Susane Lee started her writing career in television at WGBH/Boston with the NOVA Science Series, followed by WNET/NYC and Nature. She produced & wrote WILD TV, a series on urban wildlife, for WNET. Susane traveled to more than 100 cities across the U.S. as a Writer and Producer of one-hour documentaries, winning a PBS Communications Award in 1999. Susane is the Executive Artistic Director of Hudson Classical Theater Company, a nonprofit theater company that’s currently in its 18th season. Susane has written numerous adaptions of classical works. Susane took six novels of Alexandre Dumas and wrote The Three Musketeers (2017), The Three Musketeers: 20 Years Later (2018), The Man in the Iron Mask (2019), and The Count of Monte Cristo (2021), for HCTC’s summer stage. Susane has written original adaptations of Jane Austen’s “Pride & Prejudice” (2019) and “Sense & Sensibility (2020). Susane adapted a stage version of the Hollywood Film Classic, His Girl Friday (2017) (which she also directed), and Lysisarah: Make America Great Again! (2016) an original adaptation of Lysistrata, which she directed. As a director, Susane has directed many screenplay reading series with the Writers Guild of America, East at the Lincoln Film Center and at The Guild. In 2016 & 2017, Susane was nominated for Best Director in the Take Ten Festival & in 2018, finalist for Best Play. She has also directed for many years with the Women a Year 365 Festival. Susane was a NY Foundation for the Arts Fellowship recipient for Nonfiction Literature in 2005 and an Urban Artist Initiative Grant Fellow for Fiction in 2006. Her memoir was published in MORE magazine in 2010. Susane is a Lifetime Member of the WGAE & member of SAG/AFTRA. Susane was Finalist for the 2013 Wai Look Award, by the Asian American Arts Alliance for those “who outstandingly contributed to the arts. 

WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA:
Website: http://www.hudsonclassicaltheatercompany.org/index.php
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/hudsonclassicaltheatercompany

MORE ABOUT ME:
The most gratifying moment I had was in the Brooklyn jail. After we performed, we introduced ourselves and said our theater company performs summer theater in Riverside Park. One inmate immediately said, “I’ve been to your shows! I saw your ‘Three Musketeers.’ I appreciated seeing a high quality production when I was broke.” That crystalized why I do what I do: to bring theater to those who don’t have easy access to the arts. After a show in the park, audience members thank me profusely for bringing theater to the city and making it so accessible and enjoyable. So our not having reservations in advance and only asking audiences to pay what they can helps bring arts to all. The play that changed my life was my adaptation of “Lysistrata.” It was 2016 and the only war I saw was the political war and the presidential election. So using that play as a framework, I created a comedy/musical and created characters from the people in politics at the time. I took dialogue from these people verbatim, added my own script, and created a wholly original adaptation of this classic play. I wrote it overnight and it was produced with very minor tweaks. The response to this play was phenomenal and made me trust my ability to write enjoyable, meaningful adaptations of classical work. People may not know that my father is North Korean and my mother is South Korean. These dual aspects of my upbringing shaped me completely and helped form the writer I am today. Growing up in Southern Virginia, where we were the only Asian family in the county, also made me a writer. From the age of 7 to 17, I had no friends. I was very shy and an outsider. This solitary life made me a writer because that’s all I did growing up. 

WHAT I'M WORKING ON:
I am currently reading Frankenstein (M. Shelley) as my next potential stage adaptation for Hudson Classical Theater Company. I'm also toying with an original adaptation of Emma (Jane Austen) for next summer, to produce in our outdoor space. I'll read that novel once I'm finished with Frankenstein! I'm also looking for a bigger space for my theater company. We have our costumes, props, weapons, and other production materials scattered all over the city: in storage units, in people's homes, in our tiny apartment. It's not tenable. I am looking very hard for a space large enough to accommodate our company.

