Jonathan Dorf is a Los Angeles-based playwright, screenwriter and script consultant, whose plays have been produced in nearly every state in the US, as well as in Canada, Europe, Asia, Australia and New Zealand. He is Co-Chair of the Alliance of Los Angeles Playwrights and the Resident Playwriting Expert for Final Draft and The Writers Store. He directed the theatre program at The Haverford School, and spent three years at Choate Rosemary Hall Summer Arts Conservatory as playwright-in-residence. He is a frequent guest artist at Thespian conferences and schools, and has served as Visiting Professor of Theatre in the MFA Playwriting program at HollinsUniversity, and as United States cultural envoy to Barbados. He holds a BA in Dramatic Writing and Literature from HarvardCollege and an MFA in Playwriting from UCLA.  His website is http://jondorf.com.

Ed Shockley, MFA is author of more than fifty plays. His works have set five box office records and been honored with numerous awards, including the Stephen Sondheim Award for Outstanding Contributions to American Musical Theatre, a Pew Fellowship in the Arts and PA State Arts Council Playwrights Fellowship. He has received commissions for youth theatre plays from Seattle Children's Theatre, Children's Theatre of Charlotte, Dallas Children's Theatre, Black Spectrum Theatre and the Harlem Renaissance Theatre. His historical short film, Stone Mansion, aired on Showtime television.

Nikki Adkins has a BA in Theatre Arts from the University of Central Oklahoma, and studied Shakespeare at London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts.  She has worked with children's theatres as a performer and teacher for many years, including the Children’s Theatre of Charlotte, where she was a member of their professional troupe, the Tarradiddle Players. They visited schools and civic venues all over the Southeast, performing and teaching playwriting workshops. Nikki is currently a children’s librarian in Los Angeles, and is a monthly contributing writer for the award winning children's magazine My School Rocks!.  She enjoys sharing her love of theatre, writing, literature, and life with young people, and as such, is currently spending summers pursuing her MFA in Children's Literature with an emphasis in Playwriting at Hollins University in Roanoke, Virginia.

Dan Berkowitz is Co-Chair of The Alliance of Los Angeles Playwrights, and is the former Los Angeles Regional Rep of The Dramatists Guild of America, the professional association of playwrights, composers, and lyricists. His writing for the stage has been produced off-Broadway, in major regional theatres, in college and amateur theatres throughout the United States, and in Canada.  He is the author of four optioned screenplays, and was principal scriptwriter for The Movie Channel’s hosted format with Robert Osborne. A former Senior Story Analyst for RHI Entertainment, a division of Hallmark, Dan is a consultant for stage, film, and television scripts.  In addition to writing, Dan has produced and/or directed, scores of plays, musicals, and cabaret revues, as well as several seasons of syndicated television programming, and a raft of commercials and industrial and educational videos.  His website is http://danberkowitz.com.

John Bolen’s plays have been produced throughout the U.S.  They include: Count Down the Thunder (New Jersey Repertory, Longbranch NJ; Stages Theatre, Fullerton, CA), Best Chance, Chance Best (Chance Theater, Anaheim Hills, CA; Cabrillo Playhouse, San Clemente, CA), Waiting (Theatre@First, Somerville, MA; NewGate Theatre, Providence, RI; Newport Theatre Arts Center, Newport Beach, CA; Thalian Hall Studio Center, Wilmington, NC; Costa Mesa Playhouse, Costa Mesa, CA), For Bidden (Secret Rose Theatre, North Hollywood, CA; The Asylum Theatre, Hollywood, CA), A Song for Me (Secret Rose), Goodnight, Joe (Lincoln Square Theatre, Chicago, IL; Costa Mesa Playhouse), Nothing for Christmas (Malibu Stage Company, Malibu, CA; Chance Theater; Costa Mesa Playhouse), Sands of Discontent (Vanguard Theatre, Fullerton, CA; Costa Mesa Playhouse), Sunday (Garden Grove Playhouse, Garden Grove, CA; Vanguard Theatre; staged readings at Palm Springs Playwrights Circle, Palm Springs, CA and Don Cribb Theatre, Santa Ana, CA), Loreto (Vanguard), ‘Tween Time (Gallery Theatre, Anaheim, CA), A Christmas Frail (Empire Theatre, Santa Ana, CA), Kris’ Hopes (Chance), Expectations (Chance), Believing (Chance), Rudy in Saigon (Chance), Not Larabie (Costa Mesa),  David (Costa Mesa),  Lawanda (staged readings: Genesius Theatre Guild, New York, NY; Theatre Neo, Los Angeles, CA; Underground Theatre, Hollywood CA),  A Tangled Affair (staged reading: Empire Theatre), and The Hidden Dark (staged reading: Theatre Neo).  He is the Producing Artistic Director for the New Voices Playwrights’ Theatre.

