Patricia Connelly is an award-winning playwright and director, who has worked in the theater for several decades. In addition to playwriting and directing, Patricia has been a producer, stage manager, and teacher. Her most recent play, Heartland was produced by Pipeline Playwrights in 2022 at Joe’s Movement Emporium. Her play, Around the Snake Turn, was selected and presented as part of the Baltimore Playwrights’ Festival in 2023. Her play, Princess Margaret, was produced as part of the Women's Voices Theater Festival in Washington DC in 2015. Other produced plays include: The Penny or the Stone, (Robert Bone Memorial Playwriting Award); What Happens in This Town; All the Sins of My Past Life; Harriet; and, Night Sky. She has had short plays presented and produced in Capital Fringe Festivals, at the Kennedy Center’s Page to Stage festivals, at Metro Stage in Alexandria, VA, by PlayZoomers (online), at Keegan Theatre, and, internationally, as part of Short + Sweet (Australia). Patricia has a MA degree in Theater from the University of New Mexico and an MFA in Creative Writing (Playwriting) from Goddard College. She has participated in the Kennedy Center’s Playwriting Intensive; she is a member of the Dramatists Guild of America; she is a co-founder and Board Member of Pipeline Playwrights; and she is a proud member of Honor Roll Playwrights. When she is not writing plays or working in the theater, Patricia works as an attorney in DC and Maryland.
WEBSITE/SOCIAL MEDIA Website: http://www.pipelineplaywrights.org FB: https://www.facebook.com/patricia.connelly.79 X(TW): @PatriciaConnel7 MORE ABOUT ME: I feel most like myself when I am in rehearsal. It doesn’t matter if I am there as a playwright, director, or producer — there’s nowhere else I’d rather be, but in the room. When my first play was produced years ago, the director told me not to come to rehearsals. I was young and grateful and had never worked in the theater before so I did what he told me. I didn’t go. I didn’t know better. I had always wanted to be a writer, but not a playwright. I wrote that first play, in a class, on a lark. When the play opened, we sold out and the production was a success, never mind that the director had changed my ending and cut whole sections. Friends and family liked it and congratulated me. “Holy cow!” I thought. “I guess I wrote that.” I felt pretty stupid, though, when my teacher came and said, “That’s not your play!” I realized then I had to get smart about the process. I also realized everything happens in rehearsal — the good, the bad, and the magic. As I began working more in the theater, I found I loved the rehearsal process. I lose myself in it; time is suspended and everything falls away but the play in front of me. I’ve hobbled into rehearsals sleepless, sick, and exhausted. I’ve descended into theater basements before the sun rises and emerged in total darkness. I’ve sat through days and days of tech, drank endless cups of coffee. It was late on one of those long tech days when another producer sat down next to me in the dark and said, “How are you doing?” “Good,” I said. I meant it. I had a profound realization at that moment. There was no place I’d rather be than sitting there in rehearsal. WHAT I'M WORKING ON My focus today is working on revisions to my play, Night Sky, which is scheduled to be produced at a theater in Northern VA, in the fall of 2024. KEYWORDS Lesbian, Family, Political, Women, Nature, Equality, Satire, Movement, Music, Collaboration, Comedy, Buddhist, Irish-Catholic, Animals, Dogs, Outdoors MARIA COMINIS is a first-generation Greek American. She is an actor, author, playwright, producer, and professor. As a playwright, she is the recipient of the National Endowment of the Arts Grant, 2022, a Semi-finalist in the Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, 2022 and the Bay Area Playwrights Festival (BAPF), 2020 for her full-length play, WOMEN OF ZALONGO. In 2023, she was a Resident Artist in the HB Studio Rehearsal Space Residency, NYC. HB was her artistic home for a decade as an acting teacher and mentee of Uta Hagen. Television Credits: Hacks, New Girl, Desperate Housewives, All My Children, One Life to Live. Theatre: Bernarda Alba, The Diviners, The Sea Gull, Ivanov, and many musicals including a CAMI National Tour. A full Professor at CSUF since 2005, she teaches acting and the new student coordinator for the BFA Acting Program. She authored 'Rehearsing in the Zone, A Practical Guide to Rehearsing Without a Director,' Kendall Hunt Publishing, 2020, and co-authored, 'Production Collaboration for the Theatre: Guiding Principles,' Routledge 2022. She is a proud member of AEA, SAG-AFTRA, National Alliance of Acting Teachers and the Dramatists Guild, where recently she placed as a semi-finalist in the Dramatists Guild Virtual Residency. Represented by MINC Talent Agency and Literary Manager, Progyny Talent Management.