KEYWORDS:
​Korean, Buddhist, Adaptations, Biography, Period, Satire, Thriller, Historical

I've been doing theater in the Bay Area since 1995. I'm a member of Multi Ethnic Theater, Custom Made Theater, and Left Coast Theater. In addition I own my own small walking tour company for which I have developed several tours in addition to doing already established tours. I'm at my best when performing and want there to be more opportunity for "mature" actors.

WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA:
Website: http://www.foottours.com
Facebook: AJ Davenport

MORE ABOUT ME:
While I will never be wealthy acting it makes my life rich! I've had multiple opportunities to play a wide range of characters. I really love the challenge of doing new works by emerging play rites.

WHAT I'M WORKING ON:
Just finished a stage and film project with Multi Ethnic Theater that spanned 18 months. I can't wait till we can all be back in the theater!

KEYWORDS:
​Queer, Agnostic, Political, Historical, fantasy, period, adaptations.

Theresa Rebeck is a prolific and widely produced playwright, whose work can be seen and read throughout the United States and abroad. Last season, her fourth Broadway play premiered on Broadway, making Rebeck the most Broadway-produced female playwright of our time. Other Broadway works include Dead Accounts; Seminar and Mauritius. Other notable NY and regional plays include: Seared (MCC), Downstairs (Primary Stages), The Scene, The Water’s Edge, Loose Knit, The Family of Mann and Spike Heels (Second Stage), Bad Dates, The Butterfly Collection and Our House (Playwrights Horizons), The Understudy (Roundabout), View of the Dome (NYTW), What We’re Up Against (Women’s Project), Omnium Gatherum (Pulitzer Prize finalist). As a director, her work has been seen at The Alley Theatre (Houston), the REP Company (Delaware); Dorset Theatre Festival, the Orchard Project and the Folger Theatre. Major film and television projects include Trouble, starring Anjelica Huston, Bill Pullman and David Morse (writer and director), “NYPD Blue,” the NBC series “Smash” (creator), and the upcoming female spy thriller 355 (for Jessica Chastain’s production company). As a novelist, Rebeck’s books include Three Girls and Their Brother and I'm Glad About You. Rebeck is the recipient of the William Inge New Voices Playwriting Award, the PEN/Laura Pels Foundation Award, a Lilly Award and more.

WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA:
Website: https://www.theresarebeck.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/theresarebeck

MORE ABOUT ME:
My most gratifying moment in the theater was a moment when I was directing. It was a play called "Dropping Gumballs on Luke Wilson" written by the great Rob Ackerman. I directed it for the Working Theater which is a small and mighty production company run by working men and women, supported by unions. The design team I worked with was so fresh and original. They stunned me every time I turned around and something new was added to what was essentially a bare bones production. Justin and Christopher Swader, the set designers, gave me a bare stage but painted the walls green. Then we discovered how much lights could do with bright green walls. The answer is: A lot. I also had an incredibly game cast and we all had a remarkable time and the play was beautiful and really funny. It reminded me of how little money you need to make great theater. 

WHAT I'M WORKING ON:
I have two plays that I wrote during the pandemic that are starting to work their way through the system. I'm really excited about both plays and they are very different from each other. I also have a screenplay that discusses the Catholic Church which I've always wanted to write about. 

KEYWORDS:
​I love all words. Mostly. 

 

Donna Latham’s a feminist playwright from Chicago. Her plays have been produced coast to coast in the US and in Northern Ireland, Ireland, England, France, Scotland, and Indonesia. They’re published with YouthPLAYS, Next Stage Press, and Smith Scripts and anthologized in Best American Short Plays 2016-2017, Best American Short Plays 2014-2015, 2016’s Best Ten-Minute Plays, and She Persisted: New Plays By Women Over 40, 2021. A resident playwright at Rising Sun Performance Company in NYC and KCACTF David Mark Cohen Playwriting Award Finalist, Donna’s a proud member of the Dramatists Guild. 

WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA:
Website: http://donnalatham.com

MORE ABOUT ME:
I grew up in a haunted house in the wilds of Mt. Prospect, and I've been fascinated by ghosts forever. No wonder they keep bursting into my plays....I’ve always loved storytelling in all its forms. Theatre’s intense connection to humanity keeps me writing for performance.

WHAT I'M WORKING ON:
YELLA JACK, a darkly comic and surrealistic Southern Gothic piece set during the 1878 Memphis yellow fever epidemic, written in pandemic lockdown. 

KEYWORDS:
​Feminist, women, collective trauma, memory, historical, period, surreal, ghosts, Southern Gothic, family, thriller, satire, parody.

Arden Kass is an award-winning playwright, lyricist, screenwriter and independent producer of live theatre. Born and raised in New York, Arden studied poetry and comparative literature at Cornell, slogged through every paid writing gig imaginable, then pledged her heart and considerable passion to the pursuit of theatre and film projects that feel personally satisfying and meaningful. Her theatre projects largely focus on the lives and experience of women. Her all-women vaudeville with music, Behold Her: Five Thousand Years of Jewish Women and Beauty, produced at the 2018 Philadelphia Fringe Festival, is in development for a commercial run in New York. Her drama Appetite was a 2014 semi-finalist for the O’Neill Theatre Conference. It received an industry presentation at London’s Royal Academy of Dramatic Art with a cast including Miriam Margolyes, Tamsin Grieg, Jemma Redgrave, and Jason Isaacs. She has been a finalist at Red Bull Theatre and the Humana Festival. Current projects include two musicals: Daddy’s Girl, featuring a feminist academic and her showman father who invented the push-up bra, and Alpha Gals, an all-ages, rock & hip-hop update on the myth of Athena and Arachne. Arden writes screenplays with Mark Gallini, has worked as a freelance scriptwriter and copywriter, published essays and features, written A & E Biography episodes on rock stars and performed her humorous monologues on WXPN Radioʼs Morning Show. Arden belongs to the Dramatists Guild, Playwrights Gallery and BMI Musical Theatre Workshop in New York and has raised two wonderfully functional young adults, each with a lively social consciousness. 

WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA:
Website: http://ardenkass.com
Instagram: @playwrightarden 
Facebook: arden.kass

MORE ABOUT ME:
In 2014, appalled by the (politically motivated) decline in educational resources, programs and facilities in Philadelphia schools, I conceived and co-created a live documentary-style play dramatizing the real-life consequences of the dismantling of Pennsylvania’s public education system. Crafted from over 100 interviews with Pennsylvania residents, School Play premiered at the National Constitution Center, popped up in well-trafficked public spaces and toured the state for several weeks in 2015. The activist and educational aspects of this project, and its profound emotional impact on audiences and students energized and delighted me and is one of my proudest accomplishments. It drew on all the skills I had amassed in a long and diverse career. I would do more of this work in a heartbeat, but this time, with sufficient funding. And yes, I believe theatre has the power to change hearts and lives. To answer a related question, I deal with disappointment by re-immersing myself in my work, worshipping in art museums and spending time outdoors, preferably in the Southwest. I may not be as hip as I was at 27 or 37, but I am a hell of a lot smarter.

WHAT I'M WORKING ON:
I just finished a new play, tentatively titled Ms. Unpopularity. When a theatre organization faces accusations of sexual harassment and racial discrimination post Me Too, it sparks a series of interconnected personal reckonings and reassessments. 5 women, 1 (possibly pre-recorded!) man

KEYWORDS:
​Women, drama, humor, historically inspired, site-specific, myth, interdisciplinary, Jewish, food, feminism, musical, all-ages, verse, lyrics, magical realism, monologues, lingerie, cake

