Gillian Fritzsche is a writer, director, and producer with 15+ years of experience. She has worked in theater, film, and the documentary space, as well as corporate content and awards shows. 

WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA
Website: https://gillianfritzsche.com/
TW: @fritchbeetle
IG: @fritchbeetle

MORE ABOUT ME
A recent memory was standing at the back of the theater and listening to the audience laugh at the jokes and the funny moments I wrote. I love bringing joy to people. 

WHAT I'M WORKING ON
Currently, I have several feature screenplays that I'm working on. I have a slate of short Christmas plays that I would like to make available.

KEYWORDS
​Family, Children, Christian, Holiday, Romance, Adventure

Pam’s musical, "Urban Momfare" (composer/lyricist/co-book writer), won a Best Musical award, at the New York International Fringe Festival, garnered four stars and a Critics Pick from Time Out. Pam’s award-winning plays and musicals have been seen on stages throughout New York and nationally, including Primary Stages, Naked Angels, Theatre Now New York, The Group Rep/Lonny Chapman Theatre, Southwest Theatre Productions, and Emerging Artists Theatre. She is the co-writer, with Alice Jankell, of "Cicadas, The Musical," featured on Season 2 of the Amazon streaming series, “The Other F Word.” Pam’s songs have been performed at The Metropolitan Room, The Laurie Beechman Theatre, and The Duplex, among others. She recently completed a writing residency at Kervigo Ensemble Theatre (NY) and is a member of Theatre Now New York’s National Musical Writers Lab. Her musical Coda, co-written with Alice Jankell and composer Aaron Drescher, was selected as a semifinalist at the 2021 Eugene O’Neill Theater Center’s National Music Theater Conference. Dramatists Guild member. Education: Brown University, Fordham Law School, New York Theatre Workshop, and The BMI Musical Theatre Workshop. 

WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA
Website: https://www.pamelaweilergrayson.com
FB: https://www.facebook.com/pamela.w.grayson
IG: @pamwgrayson 

MORE ABOUT ME
My most gratifying moment in the theatre was watching the opening night performance of the first show I had ever written, URBAN MOMFARE, at the New York Fringe Festival, in 2014. That performance was the culmination of many years of work on this original musical, and it was pure joy (and okay, a little terror) to watch it come to life on a professional stage, and to hear the audience reaction to it. Probably the production that most changed my life was the original “A Chorus Line.” I had always wanted to be a performer, and when I saw that show, I was transported into a world that felt like the place I just had to be a part of. I overcome disappointment by learning to move on to the next thing, and by doing something that one of my collaborators said to me years ago: “Celebrate the ‘Yeses.’” So when I feel disappointed, especially with rejections, I try to think about all the “Yeses” I’ve gotten, and the positive affirmations that I receive from many others. I also meditate, exercise, eat chocolate, take a walk, or watch some escapist movie or t.v. show. I’m still working on how to master disappointment, as I believe it’s a lifelong journey. But I’m getting better at it. Most days! I imagine telling stories in these times by trying my best to write truthfully and to commit to my characters and their journeys. I believe in the power of storytelling and that people will respond to a well-written play, whether or not that play conforms to the current trends. I also believe in the power of humor (especially dark comedy), which I infuse into all my shows, even the most dramatic ones. 

WHAT I'M WORKING ON
I’m always working on different projects, which are in different stages of development, but in terms of writing, I’m currently (as of March 2022) focusing on two main works. One is an original musical, where I am co-writing book and lyrics with Alice Jankell, and Aaron Drescher is our composer. The show is about love, sex, and connection in an assisted living facility. We use Indie Rock music to help challenge the common notions of older age. The second piece is a play about a contemporary American Jewish family, focusing on three generations of women, as they wrestle with their identities when antisemitism hits home. 

KEYWORDS
​Comedy-dramas, Musicals, Jewish, Women-centric, Mid-Life

Tina Esper's play, Neighbor Jane has been selected for the 2022 Great Plains Theatre Conference. Neighbor Jane was developed at The Workshop Theater's Spring Intensive 2021 and at the Sewanee Writers Conference 2021. Her play Fireflies was a 2021 Woodward/Newman Drama Award Finalist as well as a 2020 O’Neill Semifinalist, a 2022 Athena Project Semifinalist, a 2021 Garry Marshall New Works Festival Semifinalist and a 2021 Cimientos Semifinalist. Fireflies was also a Finalist for the Loom at Woven Theatre. She was a 2020 Garry Marshall New Works Festival Semifinalist and a 2019 O’Neill Semifinalist for her play, Jersey Intersections. Tina was a visiting artist at the Kennedy Center Playwriting Intensive in 2018. Tina (she/her) is a member of Pick Up Sticks Playwriting Collective founded and led by Gary Garrison. 

WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA
Website: https://newplayexchange.org/users/21406/tina-esper
Facebook: Tina Esper

MORE ABOUT ME
I am most myself when I am alone thinking, writing or meditating.

WHAT I'M WORKING ON
A modern-day adaptation of Medea centered around two Brazilian sisters in Newark, New Jersey. 

KEYWORDS
​Surreal-pastoral, magical realism, female-centered plays

Donna was the winner, with two other writers, of the Point Loma Community Theater's 24 Hour Experiment with her play "Guess Who Isn't Coming to Dinner". She produced and wrote three plays in the San Diego area: "Longing" and "The Break Room" at the Tenth Avenue Theater; and "Out of the Bookstore" at the Performance Annex. Two of her plays were written and produced at Plymouth Congregational Church. She acted in three of these plays and made costumes for three of them. She won the three minute play contest at the International Center for Women Playwrights, and has had zoom readings of three of her plays at Scripteasers script review in San Diego. Donna's play "Men Who Couldn't Save Her" had a zoom reading at the International Center, and several other plays have been read at Merely Writers in Georgia and the Playwright Center in Minneapolis. Her scene from "Invitation" was read at the Playground Experiment in New York. Donna is a PhiBetaKappa graduate of Cal Berkeley and has taught high school and was a teaching assistant at Cal San Diego.

WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA
Website: http://theaterismylife.com
Facebook: https//www.facebook.com/donna.gordon.1690 
Twitter: @DonnaGo73418612

MORE ABOUT ME
My most gratifying moment in the theater was my second production in San Diego. The play ran for three nights and the audience grew each night. I've had many other jobs in my life but this achievement was the most meaningful. Several friends from San Diego theatrical world helped me produce this play. I keep doing theater because I've been a costumer, actor and writer. Though I wasn't young when I started writing plays, I think I belong in the theater. I hope artistic directors realize that mature writers have wisdom and depth to share. I always try to uplift and inspire audiences so my plays usually end on a hopeful note. When I'm not writing I like to garden and sew clothes. I really love to act, and I read Shakespeare on zoom. I like to get into another character and forget myself. It seems like a very other-oriented thing to do and I love the Bard. 

WHAT I'M WORKING ON
I am rewriting a play about addiction. Since I've been studying play structure, I've gone back over previous plays to improve them. I have many notes written for a three act play called "The Writer Pays the Price". It is inspired by my roommate's poem of the same name. The theme of the play is the obstacles an artist must overcome in this society. These include lack of money and support of friends and/or family. The main character in this play is a woman, and sometimes being a female artist brings additional baggage. But the play will end on a positive note as a couple determines that they will pursue their art. 

KEYWORDS
​Family, Romance, Thriller, Historical, Adaptations, biography, period, young audiences

Carole Vasta Folley's plays include Pronouncing Glenn, The Family of Ewe, Alumni Pie, The Sleepover ~ A Comedy of Marriage (2015 Vermont Playwrights Award), The Seymour Sisters (state tour and development supported by the Flynn Center for the Performing Arts and the Vermont Community Foundation's Arts Endowment Fund), and Borrowing Time. Described as having the "storyteller gift," Vasta Folley’s plays speak to the themes of belonging and “the crazy, complicated ways we connect with one another.” Vasta Folley's column In Musing has won awards from the Vermont Press Association, the New England Newspaper & Press Association, and the National Society of Newspaper Columnists. She is a member of the Dramatist’s Guild. 

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

MORE ABOUT ME
Writing my first script changed my life. It began while directing an uninspiring play for a local company; I was especially bothered by the lack of compelling lead roles for older women. I wanted to direct plays I wanted to see. As a storyteller by nature, playwriting had been a pipe-dream. Now it seemed a necessity. I decided to jump in to see if I could swim. I set a writing schedule and showed up to the blank page time and again. Miraculously, the story materialized as I wrote. To this day, that’s how my playwriting works. I make time to show up; I write what flows. The labor of editing follows. But, no matter, my play lives and breathes, the characters make me laugh out loud or cry. It’s a fully immersive experience that still leaves me gobsmacked. Once the play was finished, I had no idea what to do. Someone said, “You’re a director, direct it.” I was aghast. Surely I must need permission. I can’t just stage it myself, can I? Well, I did. And it was incredible. I still don’t know if staging my own work is “right” - but, many plays later, I continue to use it as an intensive workshopping tool, a powerfully effective way to see what works and fix what doesn’t. Besides, why should I let my work linger, hoping someone wants it. Life is too short to wait for another person’s yes, when I am filled with them. In closing, my first play? The workshop performances ran for three weeks and eventually sold out as word of mouth spread and audience members kept coming back. Maybe what I’m doing isn’t "how it’s done.” But what I do know, people come see my plays and I get to keep writing them. 