WEBSITE/SOCIAL MEDIA Website: www.mariacominis.com FB: https://www.facebook.com/MariaCominisGlaudini IG: @mariacominis TW/X: https://twitter.com/comdini MORE ABOUT ME: The most gratifying moment in the theatre was when I wasn't sure if I should stay in the game after graduate school. I was burned out, tired and didn't see where I fit in. Rita Moreno came up to me after a performance of West Side Story (Choreographed by the great Donald MacKayle) and I was in the role of Maria. Her eyes twinkled as she touched my cheek and said that I should never give up. She shared that I had the spark and played a beautiful Maria. The Smiling Madonna was an original musical I did when I was 16 and I played a young nun who was unrequitedly in love with a Monk. I had a great song which stopped the show and afterwards the response was so overwhelming, it took me out of character for a moment. I realized this is where I belong. I feel most like myself when I am in the zone (hyper-focused) whether it be acting, writing or teaching. I overcome disappointment by simply moving on and acknowledging that there is something around the corner that belongs to me. If I could bring one change to theater it would be more inclusivity and more blind submissions so the work stands alone and speaks for itself. I think Artistic Directors should know that I am first and foremost a collaborator and my goals are centered on what works for the story, and the whole, not about serving anyone's ego. The one thing that nobody knows about me that I would like them to know is that I am a bit psychic. My hunches surprise even me. It's one reason I don't get disappointed easily. My favorite thing to do when not writing is cook with my family, eat great food, talk and sing through musical theatre scores with my son and husband who are great pianists, and garden. I keep doing theatre because it moves me and others and it connects humanity to an indescribable depth. I imagine telling stories no matter the times. Brecht said, "In the dark times will there be singing? Yes, there will be singing about the dark times." WHAT I'M WORKING ON I just finished the first draft of my second full length play called OWL PEOPLE which was inspired by the visitation of a Snowy owl in my neighborhood from December 5th, 2022-January 16th 2023. A snowy white owl arrives in a sleepy Southern California suburb during the Christmas season. Some think it’s the Messiah, some are ecstatic to witness the mystical bird out of their element and some want it to leave. Why did this beautiful creature choose them, a community divided about everything? KEYWORDS: Greek American, Myth, Ancestral stories, Women, Equity. LISA DILLMAN is a Chicago-identified playwright whose plays include Ground, Rock Shore, American Wee-Pie, Half of Plenty, The Walls, No Such Thing, Six Postcards, Flung, and Shady Meadows, and Just Cause. Her work has been produced at Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Actors Theatre of Louisville (Humana Festival), American Theatre Company, Seattle Public Theatre, Rogue Machine, Rivendell Theatre Ensemble, Station Theatre, Tipping Point Theatre, Five & Dime, Canamac Productions, and many other companies across the country. She has received commissions from Steppenwolf, Goodman Theatre (Playwrights Unit member, 2010-2011), Northlight Theatre, Rivendell Theatre Ensemble, and the Chicago Humanities Festival. She has also developed work at the O'Neill Playwrights Conference, PlayPenn, NNPN's Showcase of New Plays, Chicago Dramatists (Resident Alumna), ACT Theatre/Hedgebrook’s Women Playwrights Festival, William Inge Theatre Festival, and others. Dillman is a longtime company member and current literary director at Chicago’s Rivendell Theatre Ensemble, where her plays American Wee-Pie, The Walls, Shady Meadows, and Chiaroscuro all had their world premieres. Her filmed monologue "Story of a House" was commissioned by Baltimore Center Stage as part of the "My America" project, directed by Hal Hartley, and viewable via YouTube. Dillman's plays are published by Samuel French/Concord Theatricals and Dramatic Publishing, as well as anthologized in collections from Heinemann, Playscripts Inc., Smith and Kraus, and New Issues Press. American Wee-Pie is due out from Dramatic Publishing Company in 2024.