A professional writer for four decades, Nancy Brewka-Clark began her career after graduating from Wheaton College by covering Boston theater for many newspapers and magazines, interviewing luminaries such as legendary queen of the Yiddish theater Molly Picon, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Jane Powell, Leonard Nimoy, Sandy Dennis, Robert Brustein and Israel Horovitz.  It wasn’t until 1997 that she wrote her first ten-minute comedy for a Boston competition to be judged by Craig Lucas. Although an April ice storm prevented both her and him from actually seeing the performance, her determination was fixed: she would think big and write small. Since then her plays have been produced in venues as varied as Brooklyn, New York and Harrogate, England, and many of her comic monologues have been published by Smith and Kraus.

Kenyon Brown is an award-winning playwright whose productions include Pillow Fight, Notification, All A-Twitter, In View of, Pride Trash, and Ashes to Snatches, Dust to Bust. He has been produced in SF, NYC, and LA as well as internationally. His professional theatre experience includes working at Circle Repertory Company in NYC. He was awarded the Hopwood Award for Drama from the University of Michigan. He is a member of The Playwrights' Center, The Dramatists Guild of America, Inc., TCG, and The Writer’s Center of Indiana.

Matt Buchanan is a New England-based professional playwright and composer specializing in theatre with and for young people. His plays and musicals have been performed across the United States and in several foreign countries. He is also an accomplished stage and music director, as well as a performing musician. He was a founding member of the Boston rock band System Underload. Matt has a BA in Music from Harvard College and an MFA in Child Drama from the University of Texas at Austin.

Len Cuthbert has been combining theatre and youth since the late 1980s.  He has had a variety of plays published as well as produced in various theatres in North America and the UK.  He is the creator and director of Fridge Door Live Theatre Company for youth and children and lives with his wife and two children near London, Ontario, Canada.

Paul E. Doniger teaches drama and English (and runs the theatre program) at Pomperaug High School (Southbury, CT), and was a founding member of the prestigious CSC Repertory Theatre (Classic Stage Company) in New York City, where he was trained as a classical actor.  At CSC, Mr. Doniger served as a leading actor and Board of Directors member.  After leaving CSC, Mr. Doniger worked in numerous theatres and worked regularly in film and television.  He moved to Connecticut with his wife Nancy in 1979.  Mr. Doniger also served as an adjunct English professor at Western Connecticut State University, from where he holds a Master of Arts in English.  He has been published several times, including in Syntax in the Schools and English Journal, and is a contributing author for Grammar Alive: A Guide for Teachers.  In recent years he could be seen on stage as Sir Toby Belch in Twelfth Night at Shakespeare Ventures (Fairfield University) and as Prospero in The Tempest at The Town Players (Newtown, CT). He is also the treasurer and archivist of the Connecticut Drama Association.

Kelly DuMar is an award-winning playwright, creative arts workshop facilitator and author of a non-fiction book for parents, Before You Forget – The Wisdom of Writing Diaries for Your Children. Kelly’s plays have been produced around the US and in Canada, and her award winning one-act plays and monologues have been published by a variety of publishers. Kelly is a long-time member and past president of Playwrights’ Platform, Boston, and she produces the annual Our Voices Festival of Boston area women playwrights. Kelly received her Master’s Degree in Education from the Harvard University Graduate School of Education and her BA in English with Honors from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Kelly is a certified psychodramatist and Fellow in the American Society for Group Psychotherapy, and she is artistic director of The Red Suitcase Playerz, a Playback Theatre Troupe for kids. She lives in the Boston area with her husband and three children.

