C.E. Wilkinson co-founded Kuku Ryku Theater Lab, an all-female professional not-for-profit experimental theater based in New York (funded by the NEA, NYSCA, et al.). With the company, original work was seen at experimental theater festivals in the US and Europe. Other plays by Wilkinson have been produced in New York, Nepal, South Africa, and Kenya. Born in New England, ex-resident of NYC and Kathmandu, Wilkinson lives on Cape Cod with her family. She knows a little Tibetan and grows historic iris--badly. Wilkinson’s style is anti-naturalistic, often making use of repetition and ritual. Her scripts are designed for actors willing to embody an unrestricted, present-centered physicality, a la Grotowski, Brook, and Mabou Mines' Joanne Akalaitis and Ruth Malaczech. She ponders seeking a revival of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg Meet Sacco and Vanzetti!!! (or, Patrick Henry in Hell), a full-length dark comedy featuring 4-part chorale in the manner of Bach by Schrier-Roth & Associates, entitled "Death to the Fascist Insect That Preys on the Life of the People." Responses to Sacco!: “If Andy Warhol and Eugene Ionesco had collaborated on an audio-visual version of American Political Tradition, they might have created something akin to C.E. Wilkinson’s hilarious new American tragedy, ‘Sacco & Vanzetti Meet Julius & Ethel Rosenberg!!!’” -- Eva Saks, Casting Call “An hysterical yet thoughtful play, unique in its conception and execution.” – Show Business Responses to Island, Briar Rose, and Going Home. “Stunning . . . an articulate madness . . . adventurous, full of risks.” -- Allan Havis, Our Town “An enlightening extension of authentic Grotowski training.” – Ted Hoffman, Alternative Theater “I thought the performance extraordinary. I don’t know when I have ever seen energy sustained at such a level of intensity or such gigantic figures on stage.” --Steven Weil, The Whitney Museum 

MORE ABOUT ME
Most life changing moment in theater. Life-changing? Wil Leach's LaMama ETC Company's performance at La MaMa of "The Only Jealousy of Emer" and "Reynard the Fox."

WHAT I'M WORKING ON
Polishing a full-length play called "Vengeance Is Mine, Sayeth Marie" and also working on a new one which is still gestating.

KEYWORDS
​Recovered existentialist, ruthless petulant buddhist, humorless feminist psychotherapist dramatist

Jill Maynard’s plays have been produced from New York to LA, 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; TRY THIS AT HOME (Aery Theatre Festival, Garrison, NY); and FREE SHIPPING EVERY DAY (Axial Theatre, Pleasantville, NY). Recent stage and Zoom productions include INEZ & ALICE CONSORT (Spark Creative Works, Huntington, NY); DESIGNATED DRIVER (New Deal Creative Arts, Hyde Park, NY); and GETTING BACK TO SWITZERLAND (Stage Left, Spokane, WA). A former member of The Women’s Project in New York, she’s a three-time finalist for the Heideman Award and a finalist for the FDG/CBS New Plays Award. As an actress, Jill has worked in film and TV, where she originated the role of Mavis Davis in the long-running comedy series "Doc," as well as appearing on New York and regional stages. 

WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA
Website: http://jill-maynard.com
FB: jill.maynard.188
TW: @Jill_may5
IG: @jillmaynard7109

MORE ABOUT ME
I keep doing theatre because I have no choice in the matter. From a very young age, I had an abiding faith that this was what I was born to do. This faith has been sorely tried much of the time but also thrillingly rewarded often enough that I carry on.

WHAT I'M WORKING ON
​My current obsession is playing with time and forging connections between events across different timelines, in the spirit of Tom Stoppard's ARCADIA.

Julia Stewart is an author, musical book writer and lyricist. She dabbles in comedic writing. She has published ten non-fiction books, mostly on subjects related to Africa, a continent where she lived for two decades working with relief and development organizations. Her musical, called Marfa, is undergoing table reads and the song composition is underway. She has a home in Merida, Mexico, and travels frequently to New York City to take classes, eat great food, and see theater. 

WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA
Website: https://marfamusical.com/

MORE ABOUT ME
When I'm not writing, I am running, hashing (as in the hash house harriers), renovating houses, learning more Spanish, buying too much furniture, and sometimes working as an editor and writer for pay. 

