reviews for the Riverdale Press in New York.
Jamie Greenblatt comes to playwriting with a background in set and costume
design. She has a BA in Theatre Arts from Oberlin College. Her full-length movement piece, CONTRADANCE, with puppetry, trapeze and music was performed at the Eighth Street Studio in Berkeley, California. MY RECOLLECT TIME had its world premiere at Inferno Theatre in Berkeley. Jamie is a member of Theatre Bay Area, Play Cafe and The Dramatists Guild of America.
Jan B. Eliot This is my first play. I am the creator of a syndicated daily comic strip called Stone Soup, which appeared in 300 newspapers in the US and abroad for 20 years. Since 2015 Stone Soup has appeared on Sundays only, in about 100 newspapers. Stone Soup also has an online presence at GoComics.com. After 23 years of writing dialogue for my comic strip, and with more time available now that I’m in semi-retirement, I decided to take a playwriting workshop to explore applying my love of writing dialogue to longer work. In 2018 I submitted a 10-minute play titled “The Art of the Deal” to the NW10 Festival and “For The Love Of Baghdad” to 365 Women a Year. I intend to continue working on For The Love Of Baghdad with the goal of expanding it to a two-act play.
Jane Denitz Smith lives in Williamstown, Massachusetts. She is a Playwright in Residence for Barrington Stage Company’s Playwright Mentoring Project (PMP). In 2017-18, The Backyard Farmer’s Guide to Care and Feeding will be part of Workhouse Theatre’s (Minneapolis) Greenhouse Project. April 2017, The Marrow is part of Women’s Shorts. Last April, Jane participated in the Capital Region/Berkshires 24-HourTheatre Project. Also: Boston Theatre Marathon, Philadelphia Primary Stages, Curio Theatre/Philadelphia Dramatists Center collaboration, Hubbard Hall Winter Carnival, Made in the Berkshires. In addition: Space on Ryder Farm Spring 2015 residency, Member of Dramatists Guild, Playwrights’ Center (Minneapolis), and Philadelphia Dramatists Center. www.janesdenitzsmith.com
Jane Sunderland retired from an academic career at Lancaster University to become an Edinburgh-based playwright. Her plays feature women: actual (Dorothy Wordsworth, Charlotte Bronte, Emily Wilding Davison) and fictional, living and dead. She has had several short plays performed and professionally workshopped, including by independent companies No Door Theatre, Short Attention Span Theatre, Blazing Hyena, MakeItWrite, UnMasked and CuckooBang. She holds an MSc in Playwriting (Edinburgh University). She is a founder member of PenPal Productions.
Jason Rainey is a member of ScriptWorks in Austin. His work has been commissioned, presented, or produced by ScriptWorks, Last Frontier Theatre Conference, Penobscot Theatre, Daedalus Theatre, Freshwater Theatre, Mildred’s Umbrella, Sound Plays, Texas Dramatist Playwriting Series, and Punchkin Rep in Austin. He has directed several of his own short plays at Austin’s FronteraFest, receiving a Best of Fest citation in 2011. Jason’s latest short play, Free Hands, was staged at the Out of Ink Festival in Austin in 2017.
Jaylan Sheila Turkkan is a playwright active in New York City who often uses science fiction and fantastical elements in her plays. In 2017-2019 her fully staged plays in Manhattan include Comic Con (Chelsea Repertory Co.), Cast Her Out (The Complete Theatre Co.) and Terra Firma (Chelsea Repertory Co.). In 2019 the Shoestring Radio Company of San Francisco will air her radio play Weird Goes the Dinner. Her political play Forbidden Fruit was given a staged reading in 2018 by the Living Room Theatre Co. in New York City.