WEBSITE/SOCIAL MEDIA Website: https://newplayexchange.org/users/249/lisa-dillman FB: https://www.facebook.com/lisa.dillman.96/ MORE ABOUT ME I try not to wallow around in disappointment when it comes to the success or lack of success of my work, but I admit that it can be very tough. I had a few years where I nearly stopped writing entirely. I wallowed then, but I've made a pact with myself that I would never do that again. I write short fiction in addition to plays, and in moments of disappointment and potential wallowing I tend to segue over to this other genre and write something new within it. I try just to keep working on next thing—whatever it may be. I see that women's plays—particularly those by. older women—are produced less often than men's plays, and I do what I can to change that. As both a playwright and the literary director of a small woman-centered theatre company, I'm working to promote, develop, and produce the work of women writers. One big change I'd love to see is more serious and widespread consideration and production opportunities for all the terrific older plays by women that did not get their full due in their initial runs or had one super successful production but then disappeared. I believe that world premiere-itis is still lingering problem in this country, and I can cite a whole lot of Honor Roll plays and playwrights that bear that out. I keep writing plays because it's the kind of writing I love—and do—best, because I'm addicted to the theatre and its various collaborative processes, and because it helps me to root out, understand, and explicate what I believe about our shared world. I also try to write plays that I would really love to see. WHAT I'M WORKING ON I'm working a large-scale theatrical examination of the American loneliness epidemic tentatively titled The Loneliness Project. Kate Snodgrass is the author of the Actors’ Theatre of Louisville’s Heideman Award-winning and much-anthologized play Haiku. The play has been performed around the world and translated into German, Japanese, and Gaelic; the film “Haiku” premiered at the 1995 Boston Film Festival. Her plays Observatory and The Glider (nominated for the Natl. American Critics Association’s “Steinberg New Play Award”) won the 1999 and the 2005 Boston IRNE Awards for “Best New Play,” respectively. Her one-act plays Bark’s Dream and The Last Bark were produced by Boston’s Sleeping Weazel. Her short plays L’Air Des Alpes; Que Sera, Sera; Critics’ Circle; Code Blue; Wasteland; and Brickwork have been published/anthologized by Cedar Press, Dramatic Publishing Company, Bakers Plays, Smith & Kraus, and Applause Theatre Books, respectively. A Playwriting Fellow with the Huntington Theatre Company (“HTC”), her short radio play Overture may be found on their “Dream Boston” website. The HTC and Hartford Stage Company produced her full-length play The Art of Burning in 2023, directed by Melia Bensussen. Kate is the former Artistic Director of Boston Playwrights’ Theatre and co-founder of the Boston Theater Marathon, now in its 26th year. Kate was designated a “Theatre Hero” in 2001 by StageSource and received Boston’s Elliot Norton Award for Sustained Excellence in 2012; she is the recipient of a 2015 Tanne Foundation Award for her passion and commitment to the theatre. She studied acting at the London Academy of Dramatic Art (LAMDA) and in NYC with disciples of Michael Chekhov and Sanford Meisner, and Voice with Robbie McCauley. Kate is a proud member of the AEA, AFTRA, and The Dramatists Guild.