Susan Jennifer Polese, MS LCMH, is an American dramatist, journalist, editor, and psychotherapist/mental health counselor certified in crisis care. She is an award-winning playwright whose work is seen regionally, Off-Broadway and at such venues as La Mama Experimental Theatre Club, HERE Performing Arts Center, The Midtown International Theatre Festival, and Planet Connections Festivity in Manhattan, NY. Trained in New York at The Wonderhorse Theatre, Herbert Berghof Studio, and Hunter College Susan taught playwriting through Purchase College, Axial Theatre Collaborative and is facilitating “Playwriting in Paradise” at Key West Fringe Theatre, Key West, Florida. She is published in the Alexander Street Contemporary World Drama Collection. Her work is fueled through social justice and is often performed as fundraisers/awareness enhancers for non-profits. Susan is a member of The International Centre for Women Playwrights and Theatre Without Borders. She attended La Mama’s International Playwright Retreat in Umbria, Italy and was awarded an artist-in-residency at Bethany Arts Community, 2020. Susan is a member of The Dramatists Guild of America.

WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA:
Website: http://www.susanjenniferpolese.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/susan.polese
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/susalita3560/

MORE ABOUT ME:
I was fortunate to experience a production of Curse of the Starving Class by Sam Shepard in the 80s and was transfixed. Later that very week I saw Christopher Durang’s The Actor’s Nightmare on stage with Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All. Seeing each of these visionary – albeit very different – productions while I was just beginning to study playwriting fueled my interest in the craft and paved the way to the development my own style and seeing the world through writer’s eyes. Fast forward to seeing Doubt by John Patrick Stanley on Broadway and once again I was thrilled. Fast forward again to Slave Play, the last show I saw before the first lockdown. The inspiration never ends! Live theatre means the world to me – it’s the collaborative nature of the endeavor. I would like directors to know that I yearn for collaboration, input and sharing a vision. I become enlivened by the experience of getting my work on stage. I have had very good/intense relationships with directors, and I am always interested in their take on my work. 

WHAT I'M WORKING ON:
I am working on a full-length play about my parents’ experiencing in 1951 Georgia as a transplanted, newly married military couple (from the Bronx!) living with a Southern family. It’s the most personal story I’ve told so far. I am having a composer create a score for the show and it takes place pre-civil and women's rights. It's interesting to write a period piece and I look forward to bringing it an online platform as well as live performance. It's entitled Two Junes & No July. I'll keep you posted!

KEYWORDS:
​Political, Satire, Period, Social Justice, Comedy

After a career in advertising and marketing, Barbara re-careered to her primary love: writing, and earned first an MFA in Creative Writing (StonyBrook University -2012) and an MFA in Musical Theatre Writing (NYU/Tisch - 2018). She is a member of the BMI Librettists and an alum of the BMI Lyricists, a member of the Dramatists Guild and Founder of Philadelphia based MusiColab. Her plays and musicals have been recognized by the O'Neil Festival (semi-finalist), Broadway Bound (finalist) and NAMT (development grant through 11th Hour Theatre), Emerging Artists Theatre (The Word Police; Flirting After Fifty, the DC Swan Festival (Words Fail Me) and published in The Southampton Review. She is a published author and national speaker. Though a late-comer to theatre, Barbara is determined to catch up.

WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA:
Website: www.barbarabellman.com

MORE ABOUT ME:
Like many writers of a certain age, my life has been filled with decades of experiences that have informed me, challenged me, lifted me up and broken my heart. And like many writers, I look to these experiences as the stuff stories are made of. I write to explore life through the eyes of my characters, like putting on costumes and assuming different roles. It’s why I go to the theatre as well – to immerse myself in the world created by the playwright, brought to life by the actors. For me, it’s not escape, but a deeper dive into other worlds. If I could change one thing about theatre it would be to have artistic directors and literary managers recognize that creators are ageless – but age does offer wisdom, experience, and historical context–to provide perspective on how to navigate these times. If I had one wish, it would be for there to be a theatre dedicated to works by older playwrights, to bring these talents out into the open so what they have to offer can be SEEN and HEARD.