Jayne B. Stearns is a re-emerging playwright, poet, and writer, living and writing on Cape Cod where a majority of her plays have been produced. Her 10-minute play, ‘Not Sayin’ was chosen for inclusion in the Women’s International Theatre Festival and was also workshopped and produced by Cape Cod Community College’s drama students as part of their Play With Your Food Series. Her travel writing has been published internationally. Jayne is a member of the Dramatists Guild. www.JayneBStearns.com
Jean Koppen is a playwright living in Northern Virginia. Jean’s plays have been produced locally at Active Cultures Theater (2012 “Sportaculture” playwriting competition winner), Port City Playhouse, the Capital Fringe Festival, and across the country and Canada at Strangeloop Theatre (Chicago), The Alumnae Theater’s New Ideas Festival (Toronto), and Kumu Kahua Theatre (Hawaii). Jean’s work has been read at the Kennedy Center Page to Stage Festival (2013, 2015, 2017) and the Pipeline Playwrights reading series (2017, 2018). Jean is an alumnae of the Kennedy Center Playwrights Intensive, a founding member of Pipeline Playwrights and a Dramatist Guild member.
JEAN REYNOLDS: Jean’s plays have been produced in NYC, L.A. and other cities. She received the Roger L. Steven’s Award from the Kennedy Center for New Plays for The Last Intimacy. Her play Dance With Me received a Best Play Award from Playwrights First (NYC), and published by Smith & Kraus in their Women Playwrights Series. She has twice won a Julie Harris Award from the Beverly Hills Theatre Guild. Her short play Physical Therapy is published by Samuel French in Off-Off Broadway Festival of Short Plays Series.
Jean Hartley Sidden I have a PhD in Theatre Arts from the University of Oregon. My play, The Difficult People, retitled Verdant Lawns, is a winner of Festival 51 Women’s Playwriting Festival 2016. The Difficult People is also a finalist for The Road Less Travelled 2016 National Playwriting Residency. Other plays include A Civilized Custom, New Year’s Eve at the Club Paradise, The Physician of Serendib, Passing By, Casting the Beverlys and The Excessed. I teach at New World School of the Arts in Miami, Florida and am a founder of World and Eye Theater Workshop in Fort Lauderdale, FL.
Jean Mornard received her bachelor’s degree in theater from the University of Minnesota, with a concentration in stage management and technical theater. She has also been a singer all of her life, from bar bands to singing the lead role in TOSCA and soloing in Verdi’s Requiem at Boston’s Symphony Hall. After two years of exciting work together as co-librettists on MARY, Jean officially turned over the writing reins to Gayla in 2011, so that Jean could pursue her calling to the Episcopal priesthood. She is currently serving as rector of Grace Episcopal in Huron, SD.
Jeanmarie (Simpson) Bishop written plays since 1972, when she created her first solo work and performed it for her 7th Grade class. She founded and was artistic director of the Nevada Shakespeare Company (1989-2009). She wrote and performed, throughout the world, A Single Woman, about the life of first US Congresswoman Jeannette Rankin. Other plays include Liberty’s Children (mashup of Dreamer interviews), On Track: The Brian Willson Story, Amigas (co-adaptation), Tuesday’s Child, In My Own Image, Halloween and many others. She is artistic director of the West Valley Repertory Company, creating and presenting universally accessible performance work in Arizona.
JEN FERRO grew up on an Arizona cattle ranch and began her involvement in theatre at age 40. She has performed with the Eugene Opera, the Very Little Theatre, the Cottage Theatre, and Oregon Contemporary Theatre (OCT). She was dramaturg for Gina Gionfriddo’s Rapture, Blister, Burnat OCT, and artistic advisor to Siri Vik for her cabaret show Femme Fatale at the John G. Shedd Institute. Her 10-minute play “The Agreement” was produced by Northwest 10 at OCT in 2014. Jen is co-founder of OCT’s NewPlayWriMo program, encouraging playwrights to write new work. By day, Jen is a librarian.
Jenna Schlags is a writer, director, actor, and financial analyst living in Boston. She recently directed Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure at the Jefferson Market Library in New York and adapted the play as a modern narrative. Her short play “The House,” a modern retelling of Hansel and Gretel, was read at Casa de Beverly and performed at the 10-minute play festival “Losing and Finding” in Boston. Acting roles include Rebekah/Carolyn (A Kreutzer Sonata), Professor Pierson (War of the Worlds), Emilia (Othello), and Time (Winter’s Tale). Jenna holds an MBA from the University of Rochester and earned her BA in Economics and Studio Art from Brandeis University.
