Some of my plays appear as magic realism, exploring the mystic and molecular memories of our consciousness. I also write comedies because I love it when an audience recognizes something in a script that takes them by surprise and makes them laugh. In my young years, I performed in new works with the Magic Theatre, San Francisco Rep, and the Celebration Theatre; and these roles sparked my interest in hearing new voices for theatre. I pursued readings of new works with the Theatre Series on KCRW (The House In The City), the Coast Playhouse (The Crimson Thread), The Burbage Theatre (Pearls & Marlowe), and the Marin Playwright’s Festival (Sarah Bernhardt). During our pandemic years I’ve performed in online readings for new scripts, including: Running For My Life, (CCCT Theatre), Shloshim, (Words That Speak Workshop), and Flora Welles, (Words That Speak Workshop). Some of my current work includes: “CHANGE FOR MARTHA WASHINGTON”, is a full-length play exploring the afterlife trial for Martha Washington as she tries to negotiate her way to heaven. “THE HOARDING HOUSE”, examines the gluttony of hoarding, the molecular memory of slavery in a historic home, and the permission to grow beyond one’s legacy. My full-length play “THE LOST YEARS”, centering on the backstage life of women during Shakespeare’s time, had it’s premier at the Contra Costa Civic Theatre in 2017, under the direction of Marilyn Langbehn. My writing is included in “ALICE IN QUARANTINE”, a collaborative script published by Next Stage Press. Member of the Dramatist Guild, Los Angeles Female Playwrights Initiative (LAFPI), International Centre for Women Playwrights (ICWP), and the Alliance of Los Angeles Playwrights (ALAP). 

WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA:
Website: https://newplayexchange.org/users/5747/cynthia-wands
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cynthia.wands.5/

MORE ABOUT ME:
What was your most gratifying moment in the theater? A few years ago, after years of writing and workshops and readings, I had the opportunity for a script of mine to be produced. I had an incredible director, who was able to see more things in my script than I did. And I was able to travel to the theater to see the auditions, and the table read, and some rehearsals, and the final dress and the opening night. I saw the young woman in the play blossom on stage into a character with humor and gumption and vulnerability. I also saw the leading young man in the play bring his character to an unexpected performance: he was hilarious. I didn’t know how hilarious the character was until he showed me. A lot of this I bring to the actor’s vulnerability and charm (he didn’t know how charming he was). But here it was - the best moment/the peak experience in the play happened on their opening night. At the end, after an exchange with some raucous laughter, the characters lock arms and walk off into a new life together. The light went out. There was a moment of quiet in the house, and then there was a kind of WHOOSH, and a burst of laughter and clapping. It felt as thought the audience wanted to go out in the night air and walk off with these characters. And the curtain call was that excited jazzed up buzz that you can feel on some opening nights. This was a different excitement than being an actor on stage, or watching someone you care about giving an accomplished performance. As a playwright, I watched these characters become real, and spark laughter and spirited conversations and an excitement about the actors performance. So a dream came true – and I’ll never forget it. 

WHAT I'M WORKING ON:
I'm finishing a new script, THE LOST AND FOUND OF 2020, a full-length script, which follows a mystical tarot reader who helps people find what they have lost during the pandemic years. Creating the artwork for the tarot cards in this piece was a challenging, weirdly esoteric, and powerful experience. 

KEYWORDS: 
​Historical, Magic Realism, Pandemic, Biography, Women Focused Stories, Comedy

Candyce Lucien Rusk’s plays and musicals have been staged throughout the US and Dublin, including productions and workshops at the Minneapolis Playwrights Center, Hyde Park Theatre, Ground Floor Theatre, The Vortex, Creede Repertory Theater, and the Provincetown Theater. Candyce has garnered best of fest awards for ROSETTA, DICE, A SHINING ATTRIBUTE and RIVERVIEW RITZ. LITTLE BABY TWO SHOES was adapted into a short film by filmmaker Paul Bright, and fringe plays i HUNGA and TWO TOUCANETS showcased by Glass Half Full Theatre's Puppetry of Objects and Ideas and at OUTsider Fest. Current projects include the original musical ROSETTA (creator, book and lyrics), based on the iconic guitarist and performer Rosetta Tharpe with composer Craig Toungate, and a contemporary new work TAYLOR, TEXAS set in a now burgeoning barbeque destination outside of Austin. Candyce’s work is supported in part through multi-year funding through the Austin Cultural Division and ScriptWorks. A member of the Dramatists Guild, International Centre for Women Playwrights, Playwrights’ Center, HonorRoll! and ScriptWorks, Candyce lives in Austin, Texas. 

WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rosettathemusical

MORE ABOUT ME:
Change about theater: more women writing, more tales of older women. 

WHAT I'M WORKING ON:
​TAYLOR, TEXAS a play with music, ROSETTA, musical inspired by iconic performer/guitarist Rosetta Tharpe, new play about historic Austin figures set in my neighborhood of Hyde Park.
​

I am a playwright, author and theatre artist. My plays have had readings, workshops and productions in New York, regionally, overseas and on ZOOM. My plays and other writings appear in print and on-line. Readings/productions: Coronavirus One Minute Play Festival (Queens Theatre, NYC), The Director’s Workshop Theatre of Western Springs (Illinois), Bechdel Group’s 9th Overnight Writing Challenge (NYC), Clutch Productions EmpowerHER Reading Series (Primary Stages Studios NYC), Burning Coal Theatre (Raleigh NC), 5 Minute Jewish Play Festival Second Prize recipient; Lawrence Family JCC (San Diego). Code Red Plays #Enough - Atlanta/Boulder. I enjoy collaborating with and creating original theatre pieces with artists of all ages and experience levels. Member: Dramatists Guild. Honor Roll! Full Circle Cohort Clutch Productions. League of Professional Theatre Women. AJT. P.A.G.E.S Playwriting Group. 

WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA:
Website: https://www.jessicafeder-birnbaum.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jessica.federbirnbaum
Instagram: @jessicafederbirnbaum

MORE ABOUT ME:
The play that changed my life was "Fiddler on the Roof" I first saw it on Broadway when I was eight years old. It affirmed all the tales of shtetl life told to me by my Russian grandmother. Being one of the only Jews in a largely Christian neighborhood, I related to both the anti-Semitism displayed by the Cossacks and the ways in which the Jewish characters navigated the system while upholding their faith and traditions. As one of several daughters, and one whose only connection to my murdered relatives were faded pictures in worn photo albums, it was deeply gratifying to see what felt like my family's story on stage. The music, the lyrics, the dialogue and the sets mesmerized and have long resided within me. I have the entire cast album memorized. It was profoundly moving to see Fiddler On The Roof, In Yiddish so many years later with my younger family members. 

WHAT I'M WORKING ON:
I have two full lengths in development: "NO FEE," About a NYC real estate agent who runs for city council during the TRUMP administration, and struggles to balance her career, marriage, and political aspirations. "FAIR HOUSING" is about a Black woman who faces discrimination when she tries to rent an apartment in White Plains NY in 1970. I have also begun a project turning personal anecdotes from a wide range of people into 10 minute plays. 

KEYWORDS:
​Jewish, Muslim, Family, Political, People of Color, Equality, Comedy, Social Justice, Historical, Young Audiences, Food, Pandemic, Multi-Generational, Me-Too, Gun Control, Docu-Drama, ZOOM, Dramedy, Immersive

Mandy Conner has been teaching in the Central Texas area for over 20 years. She began her love for theatre while attending McLennan Community College and Texas Tech University, where she earned her Bachelor of Arts in English. She has earned 10 trips to the Regional UIL One Act Play Meet (including her original productions of Ago, Unclaimed, and Eleven), and has had six appearances at the UIL State One Act Play Meet (including her original productions of of Lafayette No. 1 and Should Not Cause Harm), earning First Runner-Up in 2010. In addition to teaching, directing, and writing, Mandy is a motivational speaker and conducts creativity workshops throughout the state. Mandy teaches and resides in China Spring, Texas with her husband Chris and two daughters, Edie and Josie.

WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA:
Facebook: Mandy Conner
Twitter: @mandyjoconner
Instagram: @manacotta

MORE ABOUT ME:
Stories are the great connector of people. As a teacher, I am constantly inspired by my students to tell new stories. 

WHAT I'M WORKING ON:
I am currently working on a play that centers around a young girls struggle with anxiety. 

KEYWORDS:
​Historical, folktales, young audience

Serena Norr is a writer, editor and playwright. Most recently, her play “Run for Cover” was performed as a part of the Omaha Fringe Festival. In the age of Zoom, her play “The Dividing Demons” was performed with Primary Stages, "The Bookstore" was performed in the Westchester Collaborative Theater and “Zoom Like No One is Watching” was performed with Sister Shakes for the Show Must Go Online Play festival, Rogue Theater Festival, and B Street Theatre's New Play Brunch. Her monologues, "It's the Michelle Jennings Show," "Waiting and Wanting, "Mama, Can You Hear Me? "Deep in Night Thoughts," "Behind the Bars" and “Zoom-A-Ference 2022" was performed with Vintage Soul Productions. Recently, her short "Secrets & Lies" was a part of The Queans Theatre REPRESENT festival, her full-length "The Demise of Baby Johnson" was showcased through the Dramatists Guild's DG Footlights Series, her play "Purdy's" was a part of the Omaha Fringe Festival, and her play “Zoom Like No One is Watching” was performed as a part of Rogue Theater Festival. She is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild and Westchester Collaborative Theater.

WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA:
Website: https://newplayexchange.org/users/41753/serena-norr and http://www.serenanorr.com/
Instagram: @serenanorrcreative

MORE ABOUT ME:
If I could bring change to theater, it would make it more accessible and available to all socio-economic backgrounds.

WHAT I'M WORKING ON:
I'm editing a full-length called DOUBLE and also developed a book or play (not sure yet) based on my generational trauma.

Sandra Fenichel Asher's plays have been produced across the country and abroad. She's received both the AATE Charlotte Chorpenning Playwriting Award and the Sara Spencer Artistic Achievement Award for her lifetime contributions to TYA. Three of her plays have been honored with AATE's Distinguished Play Award: A WOMAN CALLED TRUTH, IN THE GARDEN OF THE SELFISH GIANT, and JESSE AND GRACE: A BEST FRIENDS STORY. Her work has also been included in many anthologies, including TELL YOUR STORY: THE PLAYS AND PLAYWRITING OF SANDRA FENICHEL ASHER. All are published by Dramatic Publishing Company. Sandy has also published books for young readers, including the award-winning TOO MANY FROGS and her latest, CHICKEN STORY TIME. She's adapted these and her other picture books for the stage and seen them produced at the Pollyanna Theater (Austin, TX), The Open Eye Theater (Margaretville, NY), The Children's Theatre of Charlotte (NC), Trike Theatre (Bentonville, AR) and elsewhere. Most recently, she and fellow playwright Jose Casas workshopped a bilingual play for the very young, MARIPOSA/BUTTERFLY, as part of NYU's New Plays for Young Audiences series. It's featured on the American Theatre for the Very Young: A Digital Festival webpage, which Sandy founded and co-chairs. Sandy is a proud member of the Dramatist Guild, the American Alliance for Theatre and Education, Theatre for Young Audiances/USA, and the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators. She lives in Lancaster, PA, with her husband and their dog and cat. For more information, visit her website at http://sandyasher.com.

WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA:
Website: http://sandyasher.com

MORE ABOUT ME:
Much as "these times" have brought challenges galore, what with COVID, climate change, sexism, ageism (and age! I'm heading toward 79), and the pressing and important need to make space for writers who have faced these, additional, and even greater obstacles, I still find myself writing fiction and drama, taking classes, mentoring others, ZOOMing with colleagues, devising new projects to contribute to the field, and involved in new (to me) ways of storytelling, namely ZOOM, YouTube, and radio drama. I've always been defiant of obstacles, and I've always believed that -- barring brain disease or injury -- we continually become more of what we always were. So to answer the question, "How do you imagine telling stories in these times?" I guess I'd say, "Anyway I can and as often as I can!"

WHAT I'M WORKING ON:
Right now, I'm going through manuscripts lying around my office and seeing what work needs to be done to move them out into the world. Maybe a story needs to be a poem or a play? Maybe a play needs to be a better play? Whatever, I keep trying.

KEYWORDS:
​Children, Family, Animals, Equality, Environmental, Historical, Adaptations, Fable/folktales, immersive, radio plays, verse, musical, period, Young Audiences, pre-K, elementary, teens.

Lisa Langford is a Cleveland-based playwright and actor. She is a member of Dobama Theatre’s Playwrights Gym. She received her B.A. in History from Harvard University and her M.F.A. in playwriting from Cleveland State University. Her play Rastus and Hattie was a Joyce Award winner (w/ Cleveland Public Theatre); a Eugene O’Neill Theater Center National Playwrights Conference finalist; and a The Kilroy’s List honorable mention. The play was published by New Stage Press. Lisa’s other plays include How Blood Go, which was an August Wilson New Play Initiative reading series selection at Chicago’s Congo Square Theatre and part of Global Black Voices at the Roundhouse Theatre in London UK; The Art of Longing, a Leslie Scalapino Award finalist for Innovative Women Playwrights; and two short plays, The Bomb, published in the anthology Black Lives/Black Words, and Revolt. Ing, which was part of the I Am…Festival at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago. She's received commissions from the Cleveland Playhouse, the College of Wooster and others. A recipient of the Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award, Lisa is a member of the Dramatist Guild and Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc.

WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA:
Website: https://lisalangford12.wordpress.com/
Twitter: @KellyBelle312

MORE ABOUT ME:
I could watch the show "Catastrophe" every day.