WHA T I'M WORKING ON:
I am currently working on BORDELLO, a historic musical set in the 1920s in Buenos Aires that features an unlikely heroine - Raquel Liberman – a Jewish Prostitute who had the courage to bring the notorious organization of white slave traders to trial. 

KEYWORDS:
​Jewish, Family, Historical, Comedy, Musical, Young Audiences, Heroic

Pamela Morgan hails from the south side of Chicago and has worked with various theatre companies for over two decades, primarily in tech and directing. She now resides in Central Illinois. Her plays have been produced and performed across the United States and in Australia. Her one-act Senior Moments won Best Show in the Triangle Rainbow and Riant Theatre’s LGBTQ Short Play Festival and has been produced by Theatre Three and Irvington Theatre. Her publications include: When Life Gives You Lemons, The Battle of Wills, and Senior Moments (Smith Scripts), Shapes In the Clouds (220 Publishing), Mostly Me (The HerStories Project Press), and All Kids Lie (Chicago Story Press Inc.). She obtained her teaching license for Elementary and Special Education in 2015 and is currently working towards her MFA in Creative Writing through Augsburg University. Pamela co-founded This Moment Productions, a virtual theatre company with the goal of making theatre more equitable, inclusive and diverse. They continue to push the boundaries of virtual theatre and technology, bridging the gap between stage and film. 

WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA:
Website: https://newplayexchange.org/users/57532/pamela-morgan

MORE ABOUT ME:
Why do I keep doing theatre? Is that even a question? I have been doing theatre my whole life. My parents first dragged me to rehearsals when I was six years old, community level musicals. I passed the time by learning what the pianist did and helping him turn the pages during the performances. By ten, I was on the stage, by 15 I was doing lights and sound, by 20 I was writing and directing. And now my children are involved! Theatre is community. It’s family. It’s the thing that gets me through the difficult, stressful, boring, repetitive parts of my day. It feeds my soul and nourishes my spirit. I don’t think I have any choice but to do theatre. 

WHAT I'M WORKING ON:
I have finished a first draft of a full length dark comedy inspired by a poem, that I'm hoping to workshop soon. I'm also starting research for a full length drama centered around suicide.

KEYWORDS:
​Queer, abortion, faith, suicide, mental health

Suzanne’s plays have been produced across the US. Productions include: CONFEDERATES (TheatreWorks – Silicon Valley, Weissberger and Susan Smith Blackburn nominations, Kilroy’s Honorable Mention); THE GOD GAME (Pulitzer nomination, over a dozen productions including the co-premiere between Capital Rep/Gulfshore Playhouse); NAKED INFLUENCE (Capital Rep); SHAKESPEARE IN VEGAS (Houston’s 4th Wall Theatre, Dreamcatcher Rep/PTNJ, TheatreWorks – Silicon Valley Play Festival starring Patrick Page and Karen Ziemba) and FULL BLOOM (Barrington Stage - Osborn New Play nomination from the American Theatre Critics Association; Hudson Stage, etc.). HONORS: NYFA Fellow, Lark Fellow (and featured writer), Ashland NPF, the Berrilla Kerr Foundation Grant, the Coe College Playwriting Prize, and the BMI Foundation’s Harrington Award. Suzanne was twice the winner of the NEXT ACT! New Play Summit at Capital Rep, twice an Honorable Mention for the Kilroy’s List, and was the silver prize winner for the Hart New Play Initiative. RESIDENCIES include: The New Harmony Project, PlayPenn, the LAByrinth Theatre Company’s Summer Intensive, the Lark/Rebeck/DTF Writers’ Retreat, and the Alabama Shakespeare Festival’s Southern Writers’ Project. PUBLICATIONS: Playscripts, Samuel French, HowlRound, Applause Books, the Connotation Press, multiple Smith & Kraus anthologies. Suzanne was the keynote speaker for the TheatreWorks – Silicon Valley 2018 New Works Festival, which launched their Tony-winning season. She is a member of the Ensemble Studio Theatre and the EST Playwrights Unit, the Dramatists Guild, Honor Roll!, an alum of Project Y’s Writers Group, is a regular moderator at the Actors Studio Playwright/Director Workshop, and teaches playwriting at Primary Stages, ESPA. A highlight for Ms. Bradbeer was her work as a dramaturg for Arthur Miller and Jim Houghton on Signature Theatre Company’s production of THE AMERICAN CLOCK. REPRESENTATION: Amy Wagner at A3 Artists Agency. 

WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA:
WEBSITE: https://newplayexchange.org/users/3077/suzanne-bradbeer
Twitter: @SuzanneBradbeer

MORE ABOUT ME:
What play or production changed your life? WHEN YOU COMIN' BACK, RED RYDER? I auditioned on a whim; acting in that ensemble production terrified and thrilled me and pushed me into the theater. What's the one thing (almost) nobody knows about you... I used to work for John McEnroe and Tatum O'Neal. What is your favorite thing to do when you're not writing? Daydream. Listen to podcasts. Oh, and watercolor - I'm quite terrible at it but I'm also kind of obsessed.

WHAT I'M WORKING ON NOW:
Several things: I GOT YOU, a play about a wildly talented but self-destructive athlete; GHOST TREES, a play about wildfires and an imploding family; I'm also working with songwriter Gary Negbaur on an UNTITLED Christmas musical and am in post-production for my film CONSIDER THE SPARROW.

KEYWORDS:
​Tragi-comic, strong female leads, politics, faith, musical theater, librettist, magic realism, young audiences, journalism and media, holiday, Christmas, Halloween, climate.

Wendy-Marie Martin is a playwright, dramaturg, and director as well as the Department Chair of the Undergraduate Theatre Department at Hollins University. She's currently completing her PhD in Interdisciplinary Arts/Playwriting at Ohio University with a focus on intersectional feminist theatre and 20th/21st century women playwrights. Over the past twenty years, Wendy-Marie has taught, directed, and performed in Europe and the U.S. Her work has been produced in Germany, The Netherlands, Australia, Japan, Ireland, and the U.S and published by Smith & Krauss, Theatrefolk, and YouthPLAYS. Wendy-Marie is Co-Producer of the Trans [Plays] of Remembrance Festival and a proud member of the Dramatists Guild, the Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE), the American Society for Theater Research (ASTR), and the National Women’s Studies Association.

WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA:
Website: https://www.wendymariemartin.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wendymarieplaywright
Twitter: @WendyMarieCA

 MORE ABOUT ME:
If I could bring one change to theatre, it would be the dismantling of patriarchal, white supremacists paradigms in theater education and playwriting. I just took over as chair of the undergraduate theatre department at Hollins University and set a clear mission to create a foundation of anti-racist, anti-oppressive practices in order to build the program around these values at every level of the programs. Our budget is now reflecting these values and being used to bring in guest artists/instructors who are diverse in gender, racial/ethnic identities, ability, and age. It is my plan to experiment with feminist leadership structures in collaboration with my students and faculty and publish on our successes and our failures in order to participate in the national conversation taking place around theatre structures and processes. I believe if enough theater and academic theatre leaders are focusing on this work, together, we will move the needle forward and make sustainable change.
 
WHAT I'M CURRENTLY WORKING ON:
I'm currently working on my PhD dissertation which focuses on the collaborative craft of Suzan-Lori Parks, Paula Vogel, Young Jean Lee and Jackie Sibblies Drury. Since I'm an artist/scholar, my dissertation also includes a full length play titled "To Be a Starfish," which is my response play to Maria Irene Fornes's play "Mud" (1983).

KEYWORDS:
​Political, Equality, Immersive/site-specific, satire, science fiction, musicals, TYA