Kitty Dubin is a widely produced playwright whose productions include Mirrors, The Last Resort, Ties That Bind, Change Of Life, The Day We Met, Dance Like No One’s Watching, Coming Of Age, and The Blank Page. Her work has appeared in theaters throughout Michigan as well as New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles and Austin (TX). One acts including Tough As Nails, Mimi And Me, Blockbuster, The Prom Dress, Mystical Body, Bye Bye Love, Skin Deep, Strictly Personal, The Joy Of Sex, The Other Side, and Boob Job have been performed in numerous festivals and competitions. Kitty was awarded two individual artist grants in playwriting from the Michigan Council for the Arts and Cultural Affair and has been teaching classes in playwriting at Oakland University (Rochester, MI) for the past fourteen years. She is also Playwright in Residence at the Jewish Ensemble Theatre, where six of her plays have been produced.

Patrick Gabridge has written numerous plays, including Constant State of Panic, Pieces of Whitey, Blinders, and Reading the Mind of God, which have been staged in theatres across the country. His first novel, Tornado Siren, was by published Behler Publications. Much of his work seems to feature scientists—which might be explained by his degree from MIT. He co-founded Boston’s Rhombus writers’ group and started the on-line Playwright Submission Binge, as well as theatre companies in New York and Denver. More than thirty of his plays are published and have been used by thousands of students and teachers in performance and competition. Patrick lives in Boston with his wife and two kids (one of whom is a high schooler).

Fengar Gael’s plays include Drink Me, Touch of Rapture, The Spell Caster, The Island of No Tomorrows, Opaline, Gift of a Thousand Tongues, and Devil Dog Six. She has had workshops and productions at various theatres including the Sundance Institute, the Utah Shakespearean Festival, the InterAct Theatre of Philadelphia, New Jersey Repertory, Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey, the Moxie Theatre of San Diego, the Seanachai Theatre of Chicago, the Kitchen Dog Theatre of Dallas, the New York Stage and Film Company, and MultiStages of New York. She is a recipient of the Craig Noel Award, the Arnold Weissberger Award, the Playwrights First Award, as well as commissions from South Coast Repertory, New Jersey Repertory, and the National New Play Network, and a playwriting fellowship from the California Arts Council. She is currently working on a musical, Soul on Vinyl, with composer Dennis McCarthy, and her play, The Usher’s Ball, will be produced in New York  by the Collaborative Arts Project 21 this forthcoming summer.

D.W. Gregory is a resident playwright with New Jersey Rep and a member of the Dramatists Guild.  She writes frequently about the American working class experience and is best known for Radium Girls, an historical drama about dialpainters poisoned on the job in the 1920s.  A popular title in high school and college theatre, it has received more than 130 productions worldwide, including in London, Chicago, Boston, and Toronto.  The other feather in her cap is The Good Daughter, about a Missouri farm family struggling with rapid social change after World War I, which was her first project with New Jersey Rep and was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize when it premiered there in 2003.  Gregory's work in youth theatre was launched with a residency at Imagination Stage (Bethesda, MD), where she wrote and premiered Miracle in Mudville and four other plays for young audiences.  Two of those works, Penny Candy and The Secret Lives of Toads, are available through Dramatic Publishing.  In addition to writing plays, Gregory has worked as a theatre critic, writing for The Washington Post, and as a teaching artist.  She is a founding member of The Playwrights Gymnasium, a process-oriented playwrights' workshop based in Washington, D.C. More information about her plays is available on her web site, http://www.dwgregory.com.

