 LISA DILLMAN is a Chicago-identified playwright whose plays include Ground, Rock Shore, American Wee-Pie, Half of Plenty, The Walls, No Such Thing, Six Postcards, Flung, and Shady Meadows, and Just Cause. Her work has been produced at Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Actors Theatre of Louisville (Humana Festival), American Theatre Company, Seattle Public Theatre, Rogue Machine, Rivendell Theatre Ensemble, Station Theatre, Tipping Point Theatre, Five & Dime, Canamac Productions, and many other companies across the country. She has received commissions from Steppenwolf, Goodman Theatre (Playwrights Unit member, 2010-2011), Northlight Theatre, Rivendell Theatre Ensemble, and the Chicago Humanities Festival. She has also developed work at the O'Neill Playwrights Conference, PlayPenn, NNPN's Showcase of New Plays, Chicago Dramatists (Resident Alumna), ACT Theatre/Hedgebrook’s Women Playwrights Festival, William Inge Theatre Festival, and others. Dillman is a longtime company member and current literary director at Chicago’s Rivendell Theatre Ensemble, where her plays American Wee-Pie, The Walls, Shady Meadows, and Chiaroscuro all had their world premieres. Her filmed monologue "Story of a House" was commissioned by Baltimore Center Stage as part of the "My America" project, directed by Hal Hartley, and viewable via YouTube. Dillman's plays are published by Samuel French/Concord Theatricals and Dramatic Publishing, as well as anthologized in collections from Heinemann, Playscripts Inc., Smith and Kraus, and New Issues Press. American Wee-Pie is due out from Dramatic Publishing Company in 2024.
WEBSITE/SOCIAL MEDIA Website: https://newplayexchange.org/users/249/lisa-dillman FB: https://www.facebook.com/lisa.dillman.96/ MORE ABOUT ME I try not to wallow around in disappointment when it comes to the success or lack of success of my work, but I admit that it can be very tough. I had a few years where I nearly stopped writing entirely. I wallowed then, but I've made a pact with myself that I would never do that again. I write short fiction in addition to plays, and in moments of disappointment and potential wallowing I tend to segue over to this other genre and write something new within it. I try just to keep working on next thing—whatever it may be. I see that women's plays—particularly those by. older women—are produced less often than men's plays, and I do what I can to change that. As both a playwright and the literary director of a small woman-centered theatre company, I'm working to promote, develop, and produce the work of women writers. One big change I'd love to see is more serious and widespread consideration and production opportunities for all the terrific older plays by women that did not get their full due in their initial runs or had one super successful production but then disappeared. I believe that world premiere-itis is still lingering problem in this country, and I can cite a whole lot of Honor Roll plays and playwrights that bear that out. I keep writing plays because it's the kind of writing I love—and do—best, because I'm addicted to the theatre and its various collaborative processes, and because it helps me to root out, understand, and explicate what I believe about our shared world. I also try to write plays that I would really love to see. WHAT I'M WORKING ON I'm working a large-scale theatrical examination of the American loneliness epidemic tentatively titled The Loneliness Project.  Kate Snodgrass is the author of the Actors’ Theatre of Louisville’s Heideman Award-winning and much-anthologized play Haiku. The play has been performed around the world and translated into German, Japanese, and Gaelic; the film “Haiku” premiered at the 1995 Boston Film Festival. Her plays Observatory and The Glider (nominated for the Natl. American Critics Association’s “Steinberg New Play Award”) won the 1999 and the 2005 Boston IRNE Awards for “Best New Play,” respectively. Her one-act plays Bark’s Dream and The Last Bark were produced by Boston’s Sleeping Weazel. Her short plays L’Air Des Alpes; Que Sera, Sera; Critics’ Circle; Code Blue; Wasteland; and Brickwork have been published/anthologized by Cedar Press, Dramatic Publishing Company, Bakers Plays, Smith & Kraus, and Applause Theatre Books, respectively. A Playwriting Fellow with the Huntington Theatre Company (“HTC”), her short radio play Overture may be found on their “Dream Boston” website. The HTC and Hartford Stage Company produced her full-length play The Art of Burning in 2023, directed by Melia Bensussen. Kate is the former Artistic Director of Boston Playwrights’ Theatre and co-founder of the Boston Theater Marathon, now in its 26th year. Kate was designated a “Theatre Hero” in 2001 by StageSource and received Boston’s Elliot Norton Award for Sustained Excellence in 2012; she is the recipient of a 2015 Tanne Foundation Award for her passion and commitment to the theatre. She studied acting at the London Academy of Dramatic Art (LAMDA) and in NYC with disciples of Michael Chekhov and Sanford Meisner, and Voice with Robbie McCauley. Kate is a proud member of the AEA, AFTRA, and The Dramatists Guild.