WHAT I'M WORKING ON
I'm in the midst of editing my newest play, Lunch Money. It's a departure of sorts for me as it's a grittier, more somber storyline. I love my characters, as I usually do, but in this piece, I just feel quite saddened by their circumstances and sorry I can't make it better for them. Happy to say, there are seven roles, all for women, and five of them are for those over 50 and 60 years of age.

KEYWORDS
​Lead roles for women, Women over 50, Comedy with Heart, Two-woman play, Comedy, Drama, Farce, Mother/Daughter, Belonging, Friendship, Loss, Grief, Incest, Reunion, Unconventional family, Connection, Relationships, Love

A member of the Dramatists Guild and the International Centre for Women Playwrights, Jennifer Schaupp is a multidisciplinary writer, collaborative theatre artist, and educator with a feminist, darkly comedic, avant-garde, and global perspective. She has developed pieces for organizations and community events in Pittsburgh, such as Pittsburgh Fringe Festival, No Name Players' Support Women Artists Now Day, Pittsburgh Women's Scavenger Hunt & Monologue Reception, The Ellis School for young women, and Organic Theater's Earth Day Festival. For ten years, she also improvised stories with the Amish Monkeys short-form comedy troupe. Additionally, Jennifer has created work for groups and projects throughout the U.S. and beyond, including 365 Women a Year Playwriting Project (online), Gilbert Theater's New Play Festival in North Carolina, LA STAGE Alliance's National Playwrights' Slam, and Spilling Ink’s Bharatanatyam dance, poetry, and theatre production in Chennai, India.

WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA
Website: https://archive.pittsburghartistregistry.org/accounts/view/athena16
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifer-schaupp-7771227b/

MORE ABOUT ME
I keep doing theatre because it's at its core human beings sharing stories, which is the most universal and primitive of acts. Theatre changes and grows with the times, but its core is still some people in a space with select people sharing and other people receiving. There is a mutual respect for what happens in that space, whatever it might be. Things can change either physically, emotionally, or spiritually, or all of the above. It may be abrupt or it may be gradual, but a change happens because of that theatrical moment between people in a designated space.

WHAT I'M WORKING ON
A gratitude writing workshop framed by Trauma-Informed Creative Practices

KEYWORDS
​Dark comedy, verse, radio plays, satire, farce, immense/site-specific, historical, ritual, nature, equality, philosophy, improvisation, period, food, adaptations, biography, utopias, feminist, avant-garde, multicultural 

Nicole Anderson Cobb is a creative (writer for stage and screen), researcher and advocate who examines American institutions (often in crisis) and how people of color have navigated these spaces historically and contemporarily. Using the lens of examining institutions at an inflection point, Anderson Cobb has written on such moments within institutions as varied as: college campuses, funeral homes, the non-denominational church, museum cultures, early 20th century arts collectives in Charleston, South Carolina, African American sororities, gun violence in America cities and police community relations. 

WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA
Website: https://newplayexchange.org/users/63302/nicole-anderson-cobb
FB: nicole.a.cobb1
TW: sandals60617
IG: nicole.a.cobb1

MORE ABOUT ME
What was your most gratifying moment in the theater? Sitting in the ETA Theater during the opening week of my play, TANGLED during it’s 12 week run in Chicago. It was a profound experience to see a play that I wrote attended by relatives, community members, extended family and written about in the local newspaper. I realized at that moment that more people would see my plays than would ever read my PhD dissertation. What play or production changed your life? When I was 5 or 6, my parents took me to a production of “The Wiz” on Broadway. We were visiting family and attending a graduation on the East Coast at Smith College…and so that show on Broadway was a part of our East Coast travels. What I learned from that experience is that African Americans expressing themselves on stage was a glorious part of the Black experience to be celebrated and supported. Unfortunately, it has taken me all this time to give myself permission to lean into this critical form of expression. But, better late than never. I feel most like myself when I …. Am spending great time in conversation with people I love experiencing art, conversation or recreation that we love. How do you overcome disappointment? Breathe, pray, process the experience with a trusted friend/therapist/spiritual counselor/…ask for feedback on areas where I can improve and try again. If you could bring one change to theater, what would it be? Where to begin…Whew… I would establish one uniform standard for theater submissions with a required notification process for accepting or declining projects.. The topsy-turvy theater submission process—with some theaters asking for just a script and email address… and others asking for essays, pages, references, bios, resumes, urine samples and vision boards, etc., OK, perhaps not the last two but you get my point. We have to establish a standard by which all theaters are asking for the same information and offering a 90-120 day notification in the most economical fashion possible. What do you want artistic directors to know? There are rich, valuable lived experiences between LA and New York…beyond city centers…beyond coasts…beyond urban areas that MUST BE welcomed, invited, called forth to the stage. What’s the one thing nobody knows about you that you’d like them to know? I. LOVE. OKRA. What is your favorite thing to do when you’re not writing? Traveling, attending cultural events, binge watching TV with my husband and daughter. Why do you keep doing theater? Theater begins impacting readers before they are ever an audience member, whether or not the plays are ever staged. Recently, I received a note from a professor looking for one of my plays (that is out of print) to assist her student working on a Master's Thesis. I was flattered and humbled and sent two copies of the play to the student. Thus, I was reminded that plays matter and writing plays matters…long after the curtain is lifted and the set is deconstructed. How do you imagine telling stories in these times? Stories must continue to be told digitally, via Zoom, across time zones, in parks and open fields, in abandoned spaces, by introducing new generations of its value, presented to folks in assisted living.