Claudia Haas has been writing plays – primarily for teens – for eighteen years.  She has been honored with 1st Place in the 2009-10 Anna Zornio Memorial Play Writing Contest, 2007 Aurand Harris Play Writing Competition, the 2007 Bonderman Symposium at the Indiana Repertory Theatre and twice by the Jackie White Memorial Children’s Playwriting Contest.  Other honors include The Nantucket Short Play Festival and the Marilyn Hall Awards.  Many of her plays are commissioned by local theatres and schools in Minnesota with an eye towards writing for young performers.  Her plays have seen over 600 productions in every state in the U.S. as well as abroad.  She holds a B.A. in Speech and Theatre from Wagner College.  Additional theatre studies continued at Circle-in-the-Square Theatre and HB Studios in New York City.  She has been a teaching artist in the Twin Cities for 23 years.

Scott Icenhower is a member of the Dramatists Guild and an award-winning playwright with productions in the Southeast and West Coast. He has a children’s holiday play published with Contemporary Drama, and two adult comedies, The Twelve Months of Christmas and No Kidding, published with Eldridge. His “jukebox musicals” The Service at Rocky Bluff and One Mo’ Chance were performed at the Barn Dinner Theatre (Greensboro, NC), with The Service at Rocky Bluff returning in unprecedented back to back seasons due to popular demand and both runs having record-breaking pre-sales. Scott writes, acts and sends out a lot of query letters with his actress, director/choreographer wife, Katie Jo, in North Carolina.

Tommy Jamerson was born in North Carolina and raised in Northwest, Indiana. He has been writing plays since he was middle school, and used to beg his friends to help him perform them. While in high school, he fell in love with musical theatre, propelling him continue to his education in the arts. He attended and graduated from Indiana State University, studying theatre, with a concentration in playwriting and directing. While there, he was presented with the Angel of the Year: Humanitarian Scholarship, wrote for the Gendered Hate and Violence Conference 2007, and served as a judge for the Midwest High School Playwriting Competition. After earning his Bachelor of Science, he moved to Atlanta, Georgia to work for the Horizon Theatre Company as a playwriting apprentice. He is currently is working on a new musical and resides in Portage, Indiana, with his dog, Remy.

Lynn-Steven Johanson holds a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and works at Western Illinois University. He is a past president of the Mid-America Theatre Conference, a Network Playwright with Chicago Dramatists, and a member of the Dramatists Guild of America. His plays have won the Snowdance Comedy Festival, the Nantucket Short Play Festival, Pend Oreille Playhouse’s Annual One-Act Play Festival, the Old Opera House’s New Voice Play Festival, the East Valley Children’s Theatre Playwriting Contest and he is a recipient of an AriZoni Theatre Award of Excellence for Best Original Play. His plays have been produced by the Turnip Theatre, American Globe Theatre, Makor Theatre, and Love Creek Productions in New York, the City Playhouse, First Stage, and The Attic Theatre in Los Angeles, and numerous other theatres throughout the United States.

Arthur M. Jolly was recognized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences with a Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting in 2006 and works as a screenwriter and playwright in Los Angeles, represented by the Brant Rose Agency. His plays have won numerous awards, and been produced internationally.

He was born in England, but also lived in Kenya, Madagascar and France until the age of 11, when his family moved to New York City. He attended Stuyvesant High School, where he cut his economics class to sit in on creative writing classes with Pulitzer Prize winner Frank McCourt - then an unknown English teacher. Arthur's early career was in the film industry in New York, where for 12 years he worked every possible below-the-line job, from stuntman and special effects artist to food stylist and cockroach wrangler. (Not the same production.) He has over 150 film and television credits, but some of them are cockroach wrangling. These days he will only admit to being a writer.  More at www.arthurjolly.com.

Jonathan Josephson's original plays have been read and produced throughout Southern California, including The Chance Theater, Theatre40/Wicked Literature, The High Street Arts Center, Pasadena Playhouse Balcony Theatre, The Syzygy Theatre Group, The Dana Point Theatre Company, The Westchester Playhouse, Moving Arts, and across the country including The Actor’s Theater of Louisville (27 Ways I Didn’t Say ‘Hi’ to Laurence Fishburne – finalist for the Heideman Award), Seattle Repertory Theatre, The Great Plains Theatre Conference (Omaha), N4th Art Center (Albuquerque), and The Remmy Bumpo Theatre (Chicago). His play The Giant and the Pixie was named a Finalist for the Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, and his short play Beluga Room is published by Original Works Publishing and is included in Northwest Publishing’s “To the Sea” Anthology. BA in Theatre: Playwriting from UCSD and a proud member of The Dramatists' Guild of America and the Alliance of Los Angeles Playwrights.