MORE ABOUT ME: I love to revise. I feel most myself when I’m in the rehearsal room because Theatre is Family, first and always. I keep doing Theatre looking for another transcendent moment—like in Brooks’ Midsummer Night’s Dream, or Shepard’s Fool for Love, or Bernstein’s Candide, or Shaffer’s Equus, or Sondheim’s Passion, or Parks’ Topdog/Underdog, or Lepage’s Far Side of the Moon, or Churchill’s A Number, I could go on….that proves we are none of us alone. WHAT I'M WORKING ON: A play about forgery--artistic and otherwise. KEYWORDS: Mystery, Political, Nature, Equality, Climate, Environmental, Adaptations, Fable/folktales, Young Audiences, Science, Mythology, Farce, Gender, and Death (always).  Kia T. Barbee (she/her) Born and raised in New York City and she has been writing stories since the age of five. She enjoys creating flawed character driven inclusive stories exploring acceptance of self with sometimes non-pc humor. Her play Roommates was nominated to be considered for the 2023 Susan Smith Blackburn Award. As a creative producer and freelance script and development consultant, she has worked with award winning screenwriters and filmmakers to strengthen story structure, character development and dialogue. Her current goal is to continue to create riveting plays for a diverse audience and IP based content for film and televesion, in addition to highlighting and mentoring other underrepresented writers via her live read showcase ScriptRead. She is a member of the WGAE and Dramatist Guild.
SOCIAL MEDIA/WEBSITE TW: KiaBarbee IG: @kiatb MORE ABOUT ME I feel most like myself when I'm creating stories and producing. It's my happy place. / What's one thing nobody knows about you that nobody (creative peers) don't know? I'm an bonafide animal lover and wanted to become a veterinarian. My favorite animals are cats (big and small) and wolves. WHAT I'M WORKING ON A new full length play about teachers called Snobs Vs The Underdogs to be completed by early fall. KEYWORDS Black, BIPOC, Queer, Buddhist, Satire, Dramedy, Drama, Psychological Thriller, Supernatural/Sci-Fi, Dystopian, Teen Dramas  Tracie Evette Morrison resides in Newark, New Jersey. She earned her BA in English from Rutgers University, Douglass College, and her MA in Counseling from Montclair State University. A former high school Teacher of English and Professional School Counselor, Tracie is currently a high school Vice Principal. Her inaugural stage play, The Prayer Dancer, was performed at the George Street Playhouse in 2004 and later published in 2015. Tracie returned to developing her craft as a playwright through the Writers Theatre of New Jersey Playwriting Workshop in 2019 and is currently a member of the Dramatist Guild, African American Playwrights Group (AAPG) and Honor Roll Playwrights. In November 2021, Tracie released her new book, PRAY-ER Talk, Listen Obey: Starting and Strengthening Conversations with God. Her 10-Minute play Flip Your Lid was selected for a reading in the MAC One Acts Festival in June 2022. Preach, Preacher, Tracie’s newest full-length play was selected for the Reader's Theatre of New Works at the National Black Theatre Festival in August 2022 and for the Pacific Northwest Multicultural Festival in August 2023. Her 10-Minute play Water Bar will be presented in the Jersey Voices 2023 Festival. Tracie is excited to share her writing with others and hopes to inspire, encourage and empower diverse audiences!!!
