 Nora is a first generation Norwegian-American writer and a teacher of literature, theatre arts and music which has allowed her to travel, write and produce plays and, above all, learn from her students the world over. She is a member of the SACD (Société des Auteurs et Compositeurs Dramatiques) and the Dramatists Guild. She studied under poet Brigit Pegeen Kelly at the University of Illinois.
WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA Website: https://www.noralouisesyran.com/ FB: syrscripts TW: NoraLouiseSyran IG: noralouisesyran MORE ABOUT ME What play or production changed your life? Seeing Beckett's Happy Days at the Goodman decades ago...as a teenager. It was my first real serious, professional piece of theater. I marveled at it all: the set, the acting, the lighting, the absurdity. It all felt right. Not absurd at all. I feel most like myself when I .. I feel most like myself when I am creating; from designing and building a set, to writing a play, to cooking dinner... If you could bring one change to theater, what would it be? That audiences could afford to see any play they like, in the same way the cinema is accessible. And if the audience were there, theatres would produce more...and more...and more... What is your favorite thing to do when you’re not writing? I love to walk/hike and I adore listening to stories read aloud. Prefer it to reading. Always have. Why do you keep doing theater? I have no choice. I've finally worked out what I want to be when I grow up: a playwright. WHAT I'M WORKING ON I'm finishing up 20+ years of projects I've written and produced and never sent out into the world.... and I am currently working on a play about the Impressionists from the perspective of the female artists: Mary Cassatt, Berthe Morisot and Suzanne Valadon. It will be an adult departure from my play for all audiences: IMPRESSIONS OF PARIS KEYWORDS Family, Children, Mystery, Thriller, Equality, Pandemic, Climate, Environmental, Historical, Adaptations, Fable/folktales, Immersive/site- specific, satire, biography, fantasy, science fiction, radio plays, verse, musical, period, Young Audiences, holida  Ann Timmons started in theatre as an actor (MFA, University of Illinois), and went to NYC to seek her fortune. Realizing there weren’t enough juicy roles for all the talented women who deserved them, she decided to create her own. She honed her writing skills at Playwrights’ Horizons Theatre School, produced her one-woman show, "Off the Wall: The Life and Works of Charlotte Perkins Gilman” Off-Broadway, and toured with it nationally for 16 years. Other productions (including “Becoming Calvin,” Washington, D.C.; “Beyond Shadowlands,” national tour; “The Jamestown Adventure Express,” Virginia tour) continue her exploration of accepted history, featuring protagonists, mostly women who upend the status quo. The 2021 professional premiere production at Dallas’ Echo Theatre of “It’s My Party!” celebrated the suffragists who fought for the 19th Amendment. As a founding member of Pipeline Playwrights, Ann co-wrote and helped produced, “How’s That Workin’ Out for Ya?” and “How’s That Workin’ Out For Ya? 2.0” for the Capital Fringe Festival in Washington, D.C. She continues to produce with Pipeline Playwrights, as well as for First Acts at the First Presbyterian Church in New York City. Ann is a proud member of Actors' Equity Association, SAG-AFTRA, the Dramatists Guild, and Honor Roll!
WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA Website: http://www.anntimmons.com FB: ann.timmons TW:@annspeaks IG: @anncommsarts MORE ABOUT ME If I could bring one change? Well, it’s a BIG one: I would like theatre to be more accessible, for theatre artists as well as theatregoers. Not just in terms of physical--or even thematic--access. In my perfect world, theatre would not be divided between elitist, special-interest, and popular. There would be plays and shows for everyone, all the time, whatever their taste and current preoccupations. Going to the theatre wouldn’t necessarily be an “event” the way it is now. It would be more integral to everyday life. But how to do this? We live in a world where theatre professionals generally don’t get paid commensurate with other workers at the same level of experience, education, and training. So we’re talking about a different funding model. American theatre has largely operated as a capitalist venture, even from the beginning. So it would take a massive paradigm shift for this to happen. But I do dream of it: the day when the art will be judged on its own, not according to the marketability of the playwright. In the meantime, I have banded together with four other “older” women playwrights to form our own production collective, Pipeline Playwrights (www.pipelineplaywrights.org). We’re all writing and producing each other’s original shows. It is hard work, doing it all. And, we are constantly chasing individual donors as well as those elusive grants. But we are doing it – getting our work out there! And maybe one day, the funding gods will smile on us and we’ll reach a level of modest success, so we can produce more plays by an ever-expanding circle of women playwrights. And break the cycle of the making artistic choices based on the profit motive. WHAT I'M WORKING ON A new play about Ida B. Wells and other women who were engines of societal change in early 20th century America. KEYWORDS Political, historical, religious, biographical, period, societal, women, comedy of manners, family drama  Phyllis Gordon is an actress and comedienne who writes her own work. A mimic, impressionist, singer, dancer and parodist, she showcases all these skills in her solo shows: “Phyllis Diller Believes in Me”, “Faye and Me”, “Painfully Funny” and “Em-Pathetic” (Best Short Solo at Marsh International Solo Festival). A stand up comic adept at characters, she has performed at Standup New York, Comic Strip, Caroline's, Don't Tell Mama's, Gotham, Improv Boston, and The Comedy Studio. A Meisner and Method trained actress, Phyllis performs on stage and screen. Recent credits include comedy film “Beth and Don” (opposite Julia Louis-Dreyfus) and “Ziwe” (Showtime). She was nominated for Broadway World’s Best Actress Award for her work in Agatha Christie’s “The Hollow”. She is also a Voiceover Artist (FRONTLINE, Audible, Library of Congress).
WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA FB: facebook.com/PhyllisGordonActor IG: @phyllisgordon.soloshow.net MORE ABOUT ME My life is the grist for my mill. I overcome disappointment, pain, and life's unfairness by turning it into comedy. This comes naturally to me. When I was a child my Dad was bi-polar and my mom taught me "It's better to laugh than to cry." I was a gifted comedienne from the start and honed my standup skills entertaining my school friends. I used impressions to fend off bullies by making them laugh. In 2020 I was diagnosed with breast cancer. When the hospital staff was rude to me, I thought, "This is my next show." For the last two years, I've been writing it. "Em-Pathetic" is a solo show about the lack of empathy in healthcare. It has traveled from page to stage, from director to editor, from Zoom to live performance. My greatest gift is turning pain into comedy, lemons into lemonade. WHAT I'M WORKING ON Next week, I'm performing my solo show "Em-Pathetic" at the Emerging Artists New Works Series at TaDa! in NYC. KEYWORDS Comedy, Characters, Impressions, Mimic, Solo Show, Vegan, Piano, Parody, Musical, Puppets, Standup  I grew up in the remote woods of the PNW (but, you know, we had a house). As an actor, I’ve lived in LA and NYC but finally gave up my gypsy days calling Portland my home since 2007. I’m an actor, a writer, a producer, a storytelling for the stage teacher and I’m on the boards of the 21ten theater. One time I auditioned to play Mark Wahlberg's wife in a big movie but the night before I got a budget haircut and ended up with a not-cool mullet. Suffice to say, an Italian model got the part, not me. I welcome any inquires about my storytelling teaching series and whether or not you should get bangs -- I'm an expert in both!
WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA FB:https://www.facebook.com/genevieve.sage.3/ IG: https://www.instagram.com/genevievesage/ MORE ABOUT ME Most gratifying moment in theater? Playing Ben Affleck last Summer in Matt & Ben. Play/production that changed my life? Adrienne Truscott's "Asking For It": look it up (it's too ribald to talk about here) but it was gutsy, mind-blowingly brave and performed expertly. I want Artistic Directors to stop casting the same people, to take a chance on the unassuming, un-pedigreed women who've been quietly working for years without a big splashy graphic designer or PR team behind their name. WHAT I'M WORKING ON Warner Brothers had exclusivity last year on my TV Pilot but I'm still shopping it around; a play starring two famous female poets; I'm producing and acting in shows at The 21ten Theater and I'm trying not to have personal meltdowns every time I hear a leaf blower. KEYWORDS Feminist, Satire, Comedy, Mid-life-Glow-Ups, Women-over-40, Bad-Ass, Equality, Food, Wine  Gemma Cooper-Novack writes at the vortex where the intimate meets the sociopolitical. She was the resident playwright with The Theater Offensive’s Creative Action Crew (2015-2016), generating new plays (including Reporting Live from Under the Rainbow and Through the Glory Hole and What We Found There) based on the work of a queer youth performance ensemble. Once I Was a Kingdom was presented on Zoom for the Women+ in Theatre Conference. Recent workshops include Break (About Face Theatre, Chicago, IL, 2018), This Not That (The Depot for New Play Readings, Hampton, CT), and You Want Them to Look Away (Breadcrumbs Productions, Syracuse, NY, 2020). The Dating Game was performed in New York and Boston in 2015. Her light opera adaptation of Sense and Sensibility, co-written with Joshua Tyra, has been workshopped at colleges in New York and Chicago. Her play Blindside was produced in Chicago in 2008. Gemma’s poetry book We Might As Well Be Underwater was published by Unsolicited Press in 2016. Currently, Gemma is working on a commission for Breadcrumbs Productions in Syracuse, NY about the early life of Lady Macbeth. She is a Visiting Assistant Professor in Literacy Education at Hobart & William Smith Colleges and a member of the Dramatists Guild of America.
WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA TW: @gemmasupernova MORE ABOUT ME I was raised in a theater, in a very literal sense, and somehow have never deviated from the desire to be, as my mother explained it when I was six, "the one who makes up the story." I remain in theater more than film or TV in large part because I love the possibility of multiple interpretations, of no one definitive take on my text. The choices that emerge from distinct productions of the same script are, and ever have been, my deepest fascination. I grew up on the Marc Blitzstein translation of Threepenny Opera, and the first time I saw the Michael Feingold translation, as a teenager, the rawness and cruelty of the play was revelatory. I've never forgotten that production. WHAT I'M WORKING ON Right now, I'm working on a commission for Breadcrumbs Productions about the early life of Lady Macbeth, but set in 1850; I'm revising my script GREEN INK, which focuses on queer life in Nazi Germany during the Holocaust; I'm working on a series of short plays that explore the shortcomings of approaches to environmental justice. KEYWORDS Lesbian, Queer, Political, Social, Climate, Biography, Period, Verse, Adaptations  Hooked on theatre since age seven when she saw her first Broadway show, playwright, lyricist and composer Andrea Markowitz earned degrees in English, music and psychology, and pursued careers in advertising, human resources, academia, and freelance writing and editing before authoring her first play, FEEDING THE FURIES, a social satire that took third place in the Baltimore Playwrights Festival. Her latest work, FAIR GAME: OR THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING HONEST (a musical satire based on a true story about fake news) was just nominated for the best new script and best new score by the ariZoni Theatre Awards of Excellence committee (winner will be announced October, 2022). Andrea wrote both the script and the score! She’s also thrilled to have been awarded an Honorable Mention in the 2022 Jewish Plays Project contest, for her comedy/drama, APHRAH-CADABRA. Andrea is intrigued by the complexities of human nature and the interrelationships between seemingly discrete fields such as science, spirituality, politics, archaeology, history and fiction, and loves to create characters who are thrust into situations that require them to examine the world and themselves through multiple perspectives. Her recurring theme revolves around creating community through mutual respect and understanding. Andrea is a member of the Dramatists Guild of America, ASCAP, Honor Roll, International Centre for Women Playwrights, Alliance for Jewish Theatre, The Playwrights’ Center, and Maestra, and is Playwright in Residence at Desert Foothills Theater.
WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA Website: http://www.feedingthefuries.com FB: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100010319160490 MORE ABOUT ME My most gratifying moment in the theatre was watching the rapt attention the audience paid to the staged reading I was awarded by the Arizona Women's Theatre Company for my very first play, FEEDING THE FURIES. I wrote FURIES in response to a competition for Arizona women playwrights, after thinking about writing a play for 20 years! (I'd seen tons of shows but never took a playwriting class nor held any theatre-related jobs.) I had four months to write the script before the submission deadline. I figured, if the play's not completed by the deadline, at least I've started to write it. But I "finished" it, and then discovered it was one of only two full-lengths to be selected for a staged reading. This acknowledgement was more exciting to me than anything else I'd accomplished in my life. And when I watched the audience's emotional emersion, heard their enthusiastic applause, and listened to their feedback about how deeply they identified with one of the characters, or knew someone like them, I realized, I can do this. I can write plays, and even more important, I can write plays that mean something to the audience. So I sought professional feedback on the script, learned how to polish the action and dialogue, and after many rewrites over the next two years, FEEDING THE FURIES received Third Prize in the Baltimore Playwrights Festival. WHAT I'M WORKING ON I'm working on a play that's based on the true story of a rising star in the jewelry business who becomes a convicted felon after being found guilty of securities fraud. When the prison medical staff’s indifference to her cellmate’s declining health contributes to the cellmate’s untimely death, the former jewelry entrepreneur has an epiphany and devotes the rest of her life to prison reform advocacy. KEYWORDS Jewish, Family, Mystery, Political, Equality, Historical, Biography, Musical, Period, Mixed Genre  Lisa B. Thompson’s satirical comedies, poignant dramas and engaging scholarship challenges stereotypes about Black life in the US, particularly the experiences of the middle class. The award-winning artist, scholar and teacher is the author of four books: Beyond the Black Lady: Sexuality and the New African American Middle Class (2009), Single Black Female (2012), Underground, Monroe, and The Mamalogues: Three Plays (2020), and The Mamalogues (2021). Thompson’s plays have been produced Off-Broadway, throughout the US, and internationally and has been recognized with an Austin Critics Circle David Mark Cohen New Play Award, a Broadway World Regional Awards Best Writing of an Original Work, a LA Weekly Theatre Award for Best Comedy nomination, and an Irma P. Hall Black Theatre Best Play Award. Her articles and reviews examining performances of race, gender, sexuality in theatre, film and popular culture have appeared in Theatre Journal, Journal of American Drama, Theatre Survey, NPR, Criterion Collection, Clutch, Huffington Post and The Washington Post. Her art and scholarship have received support from a number of institutions including the American Council of Learned Societies, Center for the Study of Race and Democracy, Hedgebrook, MacDowell, Michele R. Clayman Institute for Gender Research, Millay Arts, National Performance Network, and the W. E. B. DuBois Research Institute at the Hutchins Center. The California native is currently the Bobby and Sherri Patton Professor of African and African Diaspora Studies, and the College of Liberal Arts’ Advisor to the Dean for Faculty Mentoring and Support at the University of Texas at Austin. Thompson also co-hosts and co-produces, Black Austin Matters, a podcast and radio segment on KUT: Austin’s NPR station that explores Black life, culture, and politics in Central Texas. She was recently appointed a Presidential Visiting Scholar at The New School for the 2022-2023 academic year.
WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA FB: https: @drlisabthompson TW: @drlisabthompson IG: @drlisabthompson MORE ABOUT ME: After over 20 years, I keep doing theater because of the ability to “do theater” simply by writing words and inviting others to perform them. It’s beautiful that theater making can happen in your living room, in your backyard, or around your dining room table. I’m fortunate that all of those readings in my living room have gone on to become fully staged plays in theaters across the world. That has brought me great joy because that means people who look like me get to see their stories on stage. It has also been deeply gratifying that artists that look like me also get to be the ones to tell those stories. I’ve begun to realize that being a playwright has incredible power. I get to collaborate with other artists to tell stories that have been hidden in plain sight but deserving of a spotlight. I keep doing theatre because I have artistic homes that support my vision. Those creative partners provide a space for me to tell complex stories about Black people that rarely appear on stage, screen, or on the pages of novels. Theater is a gift to my community and to my soul. I can’t live fully without it. WHAT I'M WORKING ON I'm working on THE BLACK FEMINIST GUIDE TO THE HUMAN BODY, a performance piece about life and death for Black women. I'm also completing two dramas--GOLD and FLOOD-- which are part of my Great Migration trilogy that explores the experience of Black people's movement from the south to the west and the reverse migration back down south. KEYWORDS Black, African American, woman, Queer, comedy, satire, professor, artist/scholar, historical, Afro-futurism, science fiction, political, thriller, southern, performance art, motherhood, sexuality, the Great Migration, Black Lives Matter.  