WHAT I'M WORKING ON 
I am currently completing her first TV-pilot and working on new plays while devising work for the April-May 2022 Allerton Residency.

KEYWORDS
​African American, Race Relations, Social Justice, Political, Intergenerational Dramedy, Global Perspectives

Poet and playwright, Barbara is the recipient of a Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Award in Playwriting for her play Dos Madres. Her one-act plays and 10-minute plays have been given staged readings and productions by Source Theatre in Washington, DC. Barbara is the author of Theatre Mad, a collection of short comedies and Catbird, a book of poems. Mirror Talk, her memoir about working in theatre, won the IndieReader Discovery Award for Best Memoir. 

WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA
Website: http://www.BarbaraAlfaro.net
FB: https://www.facebook.com/barbara.m.alfaro
TW: @BarbaraAlfaro

MORE ABOUT ME
I feel most myself when I'm writing comedy. I'm proud of my dramas and my poetry but writing comedy gives me the most joy. There is something so lovely in knowing I've made others smile and laugh. I enjoy being a writing mentor at the Carnegie Center in Lexington, Kentucky. 

WHAT I'M WORKING ON
I'm working on a full-length play about finding love and losing stereotypes.

KEYWORDS
Comedy, Drama, Poetry

Lee Roscoe’s plays have been performed from New York to Boston and Cape Cod and beyond at the Living Theatre, NYC, Boston Playwrights Theater, Provincetown Theater, and public radio stations in Boston, San Francisco and WOMR FM, which premiered The Mooncusser's Tale. Roscoe has won several prestigious grants and a few prizes and her work has been lauded by the likes of Michael Kahn (artistic director of the Shakespeare Theatre Company, DC, the late Howard Zinn, Judith Malina (founder of the Living Theatre), and playwright, David Hare. Impossible? a serious satire about American tyranny premiered virtually, at Eventide Theatre. Her themes: how our dysfunctional societal matrix affects the human heart and the planet. Her techniques are varied: realism to expressionism and beyond. A former Equity actress, Roscoe trained at HB Studio, Circle in the Square, and American Academy of Dramatic Arts and worked backstage and on stage Off-Broadway and on Cape Cod. (The Boston Globe wrote “Roscoe is brilliant” regarding her role in “The Captain’s Doll," Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater, and she was voted Best Performance by the Cape Cod Times numerous times.) Roscoe is also an author whose newest book Wampanoag Art for the Ages, Traditional and Transitional will be released in spring summer of 2022-- and she is a long-time journalist covering the arts, the environment, history, and more for publications local, regional and national. She is Artscope magazine's Cape Cod correspondent. 

WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA
Website: https://www.artistsandmusicians.org/theater/lee.html
Facebook: Lee Roscoe

MORE ABOUT ME
In a blizzard at age 13, my parents walked to Broadway from the Harvard Club. We saw Lillian Hellman's "Toys in the Attic". I was thunderstruck. Life in real time and in the imagination, double reality, captured. I began to read every play I could get my hands on starting with Ibsen. Collecting plays for the Brearley School, starting the 1k drama library. Writing plays. Studying acting with Michael Kahn and others. I would change theater back to those days when money, carnivore capitalism's commercialism, backers' egos, were not the purpose--when producers realized that theater with meaning could be successful; when experimentation, challenges to the status quo (as in Amira Baraka's Revolutionary Theater -- don't bother to write if you are not going to challenge the status quo) changed hearts and consciousness. Before the self-referential, politically correct bullshit trivia which passes for theater now invaded the stage.

WHAT I'M WORKING ON
Polishing Four Plays for a Planet in Peril for online viewing supported by grants from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, in collaboration with filmmaker producer Janet Murphy Robertson. These are lyrical, hyperbolic and love 'em or hate 'em like nothing you have ever seen before.

KEYWORDS
​Political, Human, Nature, Environmental, Climate, Historical, Avant Garde, Tyranny, Bigotry, Mythic, Sophisticated Audiences, Defiant, Varied Styles, Original, Lyrical, Verse, Realism, Hyperbole, Multi-ethnic