SOCIAL MEDIA AND WEBSITE IG: @playwrightgirl FB: TracieTheWriter MORE ABOUT ME When I'm not writing, I enjoy the art of daydreaming. Daydreaming allows me to separate from the harsh and sometimes cruel reality of life. I don't have to wear the "I'm every woman cape". I don't have be "Black woman strong"...I can just be in the space of my daydreams. It is safe, calming and, at times, cleansing to just be... WHAT I'M WORKING ON I am currently working on 10-Minute play and a project for work. KEYWORDS BIPOC, Female, Christian, Authentic, Drama/Comedy, Relationships, Relevant, Unique  Jeanmarie Simpson wrote and performed her first solo show in Toronto in 1972. She wrote and performed hundreds of times (including Off-Broadway) A Single Woman about Jeannette Rankin, the first US Congresswoman. She performed the piece at CalArts as Surdna Distinguished Guest Artist in 2005 and starred in the film version that features Judd Nelson, the voices of Martin Sheen and Patricia Arquette, and Joni Mitchell’s music. After winning the Sacramento News and Review’s Best Theatrical Surprise award, A Single Woman toured 53 countries on five continents. Tony Award winner Zakes Mokae directed her as Elsa in his 2003 staging of The Road to Mecca, and in 2007, Leonard Nimoy directed her in the US premiere of Vern Thiessen’s solo tour-de-force, Shakespeare’s Will. She again toured the world with Coming In Hot, playing 19 military women. From 2011-19, she toured globally with her original solo performance HERETIC – the Mary Dyer story. In 2021, her play Pineapple and Other Options played in the Pandora New Works Festival and was staged and filmed in Phoenix, and her play The Jewish Question won Honorable Mention by the Jewish Plays Project. In 2022, she won a Living History Foundation grant for Bambino Mio – Bright Little Flame about Maria Montessori. She is the recipient of six Sierra Arts Foundation and twelve Nevada Arts Council grants to artists, a National Endowment for the Arts Theatre grant, and myriad other awards. Founding Artistic Director of Universal Access Productions/Arizona Theatre Matters, based in Arizona, Nevada, and on the company’s YouTube channel, she served on the panel for the 2023 National Endowment for the Arts Theatre Grants for Arts Projects. Jeanmarie is a member of the Stage Directors and Choreographer’s Society, the Dramatists Guild of America, and is retired from Actors Equity Association and Screen Actors Guild/AFTRA.
SOCIAL MEDIA AND WEBSITE Website: http://jeanmariesimpson.com MORE ABOUT ME From a long line of bilingual writer-editors and a long line of WASPS too polite to even read the kind of political journalism my mother’s people wrote, I clearly take after her side of the family. Growing up with a mother and grandmother to run to when I needed help writing was a luxury. Having the Spanish and English languages to play with, as well as the profoundly Yiddish-informed Brooklynese my mother spoke, gave me a love of language and permission to play with words. I came to look to those fierce critics, not for approval but for the sharpness and clarity my work needed regardless of form. In my mid-forties, I felt I had earned the right to fictionalize. I am a Feminist, and I’m drawn to the stories of strong women who prevailed in the face of discrimination and repression. My work is influenced by non-traditional staging techniques developed in Eastern Europe during times when resources were nonexistent, and theatre was a crime. I am an archaeologist of the collective soul discovered when I explore the lives and events of others – women who lived before running water, brick houses, and suffrage. Women inspire me when they step out of their assigned places and with my work, I aspire to cast light on their stories and, in the process, illuminate my own. WHAT I'M WORKING ON A Little Bumpy Air - a memoir about surviving childhood sexual assault, ongoing abuse and loss. KEYWORDS Writer, Mother, Grandmother, Political, Historical, Queer, Jewish Latina.  A queer playwright residing in the DC area, Anne strives for a depiction of humanity that lets itself off the hook—people are going to make mistakes and decisions that can seem flawed at times. She believes that in today’s world one of the toughest things to come by is someone who will let you off the hook, who will say it’s okay to be flawed, it’s okay not to have conquered all of your challenges, it’s okay to have humble dreams. It’s okay… Receiving a PhD in Literature from Temple University, Anne has made writing the center of her professional life for the past twenty years. She’s had plays presented by Baltimore Playwright’s Festival, Rockford New Words, Jersey City Theatre Center, Arts Fort Worth Original Works Series, Philadelphia Artists Collective, Burlington County Footlighters New Works Festival, Project Y Women Theatre Festival (Honor Roll! Monologue Slam), Stella Adler Studio, Creative 360 Art Speaks Festival, among others. She lives with her fiancée and their 2 highly untrainable pups, Tiberius and Athena—Goddess of Wisdom.