Dr. Jennifer L. Hayes was born and raised in Nashville Tennessee and earned her Master’s from TSU. As a graduate student at TSU, the staff, faculty, and alumni all instilled in her the value of service. Now as a professor, she takes pleasure in continuing that legacy by encouraging students to use their education to contribute to the lives of others. Dr. Hayes teaches African American Literature and Composition. Her research interests include 20th and 21st century African American Literature, Black Feminist Criticism, and Contemporary Drama. Her agenda as a professor of literature and composition courses is to equip students with skills to critically engage diversity within and outside the classroom. Her current research focuses on contemporary playwright Kia Corthron’s political use of disability. Dr. Hayes interprets Corthron’s thematic usage of disability as a continuation of the “blind seer” motif in Greek drama, where individuals with disabilities are often privileged with a capacity to “see” beyond the reality of their experience.
Jennifer O’Grady Jennifer O’Grady’s plays have won the Henley Rose Award, the NEWvember Festival Dublin and the MTWorks Newborn Festival competitions and Heartland Theatre Company’s 10-Minute Play Contest. Her plays have been staged by the Irish Repertory Theatre, Rover Dramawerks, Heartland Theatre, Monster Box Theatre, AboutFace Ireland, White Mouse Theatre Productions and other theaters, and is published in The Best Ten-Minute Plays 2017 and 2016, The Best Women’s Stage Monologues 2017 and 2014, and Best Contemporary Monologues for Women 18-35. Also a prizewinning poet, she holds an MFA from Columbia University and lives with her family near New York City. (www.jenniferogrady.net)
Jennifer Schaupp A graduate of Carnegie Mellon University, Jennifer Schaupp is a writer, educator, and collaborative theatre artist with a global perspective. She has created pieces for festivals, community events, and schools, including Pittsburgh Fringe Festival, Women’s Independent Press’ Celebration of Pittsburgh Women, No Name Players’ Support Women Artists Now (SWAN) Day, and Organic Theater’s Earth Day Festival. She has extended her artistic work beyond Pittsburgh to Gilbert Theater’s New Play Festival in North Carolina, LA Stage Alliance’s National Playwrights’ Slam, and Spilling Ink’s dance/poetry project in Chennai, India. Currently, Jennifer shares her creativity with Point Park University students.
Jenny Seidelman is an award-winning playwright whose works have been produced at 20% Theatre Company Chicago, Victory Gardens Theater, Cold Basement Dramatics, American Theater Company, Point of Contention, n.u.f.a.n. ensemble, TANTA Productions, WNEP Theater and Children’s Theatre of Western Springs and received readings at Polarity Ensemble Theatre, Ground UP Productions, Horse Trade Theater Group, Women’s Theatre Alliance of Chicago, Stockyards Theatre Project, Chicago Dramatists, and her alma mater, Knox College, among others. She is a recipient of grants from the Illinois Arts Council and the City of Chicago. Jenny is a member of The Dramatists Guild of America, Inc.
Jennie Webb is an independent playwright LA playwright currently in residence at Rogue Machine (“Yard Sale Signs”) and Will Geer’s Theatricum Botanicum where she runs the new play program, Botanicum Seedlings. Her works have been produced nationwide and internationally and supported by programs including The Playwrights Center’s PlayLabs, Great Plains Theatre Conference and Virginia Avenue Project. In LA, she is a member of Playwrights Union, Fell Swoop, EST/LA Playwrights Unit and PlayGround-LA Writers Pool; co-founder, LA Female Playwrights Initiative (LA FPI). Twitter: @jenniewebsite
Jessica Feder-Birnbaum’s plays include: Toppings and Sides – playwright/producer Debra Kaufman’s Illuminated Dresses Project at the Wake Forest Renaissance Center. Lady August Gregory – 365 Women a Year Theatre History Project Monologue collection; Hair Halacha – Hair Evrah (semi-finalist) San Diego Center for Jewish Culture; Midlife Choice, Tact Studios and Visual Arts TV,;published in Cynthia L. Cooper’s Reproductive Freedom Festival Anthology Indie Theatre Now; Margaret Sanger – A Woman Rebel –Richmond Shepard Theatre. Commissioned works: Artichoke Dance Company’s, Dirty Secrets (NYS Council on the Arts); Queen Esther’s Purim Megillah – The Grove Street Children’s Theatre; A New Light – Documentary short- Jewish Theological Seminary
Jess Eisenberg is a playwright, composer, and teacher. She co-founded Prologue Theatre Company in Chicago and founded 365 Women a Year: a Playwriting Project. Her plays and musicals have been produced around the United States and the UK. She is an alumni of the University of Central Florida and Harrison Arts Center. She currently resides in Sterrett, Alabama with her husband, daughter, and cats.