WHAT I'M WORKING ON:
A pilot and a play featuring a 55 y.o. Black woman

KEYWORDS:
​People of Color, Historical, Political

Rita Anderson, an internationally-published and award-winning writer, has an MFA Creative Writing and an MA Playwriting. Rita is Dramatists Guild Regional Rep, and she went on scholarship to The O’Neill. Her play, Frantic is the Carousel, was the National Partners American Theatre nominee, and Rita won the Ken Ludwig Playwriting Award, the top national prize from The Kennedy Center for “Best Body of Work.” She has had over 100 productions and as many literary publications to include APPLAUSE’s BEST NEW 10-MINUTE PLAYS (in 2019 and again in 2020) and in their BEST NEW WOMEN’S MONOLOGUES (years 2019 & 2020) and with SMITH & KRAUS too. Early Liberty, Final Conversations, and The 27 Club (www.offthewallplays.com) are on the “Best Selling Plays” list, and Next Stage Press published her comedy, Woman Hollering Creek, which is also a “runaway Best Seller.” Rita has had work developed with The Kennedy Center, The 24-Hour Plays Project, HBMG Foundation and Creede Repertory Theatre (CRT), The PlayGround Experiment (NYC), The Barrow Group (NYC), Mildred’s Umbrella (Museum of Dysfunction), Moving Parts Theatre (Paris, France), and she was a pilot playwright for Hyde Park Theatre Writers’ Group. Rita is Faculty at Interlochen, but the highlight of her emerging career so far was sitting on a playwriting panel with Christopher Durang. Both of Rita’s poetry books: The Entropy of Rocketman (Finishing Line Press) and Watched Pots (A Lovesong to Motherhood), have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize.

WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA:
Website: http://www.rita-anderson.com
Facebook: Rita Anderson
Instagram: rita_anderson2
Linked In: Rita-Anderson

MORE ABOUT ME:
I'm an omnivorous reader and I read across all disciplines; this enriches, not only my mind & soul, but the "reach" of my skills as a playwright. I love to take difficult concepts and make them accessible, thereby growing the audience's frame of reference too. I am passionate, too, about writing genre-bending scripts that mash-up thrillers with video game or devised options etc, and I am most interested in writing the play I have not yet written, rather than simply returning to the well to drop the dipper down into the same "formula," over and over again. I am interested in growth and work to be a lifelong learner.

WHAT I'M WORKING ON:
I am always straddling multiple-projects simultaneously. For example, I recently completed my first STEM play with an all-female+ cast, LIGHTNING GIRL! LIGHTNING GIRL! is also a "green" play with a neurodivergent narrative that uses surreal storytelling, including two Shapeshifters. And I just wrote a short play-with-movement about quarantine, called #pandemicdiaries (A Mostly-True Story), and I have started a new full-length comedy called, GHOST NOTES.

KEYWORDS:
​LGBTQIA, Thriller, Political, Nature, Pandemic, Climate, Environmental, Historical, satire, dark comedy, Immersive/site-specific, Neurodivergent, Surreal, Absurdist

Kia Corthron is a playwright and novelist. Awards for her body of work for the stage include the Windham Campbell Prize, Horton Foote Prize, Flora Roberts Award, United States Artists Jane Addams Fellowship, Simon Great Plains Playwright Award, McKnight National Residency, Lee Reynolds Award, and others. Arena Stage will produce her commissioned play TEMPESTUOUS ELEMENTS in 2022. Other plays, including SPLASH HATCH ON THE E GOING DOWN, A COOL DIP IN THE BARREN SAHARAN CRICK, BREATH, BOOM, and FORCE CONTINUUM have been produced in New York by Playwrights Horizons, New York Theatre Workshop, Atlantic Theater Company, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Manhattan Theatre Club; regionally by Yale Repertory Theatre, Goodman Theatre, Mark Taper Forum, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Center Stage, Hartford Stage, Children’s Theatre Company, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, New York Stage and Film; in London by the Royal Court Theatre and Donmar Warehouse; and elsewhere. She was the 2017 resident playwright of Chicago’s Eclipse Theatre which produced three of her plays. Her debut novel THE CASTLE CROSS THE MAGNET CARTER was a New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice and the winner of the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. Her second novel MOON AND THE MARS was published in August 2021. Edgar and Writers Guild Outstanding Series awards for David Simon's THE WIRE. Residencies include MacDowell, Blue Mountain Center, Art Omi, Hermitage Retreat, Ucross, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Bellagio Creative Arts Residency (Italy), Dora Maar House (France), Hawthornden Castle (Scotland), Bogliasco Foundation (Italy), Château de Lavigny (Switzerland), Cill Rialaig (Ireland), Siena Art Institute artist in residence (Italy). She serves on the Dramatists Guild Council, is a New Dramatists alumnus, and is a member of the Authors Guild. 

WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA:
Website: https://www.kiacorthron-author.com/bio.htm
Facebook: Kia Corthron
Twitter: @KCorthron

MORE ABOUT ME:
I feel most like myself when I'm writing.

WHAT I'M WORKING ON:
My second novel MOON AND THE MARS was just released, so mostly I've been writing essays and answering Q&As for online journals to promote the book.

KEYWORDS:
​Political, People of Color, Historical

Susane Lee started her writing career in television at WGBH/Boston with the NOVA Science Series, followed by WNET/NYC and Nature. She produced & wrote WILD TV, a series on urban wildlife, for WNET. Susane traveled to more than 100 cities across the U.S. as a Writer and Producer of one-hour documentaries, winning a PBS Communications Award in 1999. Susane is the Executive Artistic Director of Hudson Classical Theater Company, a nonprofit theater company that’s currently in its 18th season. Susane has written numerous adaptions of classical works. Susane took six novels of Alexandre Dumas and wrote The Three Musketeers (2017), The Three Musketeers: 20 Years Later (2018), The Man in the Iron Mask (2019), and The Count of Monte Cristo (2021), for HCTC’s summer stage. Susane has written original adaptations of Jane Austen’s “Pride & Prejudice” (2019) and “Sense & Sensibility (2020). Susane adapted a stage version of the Hollywood Film Classic, His Girl Friday (2017) (which she also directed), and Lysisarah: Make America Great Again! (2016) an original adaptation of Lysistrata, which she directed. As a director, Susane has directed many screenplay reading series with the Writers Guild of America, East at the Lincoln Film Center and at The Guild. In 2016 & 2017, Susane was nominated for Best Director in the Take Ten Festival & in 2018, finalist for Best Play. She has also directed for many years with the Women a Year 365 Festival. Susane was a NY Foundation for the Arts Fellowship recipient for Nonfiction Literature in 2005 and an Urban Artist Initiative Grant Fellow for Fiction in 2006. Her memoir was published in MORE magazine in 2010. Susane is a Lifetime Member of the WGAE & member of SAG/AFTRA. Susane was Finalist for the 2013 Wai Look Award, by the Asian American Arts Alliance for those “who outstandingly contributed to the arts. 

WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA:
Website: http://www.hudsonclassicaltheatercompany.org/index.php
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/hudsonclassicaltheatercompany

MORE ABOUT ME:
The most gratifying moment I had was in the Brooklyn jail. After we performed, we introduced ourselves and said our theater company performs summer theater in Riverside Park. One inmate immediately said, “I’ve been to your shows! I saw your ‘Three Musketeers.’ I appreciated seeing a high quality production when I was broke.” That crystalized why I do what I do: to bring theater to those who don’t have easy access to the arts. After a show in the park, audience members thank me profusely for bringing theater to the city and making it so accessible and enjoyable. So our not having reservations in advance and only asking audiences to pay what they can helps bring arts to all. The play that changed my life was my adaptation of “Lysistrata.” It was 2016 and the only war I saw was the political war and the presidential election. So using that play as a framework, I created a comedy/musical and created characters from the people in politics at the time. I took dialogue from these people verbatim, added my own script, and created a wholly original adaptation of this classic play. I wrote it overnight and it was produced with very minor tweaks. The response to this play was phenomenal and made me trust my ability to write enjoyable, meaningful adaptations of classical work. People may not know that my father is North Korean and my mother is South Korean. These dual aspects of my upbringing shaped me completely and helped form the writer I am today. Growing up in Southern Virginia, where we were the only Asian family in the county, also made me a writer. From the age of 7 to 17, I had no friends. I was very shy and an outsider. This solitary life made me a writer because that’s all I did growing up. 

WHAT I'M WORKING ON:
I am currently reading Frankenstein (M. Shelley) as my next potential stage adaptation for Hudson Classical Theater Company. I'm also toying with an original adaptation of Emma (Jane Austen) for next summer, to produce in our outdoor space. I'll read that novel once I'm finished with Frankenstein! I'm also looking for a bigger space for my theater company. We have our costumes, props, weapons, and other production materials scattered all over the city: in storage units, in people's homes, in our tiny apartment. It's not tenable. I am looking very hard for a space large enough to accommodate our company.

KEYWORDS:
​Korean, Buddhist, Adaptations, Biography, Period, Satire, Thriller, Historical