WHAT I'M WORKING ON
Marfa, the musical and TV pilots.

KEYWORDS
​Musical, comedy, Africa, improv, sitcom, sketch comedy, cancer, Mexico, Merida, hashing

Laureen Vonnegut is an American novelist, playwright and screenwriter who lives between Romania and Mexico. She also directs and produces theater and film. Her multidisciplinary work leans toward female centric stories using transgenerational characters to explore their interactions and dialogues. Common themes and subjects are characters searching for their lost identity and epiphany driven plots.

WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA
Website: www.lvonnegut.com
FB: https://www.facebook.com/lvonnegut
IG:https://www.instagram.com/laureenvonnegut/ TW:https://mobile.twitter.com/laureenvonnegut

MORE ABOUT ME
Years ago, I lived in London, and it was there that I discovered my love for intimate theater. I'd been to dozens of big productions and never found the connection with the actors that I had with smaller venues. To be able to see the actors and their expressions seemed to be the ultimate privilege. I felt like I was in on a secret. I let that love of intimate theater circulate in my brain until my first play, The Porcini Test which was inspired by a conversation between friends about the ultimate test of a romantic partner. What if he or she didn't know what the word porcini was?

WHAT I'M WORKING ON
My next theater project, 2050: THE YOLDERS is a dystopian comedy, a generational battle fueled by the insatiable quest for youth. What happens when the old become young again? When a world is destroyed by past generations’ irresponsible actions? The young band together and a clash of the ages begins…

KEYWORDS
​Black comedy, climate, dystopia, family drama, the future, science fiction. 

Lee Phenner is a playwright, book writer, lyricist, and voice actor. An Oregon Shakespeare Festival Black Swan Lab writer for A Pint of Understanding (music by Joel LaRue Smith and Joseph Smith), works include the dramatic monologue Synaptic Fires produced by Brave New World Rep, screenplay Celia Now and Then (quarterfinalist, MORE Women in Film Screenplay Contest,) and the concept and text of “Circle of the First,” a choral work with music by Robert D. Terrio.  Lee holds an MFA in creative writing from Emerson College where she received Duprey awards for screenwriting and poetry and was selected for the Ploughshares International Fiction Seminar at Kasteel Well, Netherlands. She is a member of StageSource, New Play Exchange, Honor Roll, and an associate member of the Dramatists Guild of America.

WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA
Website: https://pintmusical.com/
Instagram: @leephenner
Facebook: @lee.phenner
Twitter: @leephenner
LinkedIn: @leephenner

MORE ABOUT ME
The production that changed my life was Sunday in the Park with George (original Broadway cast). Sondheim accelerated his trajectory of weaving exceptional lyrics with inventive yet inevitable music, and with James Lapine’s book and direction, explored themes including artistic vision and “seeing" (which remains a fixation of mine), the business of art, passion and commitment, and connection in ways that still move me to tears. 

WHAT I'M WORKING ON
A Pint of Understanding - a musical (book & lyrics) Music by Joel LaRue Smith and Joseph Smith. Summary: It’s 2012 — a pivot point, with racial tensions in America escalating and about to explode. When white police officer Tim O’Connor arrests African American scholar Chester Washington III while investigating an alleged burglary at his home, two very different stories emerge, and the media erupts. The U.S. president invites them to have a beer at the White House and tasks them with leading a national listening tour about race in America. The professor’s daughter, Chloe Washington, films the tour, and she, Tim and Chester prove to be a radioactive trio as they question their very identities and their worldviews — and their lives — are put on the line. A jazz-inspired multi-genre score drives this examination of racism, white supremacy, individual perspectives, collective blindspots — and hope.