Jéssica Martínez es titulada en Arte Dramático (Centre Teatral Escalante, Valencia, España) y Trabajo Social (Universitat de Valencia, España). Como dramaturga se ha formado con Xavier Puchades, Paco Zarzoso, Eva Zapico, Miguel Murillo, Edgar Chías y Christian Drut. Escribe y estrena su primera obra teatral “Julia Arévalo: Mujer de bronce y miel” en octubre de 2017 en Valladolid (España). Miembro fundador de la compañía de teatro Perros Daneses, también es actriz y productora.
Jessie Salsbury is a member of the Dramatists Guild. She is a Kansas City Playwright and has participated in numerous local play readings and new work development. Her play “Fangirls An Improbable Cosplay” was part of KC Fringe 2016 and her play “HeLA” was part of Knox College’s New Play Festival II in Spring of 2016. She is a playwright for 365 Women a Year: A Playwriting Project and her work can be found the New Play Network Exchange. Her goal as a playwright it to bring diverse voices to the stage that have not previously had their chance to be heard.
Jill Maynard’s plays have been produced in New York and Los Angeles, where her drama Caffeine Society won an LA Dramalog award for Best Play. Regional production credits include I Got Shoes, commissioned by Actors Theatre of Louisville and produced by Summerworks/U Mass at Amherst. Her most recent comedy, Free Shipping Every Day, was produced in spring of 2017 by Axial Theatre in Pleasantville, New York. Jill’s work has also received staged readings and workshops in venues such as American Place Theatre, The Lambs Theatre, Victory Gardens Theatre, and Circle Repertory Theatre. A former member of The Women’s Project in New York, Jill is a three-time finalist for the Heideman Award and a finalist for the FDG/CBS New Plays Award.
Jo Brisbane is a playwright, poet and performer. She writes from her home on Cape Cod Bay. “End Papers” is her third play submitted to 365 Women a Year (following “Phyllis Schlafly and the Imaginary Television Show” in 2016 and “Grace of Luo” in 2015. Jo was a 2017 finalist in the Joe Gouveia Outermost Poetry Contest. She is an Associate Member of Dramatists Guild of America and has enjoyed further development of two of her plays by working with DGA faculty. Jo also enjoys frequent work as a stage actor.
Joan Albarella, Professor Emerita/ University of Buffalo. Author of the Niki Barnes Mystery Series: Agenda For Murder, Called to Kill, Close to You, and Evil. She also wrote the humorous mystery, Sister Amnesia, five books of poetry, seven plays, and over one hundred poetry, essay, short story, and educational publications. She is a member of the Mystery Writers of America and Poets and Writers, and is listed in over twenty-two American and British Who’s Who collections including Contemporary Authors and Who’s Who of American Women.
Joan Bryans Joan ‘s plays usually are about strong feisty women battling against the odds to achieve success. They include Birthright, (a Canadian native vs. white Romeo and Juliet, published by Playrights Canada Press), Two Years in Nicola (about the McQueen sisters who went west in 1887) By Some Divine Mistake (about femme fatal/accused murderess Alma Rattenbury), Rebel Women (a theatre verbatim about the militant UK suffragettes) and most recently an adaptation of Goldsmith’s She Stoops to Conquer. She continues the theme with her most recent – Changed Utterly about the Irish rebel Constance Markievicz. Info at vitalsparktheatre.com.
Joan Kane (Director) is the founding Artistic Director of Ego Actus and recently directed Safe and what do you mean at 59e59 theaters and in the Edinburgh Festival Fringe getting four star reviews. Joan was named one of the People of the Year in indie theatre by nytheatre.com. She has directed plays and readings at the Lark Play Development Center, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Theater for the New City, Urban Stages, the Bleecker St Theater, the Workshop Theater, the Samuel French Short Play Festival, Planet Connections Festivity, the Midtown International Festival, the Dramatists Guild, NY Madness, Neighborhood Playhouse, the Players Club, the Lambs Club and the Actors Studio. She has been nominated for an Outstanding Direction Award in the MITF three times and Planet Connections twice. Joan has an MFA in Directing from The New School, an MS in Museum Education from Bank Street College and is a member of the Dramatists Guild, the League of Professional Theatre Women and the Society of Stage Directors & Choreographers.