Linda Kampley has written 5 full-length plays, several one-acts, short-plays and a collection of monologues. Her one-act play, The Color of the Evening Sky was produced in New York City at St. Clement’s, and also at St Jean’s Playhouse, and in Los Angeles by the West Coast Ensemble. Her one-act Small Talk also received a production at St Clement’s. In Los Angeles, DramaLogue called The Color of the Evening Sky "a true gem” and “remarkably intelligent and humane. Its images of human cruelty and compassion have poetry, humor and are shudderingly authentic.” In New York, Kevin Grubb wrote that her dialogue was “reminiscent of Sam Shepard” and “as a character study alone, The Color of the Evening Sky lingers like a surgical scar.” Linda has also had poetry published in many small presses and has worked as an actress in New York and regional theatres.

Donna Kaz has had her plays and musicals produced across the US and UK and in NYC at The Director's Company, HERE, Tribeca Performing Arts Center, Expanded Arts, New York Musical Theatre Festival and The Century Center.  She recently created and directed Performing Tribute, the stories of 9/11 for the Tribute Center at the WTC.  She wrote and directed JOAN for Endurance Theatre, which received a Jason Miller Award.  Donna studied with Sanford Meisner and recently apprenticed with Nagoya Musume Kabuki, the only all female kabuki troupe in Japan.  She is the recipient of residency fellowships from Yaddo, Djerassi, The Blue Mountain Center, The Ucross Foundation and The New Lyric Institute for New Musicals.  She is an alum of the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop. 

Kris Knutsen is an actor/playwright currently based in Calgary, Alberta.  Originally hailing from Seattle, Kris holds a B.A. in Theatre from Trinity Western University, and is currently pursuing her M.F.A. in Playwriting from Hollins University in Virginia.  An adjunct professor of theatre at Trinity Western and Rosebud School of the Arts, Kris also directs “playmakings”: creating original theatrical works within a limited time frame with students and camps.

Steven Korbar’s full-length and one-act plays have been produced in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and throughout the United States.  His drama, Table for Four, opened at The Source Festival (Washington, DC) last June and will be published in Smith and Kraus’ Best Short Plays of 2010, as will his comedy Mrs. Jansen Isn’t Here Now.  Other productions include I Understand Your Frustration at the Turtleshell Theatre (New York, NY), Let Go at Future Ten (Pittsburgh, PA) and  Our Little Angel at the 78^th Street Theatre (New York, NY), as well as in Los Angeles and San Diego. His new full-length comedy Third Bull Run recently had its first reading at Elephant Stageworks (Los Angeles, CA).

Nathaniel Kressen's plays include Incomplete and Beautiful, Jumper's with the Gypsy, When Someone Finds You, We Have to Kill the Hipsters, Five Years to the Day, and Flashlights. Shorts include The Network, Prototype of the Perfect Man, Foul Mouth Wants The Money, Gopher Lake, Up A Tree, Last Day on Earth Fondue Party, A Half-Inch Soft, and Erectus Mortis. His work has been performed and workshopped at PS 122, Soho Rep Walkerspace, The American Globe Theatre, The Source Festival (DC), Alive Theatre (CA), Longwood University (VA), Old Armory Theatre (ND), Connecticut Heritage Productions, FACT NYC, Spare Change Theater, Prophecy Productions, The Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute, and NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife Jessie, their dog Charlie, and kittens Pepper and Porter.