SOCIAL MEDIA/WEBSITE Website: http://anne-valentino.com MORE ABOUT ME Why do I keep doing theatre? I came out later in life. Too late to avoid many of the emotional issues that made a huge chunk of my twenties and thirties a blur of self-abnegation. I married my high school sweetheart. I had what you’d call a checkbox kind of life. Colonial house on 2.3 acres – check, yellow lab – check, PTA mom – check, country club membership – check. But it was never a life I fit into. Just a life I faked my way through. And then, when my children grew up, I began to understand that faking one’s way through life was the most empty feeling in the world. I came out just before 40. I eventually met the woman of my dreams…a woman who taught me how to dream. And I began my writing career in earnest. I initially focused on writing poetry and personal essays, tried my hand at a novel or two. But what I found was that these forms of writing, for me at least, were in some ways more of the same—I still felt isolated and alone. And then I began writing plays. The very first time I got to attend a rehearsal and watch what I wrote come alive as embodied by these wonderful actors was absolute nirvana for me. Then when an audience was involved—my god, what bliss! I was enthralled, I was smitten with theatre, I knew I’d found my writing “home.” In the theatre, not only do I get to tell my story (my real story), but I get to do so in a communal way as a member of a "family." I get to truly be a part of something and I get to make art while doing it…now what can be better than that! WHAT I'M WORKING ON Currently, a couple of pieces...One is a play about the women scientists and researchers who tried to prove the existence of a Viking Warrior Woman despite the many doubters. And the second is a fictional account of Anne Sexton and the formation of her "band." KEYWORDS Lesbian, queer, LGBTQIA+, magical realism, romantic comedies, dark comedies, absurdist, political activism  Internationally produced queer playwright Bayla Travis began writing and directing at NYC's famed WOW Cafe Theatre. Since then, her work has been seen at the Belvoir St. Theatre in Sydney, the Drill Hall Theatre in London and cities across the U.S. Her work has broad appeal across generations of lesbians as well as to general audiences. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing and loves teaching writing of all genres. Bayla has also worked in television at the The Cosby Show and the PBS show In The Life. She makes her home in Oakland, CA.