Joanna Alexandra Norland is a UK-based lawyer-by-day/playwright-by-night who has had work produced off Broadway, New York, throughout the United Kingdom, and in Australia. “Lydia Bennet Returns” was a finalist in the 2004 Actors Theatre of Louisville National Ten Minute Play Competition, and Inspired her first full length script, “Lizzy, Darcy and Jane,” published by Samuel French Ltd. Joanna’s play are posted on the Proplay website of professionally produced plays at http://proplay.ws. She also runs a website, www.mumswrite.com to encourage parents to write for, about and with the children in their lives.
Jonathan Alexandratos is a non-binary New York City-based playwright. They earned a 2018 Queens Council on the Arts New Works Grant for their play WORDS CANNOT DESCRIBE THIS, a piece about the playwright’s maternal grandparents’ escape from Albania in the 1940s and ’50s. Jonathan’s play WE SEE WHAT HAPPEN, about their paternal grandparents, won the Greenhouse Award from Strange Sun Theatre also in 2018. Jonathan is an alum of the Ingram New Works Lab at Nashville Repertory Theatre and a graduate of Queens College’s MFA in Playwrighting program. Beyond the stage, Jonathan constantly works with action figures and dolls, arguing for their inclusion in academic courses as texts (more on that in their book ARTICULATING THE ACTION FIGURE), and appearing on TV and podcasts, including PBS’ STORY IN THE PUBLIC SQUARE, to further this discussion.
John Barrow (playwright) lives in New York City. A Georgia native, he was educated at Emory University and Hunter College. His plays have been produced in Atlanta and New York. Staged readings include those at Cap21 (New York), Stonewall Rep (New York), The Morningside Players (New York), NeST—New Southern Theater (Nashville), and Key West Theater Festival. He received a CAPS award in New York, and a playwriting grant from the Wisconsin Arts Board. Residencies include Yaddo in Saratoga Springs, NY, and the William Flanagan Center (Albee Foundation) in Montauk, NY.
Joslyn Housley McLaughlin began writing after many years as a performer on stage and in front of the camera. Her recent play, The Silver Thread, was developed with Liberation Theatre’s Black Playwright’s Group. In 2012, The Silver Thread won the Hudson Valley Writer’s Center’s contest: Setting the Stage. The Silver Thread was also chosen as a playlab entry at the Great Plains Theatre Conference where Ms. Housley McLaughlin was awarded the StageWrite Emerging Playwright Scholarship. Originally from Chicago, Ms. Housley McLaughlin lived and worked in New York City. She currently resides in northwestern France with her husband and two daughters.
Joy Tomasko is a writer, director, interactive performance artist/creator, and educator. Her work has been developed and produced in New York City, Minneapolis, Miami, Havana, Berlin and Los Angeles. An MFA graduate of CalArts, she’s been a Jerome Fellow, MacDowell Colony Fellow, AROHO Creative Artist Retreat Scholar, Gateway School Artist-in-residence, Women’s Project Lab/NYSCA Playwright-in-Residence and LaGuardia Performing Arts Center Lab Playwright. She’s been published in TheatreForum and IndieTheatre Now. Joy currently lives in Queens and mails out stories on postcards when she’s home and when she travels.
Joyce Fontana, PhD, has had short plays in Play Festivals across the U.S: Productions of 23 Skidoo, (Durango CO); Trail Meetups (Manhattan NY), Satellite Buddha (Queens, NY) and Paindemonium – 5 Minute Version (Houston); Readings: Exhibitions at a Picture (Princeton IL, Burnsville MN), The Road to Hell and Since You Asked (Valdez AK) and The Strawberry Fields Dowry Cartel (Gulf Shores AL).Revival was selected for a reading at the 2018 Midwest Dramatists Conference(Kansas City). Paindemonium, One Act version, was read at Kainaliu HI. Joyce works, plays, and writes in beautiful Southwest Colorado, where she lives with her husband and two dogs.