Steve Lambert has written more than 20 plays. His work has been performed at UK venues in Bristol, Bath, Exeter, Salisbury, and Camden People’s Theatre and Theatre503 in London. Recent work includes Showing the Monster, Aftercare, Still and Happy Happy Happy (whose characters include a dolphin lured onto dry land by the kindness of strangers). A Good Send-Off was among the winners in 2009’s Pint-sized Plays competition in Wales. A common theme of his work is how people’s lives are affected by their sexuality. Steve is a member of the Heads & Tales story-telling group, whose series of Bristol audio stories can be downloaded for free (www.headsandtales.org.uk). For more details and reviews of Steve’s plays, please visit www.writewords.org.uk/steve_lambert.

Patricia Lamkin discovered her love of playwriting in the 90s working as an actor for the Philadelphia Zoo Treehouse Troupe, where she wrote or helped develop a dozen environmental education plays for children, including It's a Scavenger's Life and Witling. Commissioned museum works followed: Bat Tales for the Franklin Institute, as well as All the World’s a Stage and Haym Solomon: A Remarkable Man for Historic Philadelphia, Inc.  In Philadelphia, Patricia was a member of the Brick Playhouse, where she developed and premiered several short plays, including The Trestle, Teasing, and the one act, Last Wishes, which won the Brick's prestigious Best of IT award. Patricia now resides in Los Angeles and is a member of the Alliance of Los Angeles Playwrights (ALAP) and ReWrights playwriting group.  She was most recently seen performing in her real-life satire, Angel City, at the Next Stage Theatre. She holds an M.F.A. in Acting from the University of Southern Mississippi.

Meron Langsner was one of three writers in the country to be chosen for the pilot year of the National New Play Network Emerging Playwright Residencies in 2007. His work has been performed around the country and overseas, and his other publishers include Smith & Kraus, Applause, JAC, NorthNorthWest, and Lamia Ink. His scholarly work has been published by McFarland, Oxford University Press, Puppetry International, and EJMAS. Meron is also active as a professional fight director and director. He holds an MFA in Playwriting from Brandeis and an MA in Performance Studies from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. Meron is currently a doctoral candidate at Tufts University writing his dissertation on martial arts on the American stage.

Carol S. Lashof is a playwright, librettist, and educator. Her plays have been produced by the Magic Theatre of San Francisco, Bay Area Radio Drama, Palo Alto TheatreWorks, and Fringe Benefits Theatre in Los Angeles, as well as at schools, colleges, and community theatres around the world from Barstow, California to Beijing, China. Publications include Medusa's Tale in Plays in One Act (Ecco Press) and two short plays for elementary school audiences in Cootie Shots: Theatrical Inoculations Against Bigotry (Theatre Communications Group). Two monologues from Gap are included in One on One: The Best Men’s Monologues for the 21st Century (Applause Books). Scenes from Gap and from Persephone Underground appear in DUO! Best Scenes for Two for the 21st century (Applause Books). As a librettist, Lashof collaborates with British composer James McCarthy; their opera, Threat Level, was commissioned by the Scottish National Opera.

Donna Latham has been making up stuff, writing it down, and acting it out forever. Her plays have been produced from coast to coast. MyFace received its world premiere at the EstroGenius Festival and was part of F.A.C.T.’s WORDS & WINE Reading Series, both in New York. Do These Jeans Make My Butt Look Massive? received its first New York production at The Looking Glass Theatre. Proverbs was a finalist in the Irish Fest Play Contest at the Irish American Heritage Center (Chicago, IL), appeared at the Snowdance Comedy Festival (Racine, WI) and ran in a double-Irish bill with Paddy and the Mermaid at the Odyssey Stage Theatre (Chapel Hill, NC). Corner Critics opened Nothing Without a Company’s Word Circus II (Chicago, IL), and schools throughout the States have performed her series Grappling With Grammar.

Barbara Lindsay’s first full length play, Free, won the New York Drama League's 1989 Playwriting Competition and was given its premiere production in London in 1991.  Since then, there have been more than 170 national and international productions of her plays and monologues.  Her full length play I-2195 won the Women’s Playwriting Award at UM St. Louis and was produced there in November 2005.  Her short play Here to Serve You won the Peace Play Prize awarded by Goshen College (Indiana).  Babs is a fifth generation Californian living in Seattle, Washington, married to an amazing man, and ridiculously happy.

