Donna Gay Anderson is a playwright/lyricist currently collaborating with composer Theodore Christman on the musical, Unfolded, based on the life and work of Susie Scott Krabacher. Other dramatic works including High and Mighty, Shrimp and Crab, and Formula One have been presented and developed in New York City, Chicago, Louisville, New Orleans and North Carolina. She is a contributing writer to Dramatists Magazine and MusicalWriters.com. Her fiction has been included in The Louisville Review (Fall 2020) and Arkansas Review (December 2020). MFA Spalding University. She and her husband Tom live in swampy south Louisiana with any dog willing to spend the night. 

WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA
Website: http://www.donnagayanderson.com
Twitter: @dgbanderson1

MORE ABOUT ME
The most gratifying moment in the theatre was when the cast of my first musical took their first bow. At that moment I realized that I evaluate the success of failure of every project by the quality of the relationships forged throughout. If the relationships are healthy and supportive, then the work will have evolved into something honorable through mutual respect, honesty, hard work and the common goal of creating well constructed art. Each person on stage and off stage had become special to me and I felt a sense of gratitude for them. I'll never forget how fortunate I felt, not just for the production, but for the individuals involved. 

WHAT I'M WORKING ON
I am working on a few things; a new musical about a WWII pilot and his mother's quest to save his legacy, a monologue play about bidding farewell, and a musical about a former Playboy centerfold turned international humanitarian. I always have a short story in the hopper for fun.

KEYWORDS
Humans, dogs, cooking, books, equity, humor, education, love, Haiti, Christianity, diversity, friends, New Orleans and York, plays, yoga, mentor, service, MFA, adaptations, lyrics.

Michael angel Johnson’s plays have been produced in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Cleveland, Amherst, New Haven, and other places across the U. S. The Price of Solitude was a finalist in the National Ten-Minute Play Contest at Actors Theatre of Louisville. The Apartment earned Michael angel the honor of special participant at the O’Neill Theatre Centre. Her screenplays: Seasons-semi-finalist in The Chesterfield Film/Writer’s Project, The Letters-semi-finalist Writemovies.com, The Tower- Honorable Mention Los Angeles Film and Script Festival, and Wild Fires- finalist at the Hollywood Black Film Festival. Her stories and essays: “The African American Woman Who Shaped the Future of Art” (On The Issues Magazine), “The Echo” (Persimmon Tree), and "A Basket of Biscuits” (On The Issues Magazine). Michael angel has worked with the 52nd Street Project as a director, writer, and dramaturge. She is a member of The League of Professional Theatre Woman, New York Women in Film & Television, and Honor Roll! She is an Associate Professor at the Fashion Institute of Technology (New York) where she developed and teaches their AFRICAN AMERICAN LITERATURE course. She is a graduate of The Yale School of Drama in Playwrighting.

WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA
Website: http://www.michaelangeljohnson.com
Twitter: @Michaelangelj
Facebook: Michael angel Johnson

MORE ABOUT ME
My most gratifying moment in theatre revolves around my play titled The Other, which deals with the relationship between a mother and daughter when the mother is diagnosed with ovarian cancer and a secret is revealed that the mother has kept from the daughter for her entire life. The question then becomes will these two very different individuals be able to resolve this situation before the mother dies. After a reading of this play, I overheard a group of women of different ethnic backgrounds – ages – economically – politically - discussing the play. When viewing this group, they were so diverse that one would assume that they could not agree on anything. However, each one had found an emotional connection to the characters in the play that had connected them, making them a community. Through the play, they were able to experience and analyze the complexity of the relationship between a mother and daughter with an urgency that forced this diverse group to need to discuss these feeling with each other, which they were doing in an honest way. As a playwright, I am delighted when my characters guide me to that point where I am more in touch with my humanity and when others through my characters experience their connection to each other as humans, well it is a good as it gets. 

WHAT I'M WORKING ON
The African American poet Anne Spencer (1882 - 1975) was known for her amazing garden where she greeted Paul Robeson, Langston Hughes, W.E. B Du Bois to name a few. This garden and Spencer's poetry will be the gathering place for a group of female visual artists from different time periods to come together to explore history and their artwork.

KEYWORDS
Family, Mystery, Political, Animals, Food, People of Color, Equality, Pandemic, Historical, Biography​