Judith Pratt has worked as an actor, director, theatre professor, and reviewer. Her plays have been produced in New York City, Boston, Philadelphia, Kansas City MO, Austin TX, and Cape Town South Africa. They have received readings at Edward Albee’s Great Plains Theatre Conference and the Last Frontier Theatre Conference. Her full length-play The Wright Place has been published by JAC Publishing Co, and received a reading at Vokes Theatre in Wayland MA. Her full-length play Spiralling was workshopped by the Metropolitan Ensemble Theatre in Kansas City. Judith is member of Wolf’s Mouth Theatre Collective, the Dramatists Guild and the International Center for Women Playwrights. She also works as a free-lance writer for business and higher education.
Judy Meiksin is a playwright from Pittsburgh, PA. Her plays have been produced by Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Company (PPTCO), WOMENSCENE, and Queer Theater, and workshopped with The LAB Project. Her honors include grants from The Lambda Foundation and PPTCO’s Legacy Award. She co-founded and co-produced Acting Out! Pittsburgh Pride Theater Festival, a theater festival of PPTCO, from 2004-2007 and 2013-2014. She is a member of the Dramatist Guild and Theatre Communications Group. She received her BA degree from Carnegie Mellon University, and MFA from the University of Pittsburgh.
Julia Pascal PhD is a playwright/theatre director, an international affiliate of the League of Professional Theatre Women, a member of the Society of Authors and of British Equity Her dramas reveal hidden narratives about women’s experience of exile. Fourteen of her plays are published by Oberon Books and have been seen in the UK, mainland Europe and the USA. She teaches Theatre at City University and at King’s College, London University where she is a Research Fellow. Awards include a Dreamtime Fellowship from the National Endowment of Science, Technology and the Arts. She has written for BBC Television and radio.
Julie Lyn Barber is a Canadian playwright, living and working in the United States. She has written a number of children’s plays and musicals, which have been produced in Oregon, Indiana, and Quebec. Her 10-minute play, Tamlane, and her cabaret parody, Madwomen’s Late Nite Cabaret have been featured in the juried festival, DivaFest in Indianapolis, and she has won grants from the Indiana Arts Commission to write and produce a new musical, The Indiana Squirrel Stampede. A previous grant saw the production of her new pantos, The Elves and the Shoemaker, and The Frog Prince. www.JulieLynBarber.net Facebook@pantoplays
Julie English-Dixon Where Have All The Flowers Gone?- in development, Small’s Tongue of Totem to Eyes-2015, God Bless the Child of Strange Fruit-2015, 365WomenProject2015, Ella’s Madrigal –2015, Indie Boots Theatre Festival 2015- Semi-Finalist, Camelot Redefined – 2014, Short listed- New Groundswell Festival 2014- Nightwood Theatre, Fixin’s– 2014, Truth and Consequences -2014, Making Tracks – 2014, weTopia – 2013
Julie Riggs Born – Dallas, TX 1957. Lived in Texas, Florida, Spain. Graduate of SMU 1986 – MA in English, UT Arlington 1983, BA in English. Two sons, Russ Sands 34- Colorado, Spencer Riggs 21- ArkansasCurrently- Middle school English teacher, sponsor of drama club at Lakehill Preparatory, Dallas, TX. Live with older brother, David. Enjoy sci-fi, nature, swimming, poetry, children, happiness.
June Rachelson-Ospa is an award-winning writer of musicals, and a producer. She owns Bozomoon Productions with Daniel Neiden, creating and producing such shows as Welcome to Tourettaville (winner of Kennedy Center’s Very Special Arts Playwright Discovery Award), True Colors of Weedle, S.W.A.K!, and Rapunzarella White (www.rapunzarellawhite.com)CD Baby and Amazon.com. Upcoming: Bollywood and Vine, Stupid Wig, Imaginary Boy. Premiering March 2015 with the Hurrah Players in Norfolk Virginia. June invested in A Christmas Story the Musical (Lunt Fontaine and Madison Square Garden). She’s the former Academy Director of RLMTA. Producer Godspell at Circle in the Square. Recently June produced Grey Street the RockOperical at 13th Street Rep NYC. Also the Artistic Director of Identity Theater.
365 Women A Year: a playwriting project 