KEYWORDS
​political, social, social justice, racism, racial justice, equity, diverse, diversity, white supremacy, white privilege, unconscious bias, implicit bias, musical, intergenerational, lesbian, queer

I’m an LA based, New York transplant playwright, lyricist, screenwriter and actor. A graduate of The University of Vermont, I’m a lover of cheese, cross country and downhill skiing, and Ben & Jerry’s. In my non-linear career as a playwright/lyricist, I’ve earned support from the York Theatre, Samuel French’s Off Off Broadway New Play Festival, Ensemble Studio Theatre LA, City Theatre Miami, The Road Theatre Company, and INKfest, (upcoming), to name a few. I was a finalist for the City Theatre National Short Play Award and am a member of EST/LA, the Los Angeles Female Playwrights Initiative (LAFPI), The Ensemble Studio Theatre LA Playwrights Unit, Honor Roll!, ASCAP, WGA, and SAG-AFTRA. Produced work: CLUB MOM (Hudson Backstage Theatre, Musical Theatre Guild, York Theatre) written with composer Gerald Sternbach is licensed by Stage Rights. THE BELLS OF WEST 87th ST. (reading at The Road Theatre, later produced at the Greenway Arts Center) THE CANDIDATE (Red Eye 10’s International Play Festival, Open Eye Theatre), A LITTLE CULTURE, (Eden Prairie Players, Santa Paula Theatre, ACME New Works Festival, Greenhouse Ensemble), STELLA!! for EST/LA’s Digital Theatre Festival, THE SYNDROME (Theatre of Light, North Park Vaudeville & Candy Shoppe, EST-LA. THINGS THAT MATTERED (a short musical written) Four Quarter Theatre in NYC, EST/LA’s One Act Play Festival. Published: “Applause Theatre Book’s: Contemporary Monologues for Kids 7-15,” “The Collective Ten Play Anthology” and “Smith and Kraus’s Best Ten Minute Plays of 2015.” Film: Casey229 circuited film festivals 2019-20 (nominated in various categories, including “Best Comedy”). Television writer/producer: Mad About You, Baby Bob, Dream On, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Jackie Thomas Show, Rugrats, The Wild Thornberries, The Gregory Hines Show, Life’s Work, John Leguizamo’s House of Buggin’, Pinky and the Brain. I also developed the pilot Pond Life for Four Boys Entertainment (Patricia Heaton’s company). 

WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA
Website: http://ElinHampton.com
IG: @elinhampton
TW:@El_hampton
FB: https://www.facebook.com/elin.hampton

MORE ABOUT ME
When I'm not writing, I'm performing... and that includes singing in the car. (A benefit to living in Los Angeles). My younger self performed at NY’s The Duplex many times and I was in the resident company of the Manhattan Punch Line. I studied with NY’s First Amendment (and later, The Groundlings in LA). I sang in the chorus of “Broadway Salutes” at Lincoln Center, acted with The Champlain Shakespeare Festival, Florida Studio Theatre, Keene Summer Theatre, and The Gilbert and Sullivan Players. Recently, during a lull in the pandemic, I was in an (international cast) production of “The Serpent” at Los Angeles’s Odyssey Theatre. I've acted in the LA Fringe Festival, have played princesses in musicals w/the Nine O’Clock Players (I'm petite, wear a wig, and the kids are really far away), and many sketch shows and plays. My love of words have led me to be on a few game shows on television and have even won some money! 

WHAT I'M WORKING ON
I have two projects in development. Most recently, I’ve been hungrily researching and filling blank pages with an early draft about three young girls who worked for the Dutch resistance. It’s my first attempt at an historical play and I’m really excited about it. My composer collaborator (Gerald Sternbach) and I have written a family friendly Christmas musical (I wrote the book and lyrics) entitled A VERY CHERRY CHRISTMAS. In it, (Ms.) Cherry Claus is the real brains and backbone of the holiday, and until now has been okay being the silent partner, but not anymore! Jerry and I are looking to attach a director who will be a good fit for the project, moving forward. In the meantime, we are sending our demo and script out to musical development programs. Open to any and all suggestions! 

KEYWORDS
​Theatricality, laughter, inanimate objects, animals, marriage, aging, family musicals, adult musicals, historical plays, holiday musical, lesbian, colorblind casting, entertainment

