 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 |
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