SOCIAL MEDIA: https://newplayexchange.org/users/14829/bayla-travis MORE ABOUT ME: I saw A Chorus Line many times. I was swept up in the music and stories of artistic struggle. The finale of that show is all the members coming together to sing in unison. Each is critical part of the whole. This is how I see the collaborative work of theatre; and opportunity for exquisite joy in community, for belonging. I call in creative partners who hold this vision and have skills to bring it into reality with compassion. WHAT I'M WORKING ON As a member of the Executive Committee of Honor Roll! I am in service to women+ to live their best creative lives by holding each other up and collectively removing obstacles to our visibility and full participation in theatre. KEYWORDS: Lesbian, Queer, Buddhist, Jewish  Jackie got a BFA in acting from Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University. After graduating she moved to NYC where she performed Off-Broadway, Off-Off Broadway and Where-The-Hell-Is Broadway before landing a role in the Off-Broadway production "Tony n'Tina's Wedding". She has been lucky enough to be a part of the Lincoln Center New Works Series, The Public Theatre’s Reading Series, The New York Fringe Festival and to perform at the National Theatre in Washington, DC. She’s also done commercials, voiceovers and stand-up comedy in all the major clubs before making her way to Los Angeles in 2000. In Los Angeles, she’s continued to do theatre and in 2001 she received an Ovation Award nomination for her solo show, “Last Stop: Neverland” which she wrote and performed. She also did short films, was a regular skit performer on Fox’s THE BEST DAMNED SPORTS SHOW EVER and can also be heard as the voice of Harley on the Xbox games "Outlaw Golf I and II", "Outlaw Volleyball" and "Outlaw Tennis". In 2007 she was featured on National Lampoon Comedy Radio Networks’ Comedy Countdown, the Los Angeles Comedy Festival and the Las Vegas Comedy Festival while performing stand-up in clubs in and around Los Angeles. In 2009 Jackie moved back to New York City where she continues to pursue her acting career and is a proud member of The Barrow Group/FAB (theater FOR, ABOUT and BY women).
WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA Website: http://www.jackiemaruschak.com FB: Facebook.com/jackiemaruschak MORE ABOUT ME I keep doing theater because it was my first, truest and longest lasting love. It is where I feel most alive. It's been there for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health and I will love and cherish doing it until death do us part. WHAT I'M WORKING ON I am currently playing the Nurse/Lady Montague in an upcoming production of MAD Company's Romeo & Juliet at the Abrons Arts Center (3/23 - 4/2) and writing a solo show with the working title "RAISED BY WOMEN". KEYWORDS Comedy, Women of a Certain Age, Theater, Storytelling  Rosemary’s plays, for which she has won several NJ State Council on the Arts Playwriting Fellowships, include Pushing the River, Jersey City Theatre Center, (developed in residency with the New Jersey Women’s Playwrights Project) a darkly comic exploration of memory, consciousness and eminent domain; A More Opportune Time, a free adaptation of Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus; and Paterson Falls, commissioned by Writers Theatre of New Jersey, about about silk strikes, salons and the power of theatre. Earlier plays include Standing in the Shadows (Wings Theatre, inspired by the Sharon Kowalski story); Voices Carry (Drew University); Motherless Child (Chicago Cooperative Stage); Horsefeathers, Women Playwrights Collective (Intimate Acts play anthology, Brito Lair); The Raw and the Cooked (Hallie Flanagan Play Series).
Shorter works include: Wombats, 10Fest; The Hanukkah Bush, Speranza Theatre; Breaking Quarantine, The Coronavirus Plays Project; Texas Walmart, Monologues & Madness, Panjera; Bella For The Revolution, Monologues and Madness, Cornelia Street Cafe; Sensitive, SHEatre; Can-Can, Cathedral Arts Live; and Totally Not Liam, Speranza Theatre Company. A member of the Dramatists Guild, Rosemary serves on the board of directors of ICWP (International Centre for Women Playwrights). She is a founding member both of Sheilah, a mixed genre writers group as well as Write Where You Are, for playwrights. Rosemary received her MFA from Rutgers. She is a professor of Theatre and Dance at Drew University where she directs the Playwriting program. She and her wife, Laurie Wurm, live in Maplewood, NJ, with their two children, three cats and one hamster.
WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA FB @RosemaryMcL Twitter @RosemaryMcL IG rpmclaugh Spoutible @RosemaryMcLaughlin MORE ABOUT ME Senior year of high school I was visiting a friend in DC. I’d always loved A Midsummer Night’s Dream and we heard it was playing at the Kennedy Center. We showed up at the box office an hour after the early curtain, doubly disappointed to learn it was sold out. Seeing people come out for the first intermission, we decided to follow them inside and lurk in the back of the theatre until someone threw us out. They would have had a fight on their hands. What we had stumbled into was THE Midsummer, directed by Peter Brook. I’d grown up going to Broadway, thanks to the two-fer discount tickets my Dad would bring home, but nothing had prepared me for what I was seeing: a white box with trapezes representing Athens and the forest. Sally Jacobs’ brilliant set design and how Brook’s direction used it blew me away. Everything about this RSC production made me think: “THIS is what theatre can be and do!” Ten years later, enrolled in Rutgers Playwriting MFA program, I could hardly believe it when they announced Sally Jacobs would be teaching stage design there. I took every class with her I could. She was a delight, thoroughly inspirational and vastly good humored about my scrambling to catch up with classmates who actually had a design background. Her impact, and that of Peter Brook, have had a lasting influence on my work as a playwright and as a teacher of playwrights. WHAT I'M WORKING ON Works-in-progress include Thank You, Dark (developed in residency with Women Playwrights Circle) about gentrification, theatre and LGBTQ+ activism; Seven Fishermen, inspired by a would-be missionary’s tragic encounter with uncontacted people; and The Triumph of Realism, a screenplay in which a retired Art Historian’s past becomes a thriller for her grandchildren. KEYWORDS Gay, LGBTQ+, Women, Comedy, Lesbian, Satire, Historical, Political, Gentrification, Liminal, Adaptations  Michole Biancosino is the Co-Founding Artistic Director of Project Y Theatre Company. With Project Y, she has led various professional productions, as producer, director, creator and writer. Her credits included the long-running shows, Trump Lear (co-created and directed) and the award-winning, David Carl’s Celebrity One-Man Hamlet (co-created and directed), both of which toured regionally and performed at Edinburgh Fringe, as co-productions with Richard Jordan Productions (UK), The Pleasance, and Underbelly. Recently Michole has been devising and writing plays. Since the pandemic she’s ventured into digital theatre-making and hybrid theatre in Vermont via Tiny Barn Theatre. Recently she co-wrote the cosmic raga opera, Waves of Gravity with Neel Murgai (LaMama CultureHub) in 2021. She was also the co-creator of the award-winning “Landmarks & Transformations.” Currently, she’s co-writing and creating an app-enabled play with digital technologist, Todd Anderson. As a performer, she’s currently playing the title role in Lia Romeo’s one woman show, Yoga With Jillian, and was just featured on “All Things Considered,” Recipient: Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers, Sir John Gielgud Fellowship. Michole has been featured on Amy Poehler’s Smart Girls for her work with the Women in Theatre Festival.
WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA Website: www.projectytheatre.org FB:https://www.facebook.com/michole.biancosino IG: https://www.instagram.com/projectytheatre/ MORE ABOUT ME Many of my most successful projects come out of outside-the-box processes, where my multi-hyphenate theatre-making identity comes in handy. I am interested in playing with the relationship between the artist and the audience, reimagining what theatre is and can be. On any given new play or project, I want to find a way to surprise the audience and surprise myself as an artist. I especially love making works with a large number of writers/creators involved, bringing together a multiplicity of voices alongside my own to create both dissonance and harmony. My latest ventures are in experimental theatre-making using a combination of analog and digital technologies to form connections with the audience and test out the notion of community. WHAT I'M WORKING ON I'm working on putting together the annual Women in Theatre in New York City in June at ART/New York Theatres. It's an incredible celebration of new work by women+ writers and lead generative artists and I am excited about this year's lineup (as always!). KEYWORDS Women, New Plays, New Works, Immersive, Hybrid, digital theatre, Historical, Experimental, Edinburgh Fringe, Writer/Director, Shakespeare |
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