Velina Hasu Houston’s literary career began Off-Broadway at Manhattan Theatre Club, expanding globally. A playwright and musical theatre/opera librettist, she also is an essayist, published poet, screenwriter, novelist, and journalist with over 30 writing commissions. Honored by several organizations such as the Kennedy Center, Rockefeller Foundation, Japan Foundation, Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Theatre Communications Group, and Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, she founded graduate playwriting studies at the School of Dramatic Arts, University of Southern California, and directed dramatic writing studies there for 31 years. At USC, she is a presidentially appointed Distinguished Professor of Theatre, USC Resident Playwright and USC Iovine Young Academy faculty. For six years, she served on the U.S. Department of State's U.S.-Japan Conference on Cultural and Educational Interchange and the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission. A Fulbright Scholar, her archives are at the Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens, San Marino, California. She has lectured or participated in research symposia at key universities in Japan: Aoyama Gakuin University, Osaka University, Kyoto University, Doshisha University and Keio University. She is a member of the Dramatists’ Guild, Writers’ Guild of America-West, Alliance of Los Angeles Playwrights, League of Professional Theatre Women, and the International Centre for Women Playwrights. She is Writers’ Odyssey Associate Artist at the Odyssey Theatre Ensemble, Los Angeles, and affiliated with New Circle Theatre Company, New York. 

WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA
Website: https://www.velinahasuhouston.com/
IG: @gyokurogirl

MORE ABOUT ME
If you could bring one change to theater, what would it be? If I could bring one change to theatre, I would summon a greater breadth for it with regards to the inclusion of female voices, female voices of color, and voices of writers over the age of fifty.

WHAT I'M WORKING ON
Several film and theatre projects.

KEYWORDS
​Immigrant, migrant, polycultural, mixed race, polytheism, sociopolitical, equality, queer, historical, musical

Joyce Van Dyke’s plays include Daybreak (Off-Broadway world premiere, Pan Asian Repertory Theatre), The Women Who Mapped the Stars (commissioned and produced by Central Square Theater), A Girl’s War (Golden Thread Productions, New Repertory Theatre, Boston Playwrights’ Theatre), and The Oil Thief (commissioned by Ensemble Studio Theatre / Sloan Project, produced by Boston Playwrights’ Theatre). In 2021, two new plays had readings: American Othello (staged reading, Gloucester Stage Company), and The Prize (commissioned by Martha’s Vineyard Playhouse, zoom reading); and her new solo show about Julia Ward Howe, Representation And How To Get It, had a first production at Hardwick Town House in Central Mass. Her adaptation of her play, The Women Who Mapped the Stars, commissioned for touring to schools, will begin touring in 2022 in Maine. Joyce is a MacDowell Fellow and Huntington Playwriting Fellow whose work has been supported by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, Massachusetts Cultural Council, AGBU, and United States Artists Projects. Other playwriting awards include the Gassner Award, the Elliot Norton Award for Outstanding New Script, and The Boston Globe’s “Top Ten” plays of the year, and her plays have been anthologized in Contemporary Armenian American Drama and Laugh Lines: Short Comic Plays. Trained originally as a Shakespearean, she later completed the Boston University playwriting program under Derek Walcott and Kate Snodgrass. She has taught Shakespeare for many years at Harvard Extension School where she won the Shattuck Teaching Prize and where she currently teaches playwriting. 

WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA
Website: http://www.joycevandyke.com
FB: Joyce Van Dyke
TW: @JoyceVanDyke 

MORE ABOUT ME
Reading all of Shakespeare's plays from the beginning to the end of his career in their (probable) order of composition changed my life. To watch his unceasing development – to see that he wasn't always "Shakespeare"! – but that he evolved, and you could watch that evolution over two decades as he experimented in every play with language and form and genre. I was fascinated by how he worked and reworked certain situations and characters in successive plays: e.g., the woman accused of adultery whose passionately outspoken friend comes to her defense (Beatrice, Emilia, Paulina); how he invented monologues/direct address to leverage character and audience into a free-fall into the unknown depths of the self (Hamlet, Angelo); how he began to give more and more to his minor characters; how brilliantly he revised even tiny details, single words; how deeply he researched his subjects – reading everything he could get his hands on, to judge from the source studies. And throughout, his fascination and empathy with strangers / the other / the "foreigner" – including, as I see it, women; and his bone-deep understanding that any human being, any person/persona, is an actor . . . and I would never have had that reading experience if I hadn’t been in an English graduate program that required me to choose a "major figure" to study. It turned out to be the wrong path for my life, but it put me on the right path. 

WHAT I'M WORKING ON
I want to write about the climate crisis and am trying to figure out how. 