I have been writing since I was a little girl, poems, short stories, plays. My life took a different direction and for 35 years I worked in the financial industry and raised my children. During that whole time my true passion kept tugging at me, but responsibilities, life and lack of confidence kept me on the wrong path. During those years I dabbled in short stories, took a few classes, and even had a few magazine articles published. Stress and a health crisis made me realize that it was time to follow my inner voice. I retired from my financial profession and embarked on the second act of my life. I attended the Yale Writers Conference which happened to have a Playwriting tract and slowly began to find my voice. It was exciting to hear Yale actors read my work on stage; it was a wonderful experience. Trying to expand my knowledge of the theatre I signed up to be part of a staged reading group as an actor. And while I won’t be receiving a Tony anytime soon, I learned much from that experience. I became a member of the Dramatist Guild and began classes towards their certificate program. I joined a theatre group in Norwalk, CT filled with many wonderful actors who read my work and shared their feedback with me. Among many rejection notices there have been some high points. One of my plays was published, one won a short play competition, and a full length was a semi-finalist for the Garry Marshall Theatre in LA. Since then, I’ve had several works produced at a local theatre and am currently working on a play that will highlight my Cuban heritage.
MORE ABOUT ME I joined a theatre group in Norwalk Connecticut that included some well-known actors. Needless to say, I was intimidated; imposter syndrome was alive and well taking residence in my head. Over a few weeks I started to feel comfortable and even brought in some work for actors to read. I enjoyed watching pieces being performed at these meetings and learned from the feedback given. Working in the corporate world for many years I developed a tough skin but felt very exposed the first time one of my pieces was read. While some of the feedback was difficult to hear it helped me move my work forward. I submitted a piece to be considered for their playwrights’ festival and was excited when it was chosen. The president of the board wanted to direct it and had already asked two seasoned members to perform. My euphoria ended when the president had to take a step back and I had no one to direct. Lucky for me one of my actors also directed so he directed and acted in my piece. As rehearsals went on I learned to change lines where needed and how to work a scene more efficiently. My husband proudly invited all our friends to the performances, I felt almost naked! Opening night, I felt like I had jumping beans in my stomach and had trouble putting a whole sentence together. All my stress was needless, the performance of my piece went wonderfully well with the audience laughing in all the right places and giving loud applause for the performance. This was the validation I needed to know that writing plays not only made me happy but that I had talent and something to share with the audience. WHAT I'M WORKING ON I am working on a full length play that revolves around a Cuban mother and daughter and how their experiences after leaving their homeland changed both their lives. KEYWORDS woman, mother, inter-faith, Catholic, Jewish, hispanic, humor, satire, drama, family perceptions  Debra A. Cole is an award-winning playwright, director, and theatre/writing/arts educator from Kansas with degrees in journalism, education, and art history. Her one act play THE WRINKLE RANCH took AUDIENCE FAVORITE at Short + Sweet Perth, Australia. Her one act play Cold War can be found with Off The Walls Plays, and one act play SMALL TALK can be found at Heuer Publishing. Debra is a member of the Dramatists Guild of America and an active member of a playwriting group for Kansas City area playwrights as well as The Literary Discourse Society out of Devon, England. Adult One-Acts: Performances/Recent Staged Readings/Conference Selections: Short + Sweet Dubai Endeavour Theatre, Perth, Australia Short + Sweet, Perth, Australia Short + Sweet, Sydney, Australia Short + Sweet, Illawarra, Australia The Talisman Theatre Group, Midlands, United Kingdom Whiskey Theatre Factory, Orlando, Florida The Secret Theatre - Long Island City, NY Potluck Productions, Kansas City, MO Midwest Dramatist Conference, Olathe, KS Herald of the Hope Theatre Company, Washington D.C. The Playground Experiment - Faces of America Monologues, NYC Grand Rapids Civic Theatre - semi finalist and finalist Mad Lab Theatre Roulette, Columbus, OH Crafton Hills College’s New Works Festival for 2022 Gi60: The International One Minute Theatre Festival - UK Live Edition 2022 Theatre Lawrence, Lawrence, KS Gi60: The international One Minute Theatre Festival - Houston, TX 2022 Debra has over 70 Children's One Act Plays Available on www.dramanotebook.com, and 4 full length children's plays, 1 children's musical, 12 monologues, and 10 adult one act plays ready for any interested company/director. She is flexible and willing to work with any company/director.
WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA Website: https://newplayexchange.org/users/30609/debra-cole MORE ABOUT ME I adore telling stories that challenge everyday thought. WHAT I'M WORKING ON I write daily. THAT is my current project outside of running productions. KEYWORDS Humor, dark comedy, youth audiences, drama, equality, tension, one minute plays, 10 minute plays  I had a very well spent misspent youth, thanks to my uncle, a poet. He lived on Leonard Cohen’s couch when he wasn’t homeless, and when I saw what writing did to him I vowed to flunk English. But oh, the specificity of words! I went to art school and for a decade was a painter who wrote. I became a writer who painted. Most of my writing has been original content for TV, film and stage. I’ve had TV pilots packaged with 20th Century Fox and others; a feature script was selected for the 2017 Writers Lab, funded by Meryl Streep, Oprah and Nicole Kidman; I’ve been awarded fellowships from Jentel Arts and Stowe Labs; I’ve written for an Oxygen series, LIFE ON THE LINE; I’ve been nominated for the New York Stage and Film Filmmakers’ Workshop; and in 2020 I was nominated, then a finalist for the FilmNation/WGA Fellowship. In 2016 I was a sit-in director for Wynn Handman and wrote my first play, NO LAUGHING MATTER. (In his honor I frequently name a character ‘Wynn.’) In 2017 I directed and co-wrote a short film, EN ROUTE, that played many festivals including Adirondack, Soho International, Big Apple, Lighthouse, and others. As a visual artist I’ve exhibited extensively, and after my first solo show I was interviewed for Oprah’s ‘O’ Magazine for the article, ’Make Your Dreams Come True,’ by Phoebe Kest.
WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA Website: https://pamelaharrisart.com/ FB: https://www.facebook.com/pamela.harris.33821/ TW: @PamelaHarris33 IG: @pamelaharris339 MORE ABOUT ME A MEANINGFUL MOMENT IN THE THEATER: My mother wanted to be a Broadway star. When I was eight she took me to see Ibsen’s ‘A Doll’s House’ at our local community theater. I didn’t understand what the play was about, but sitting in that dark theater, I knew I was home. I moved to NYC the second I could, and as the decades passed my mother wanted to hear about every play I saw. Her idol was Patti LuPone, but I had yet to see her on stage. When my mother passed I held on to the black mourning ribbon from her funeral. It didn’t feel like something I wanted to keep, but throwing it out felt wrong. A few months later my aunt invited me to ‘Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown’ on Broadway. It starred Patti LuPone, and going to see her made me want to bring my mother in my pocket. That’s when I knew what to do with the mourning ribbon. My aunt gets house seats, so we sat a few rows back from the stage, on the aisle. At the end of the show there was a standing ovation and I stood and flipped my seat up. The underside was hard plastic, but the edges were fabric. When I pushed on the fabric it gave slightly, just enough to pin my mother's funeral ribbon to. My mother always wanted to be on Broadway. Pinning her there was the least I could do. WHAT I'M WORKING ON I'm wrapping up 'Will Life,' a new full length play about a traditional wife who must learn to advocate for herself when her dying husband's Will comes into play and she's about to get cut out of it. (It's about the fall of democracy, but in an intimate setting.) I'm also working on 'Wicked Hot,' a musical about a princess who wakes after a thousand years, and with no prince around to rescue her must learn how to rescue herself. A feature I wrote, 'Joyville,' about a scientist who's devoted her life to saving mankind and now must decide, are we worth it? is bouncing around with production companies. And lastly, art-wise, I'm working on a large-scale art installation, 'We're Very Sorry,' inspired by a proposal Bruce Nauman made for a German Holocaust memorial but chose to not create. KEYWORDS comedy, drama, Jewish, non-denominational, science-fiction, mythic, musical, political, equality, environmental, class, female-centered, avant-garde, multicultural, nature, art |
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