MORE ABOUT ME: I love to revise. I feel most myself when I’m in the rehearsal room because Theatre is Family, first and always. I keep doing Theatre looking for another transcendent moment—like in Brooks’ Midsummer Night’s Dream, or Shepard’s Fool for Love, or Bernstein’s Candide, or Shaffer’s Equus, or Sondheim’s Passion, or Parks’ Topdog/Underdog, or Lepage’s Far Side of the Moon, or Churchill’s A Number, I could go on….that proves we are none of us alone. WHAT I'M WORKING ON: A play about forgery--artistic and otherwise. KEYWORDS: Mystery, Political, Nature, Equality, Climate, Environmental, Adaptations, Fable/folktales, Young Audiences, Science, Mythology, Farce, Gender, and Death (always). (Updated 4/19/24) Kia T. Barbee (she/her) was born and raised in New York City. She has been writing stories since the age of five and enjoys creating flawed character driven inclusive stories exploring acceptance of self with sometimes non-pc humor. Her play Roommates received a Best Supporting Actress award during a run at the Wild Project Theater. As a creative producer and freelance script and development consultant, she has worked with award winning screenwriters and filmmakers to strengthen story structure, character development and dialogue. In addition to pursuing screenwriting and playwriting opportunities, she will continue to create IP based content for film, television and, in addition to supporting and mentoring other underrepresented writers via her live read showcase ScriptRead. She is a member of the WGAE and Dramatist Guild.
SOCIAL MEDIA/WEBSITE LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kbarbee/ IG: @kiatb MORE ABOUT ME I feel most like myself when I'm creating stories and producing. It's my happy place. / What's one thing nobody knows about you that nobody (creative peers) don't know? I'm an bonafide animal lover and wanted to become a veterinarian. My favorite animals are cats (big and small) and wolves. WHAT I'M WORKING ON Currently rewriting several stories which include a full length play about teachers called Snobs vs The Underdogs, a time travel TV series and my first novel, a supernatural drama, The Rebirth. KEYWORDS satire, African-American, BIPOC, romance, LGTBQ, time period 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 Jackie got a BFA in acting from Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University. After graduating she moved to NYC where she performed Off-Broadway, Off-Off Broadway and Where-The-Hell-Is Broadway before landing a role in the Off-Broadway production "Tony n'Tina's Wedding". She has been lucky enough to be a part of the Lincoln Center New Works Series, The Public Theatre’s Reading Series, The New York Fringe Festival and to perform at the National Theatre in Washington, DC. She’s also done commercials, voiceovers and stand-up comedy in all the major clubs before making her way to Los Angeles in 2000. In Los Angeles, she’s continued to do theatre and in 2001 she received an Ovation Award nomination for her solo show, “Last Stop: Neverland” which she wrote and performed. She also did short films, was a regular skit performer on Fox’s THE BEST DAMNED SPORTS SHOW EVER and can also be heard as the voice of Harley on the Xbox games "Outlaw Golf I and II", "Outlaw Volleyball" and "Outlaw Tennis". In 2007 she was featured on National Lampoon Comedy Radio Networks’ Comedy Countdown, the Los Angeles Comedy Festival and the Las Vegas Comedy Festival while performing stand-up in clubs in and around Los Angeles. In 2009 Jackie moved back to New York City where she continues to pursue her acting career and is a proud member of The Barrow Group/FAB (theater FOR, ABOUT and BY women).
WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA Website: http://www.jackiemaruschak.com FB: Facebook.com/jackiemaruschak MORE ABOUT ME I keep doing theater because it was my first, truest and longest lasting love. It is where I feel most alive. It's been there for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health and I will love and cherish doing it until death do us part. WHAT I'M WORKING ON I am currently playing the Nurse/Lady Montague in an upcoming production of MAD Company's Romeo & Juliet at the Abrons Arts Center (3/23 - 4/2) and writing a solo show with the working title "RAISED BY WOMEN". KEYWORDS Comedy, Women of a Certain Age, Theater, Storytelling |
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