KEYWORDS
​Lyrical, climate, dream play, eros, women scientists, time-bending, social justice, civil rights, political, Armenian, Middle Eastern

Erin Osgood (she/her) is a playwright, actress, and Dramatists Guild member living in Michigan. She has a Master’s in Social Work from the University of Michigan and is an active volunteer with the Make-a-Wish Foundation of Michigan. Erin’s work has been produced throughout the country and abroad. Her plays include: THE AFTER (2021 Semi-Finalist Garry Marshall Theatre’s New Works Festival, 2021 Semi-Finalist Wild Imaginings’ New Works Festival), FAMILY PAINS (2018 Concert Reading at Purple Rose Theatre, 2017 CTAM winner, 2017 Finalist Todd McNerney Playwriting Award, 2016 Finalist Henley Rose Playwright Competition for Women), MINOR DEVIATIONS (2020 Barrington Stage Company’s 10x10 Festival, 2018 Best Play Sandbox Festival, 2019 Estrogenius Festival NYC, 2019 MadLab), and PASSING THE BUCK (2015 Sandbox Festival).

WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA
Website:https://www.erinosgood.com
IG:@osgooderin
TW: @erinosgood
FB: Erin Osgood
NPX: https://newplayexchange.org/users/13416/erin-osgood

MORE ABOUT ME
Disappointment is a constant in a creative's life. More specifically, rejection can feel like your heart has been ripped out of your chest, kicked around, and thrown in a dumpster. Starting out as an actor, I have not been cast in many roles that I really wanted. I never knew rejection until I began to write. Putting your soul into a script, sending it out in the world and letting complete strangers decide its value and worthiness is a tortuous endeavor. Why in the world would I subject myself to this? Why do I open the emails that most likely have bad news? Because I have to. I have stories in me that just have to come out. I write for myself, and I do love when others like my stories, but creating the story is my reward. Now, I may be disappointed I missed out on an opportunity, but I keep my eyes to the future.

WHAT I'M WORKING ON
I have a few projects I am working on. Three full length plays: The After, My Mother, the Serial Killer, and Emergency Protocol Camouflage. I am also working on a script written specifically for Covid times that will be filmed using Zoom and other formats. Its title is Eyes to the Stars.

KEYWORDS
​Environmental, climate, science fiction, apocalyptic, mystery, equality, people of color, badass women roles

DANA SCHWARTZ is a Los Angeles writer, director, producer and actress. Her play "@Playaz" was a 2019 O'Neill Finalist and had its World Premiere in November 2021 at the Atwater Playhouse produced by Moving Arts. Her award winning play "Early Birds" had its World Premiere in 2019, and is published by Next Stage Press . "Perspective" enjoyed its World Premiere at Theater at the Museum at LACMA. "The PTA" and "That Time She Proposed" were in several productions of the internationally renowned Car Plays, notably at REDcat LA, Disney Hall, Segerstrom Arts and Costa Mesa. "Undead" was produced at Theater Roulette in Cleveland in 2021, “Magical Roots $20” will be part of the Women in the Arts and Media Collection in 2021, and "O My Days" is published by Montag Press. She is co-creator, writer and stars in the 9 episode Zoom series "Isolation Inn", currently airing online. As an actress she has performed all around the world. She is the co-creator and Producer of Theater at the Museum at LACMA, and is currently the Producer of the MADlab New Play Development Program at Moving Arts, where she is a company member. 

WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA
Website: http://www.danawritesplays.com
IG: danaschwartz24
TW: danaschwartz29

MORE ABOUT ME
I keep doing theater because I love it. I started as an actress, moved to directing after I had kids, and started writing in a fit of pique after a particularly evil PTA meeting. I keep doing theater so that I have a creative outlet. So that I can continue to meet incredible people and learn amazing things. So that I can provide some fun things to do for creative types. I keep doing theater because I'd like to believe that I can give a voice to those may not always have one. I keep doing theater because without it, the world would be a little duller. 

WHAT I'M WORKING ON
Typically I have at least three pieces I'm working on (right now there are five I think!), plus I produce the MADlab New Play Development program at Moving Arts, so I also get to work with writers on their new plays. Plus a little acting and directing. And I have two teen aged boys, so I'm also working on raising nice men. Yay!

KEYWORDS
​Los Angeles, Jewish, comedy, immersive/site-specific, dark comedy, video games, game shows, magic, cruise ship, one location, parenting, dancers, menopause