Jean Lorrah has published over twenty books, several of which have won awards.  Among her works are three children's books about the Loch Ness Monster, written with Lois Wickstrom. Jean has recently been studying screenwriting with an eye toward feature films.  She often teaches writing workshops, and is a frequent international traveler.  She lives in Kentucky with her dog Kadi, and two cats, Dudley and Splotch, who are therapy pets for the local humane society. See Jean's daily TipsOnWriting on Twitter, or get all her latest news at www.jeanlorrah.com.

Nina Mansfield is a playwright and fiction writer whose plays have been produced professionally and by academic and community theatres throughout the United States and in Canada.  Her produced plays include: Bona Fide; Clean; Crash Bound; Erasing the Brain; Missed Exit; No Epilogue; Pedestrian Casualty: Bronx, USA; Smile; Text Misdirected and The Tea Exercise. Nina holds an M.A. in Educational Theatre with Teaching English 7-12 from New York University and a B.A. in Theatre and Sociology from Vanderbilt University.  She studied acting and directing at the Moscow Art Theatre in Russia and is a member of the Actors’ Equity Association and the Screen Actors Guild.  She is also a proud member of The Dramatists Guild, the Society of Children’s Writers and Illustrators, Mystery Writers of America and Sisters in Crime. Nina currently teaches Drama and English in the state of New York.

James McBride is an author, Grammy Award-winning songwriter, musician and screenwriter. His landmark memoir, The Color of Water, is considered an American classic and read in schools and universities across the United States. His debut novel, Miracle at St. Anna, was translated into a major motion picture directed by American film icon Spike Lee. His newest novel, Song Yet Sung, was recently released in paperback.

 David Muncaster is a playwright from the United Kingdom who has won awards at festivals on both sides of the Atlantic. He specialises in comedies and has written more than a dozen full length and one act plays as well as several hundred sketches. His writing has been praised for characters that are authentic and dialogue that has pace, humour and momentum. In addition to writing for the theatre, David also writes about the theatre with regular articles in several newspapers in the northwest of England, and he is the new script reviewer for the Amateur Stage Magazine. He also enjoys acting and directing and is an active member of his nearest community theatre.

A Newington-Cropsey Fellowship recipient for dramatic writing and research (2008), Rocco P. Natale is the author of seventeen plays and musicals. The latest of which, Smoke Signals, holds the distinction of receiving the Siff Grant for educational performance and was developed to tour with HAI, Inc. In addition to this distinction, his two-hander, Room at the End of the Hall, was a semi-finalist in the Eugene O’Neill National Playwright’s Conference.  His adaptation and concert work has been presented in staged readings and productions throughout New England and New York, and his one-act comedy I Like Husband is the winner of the “Long and Short of It” competition.  For his work on the boards, Mr. Natale has been honored with Connecticut Drama Association’s highest honor, the “Best Actor Award” and has served on the staff of various regional and Off-Broadway theatre companies- most recently The Mirror Repertory Company and Signature Theatre Company.  Mr. Natale holds dual B.A. Degrees in both Psychology and Dramatic Studies as well as an M.A. from NYU.

Bio and pictures coming soon!

Robin Pond has been writing sporadically for almost 40 years, but his first foray into short play writing occurred in 1997, when he was asked by his employer to write a comedy sketch about pension fund investing as part of a promotional exercise. Over the past few years, his plays have received numerous productions in schools and community theatres throughout the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Robin lives with his wife and three grown sons in Toronto, Canada. Many years ago, when his sons were little, Robin wrote a children’s story for each of them. DragonSlay is the play version of the story that he wrote for his oldest son, Prince Simon.

Amelia Denyven Ross is a Children’s Librarian for the Roanoke County Public Library System in Virginia, and the leader of the library’s Teen Creative Writing Club. She is currently pursuing an MFA in Children’s Literature from Hollins University, possesses a Bachelor’s Degree in Creative Writing from Brevard College, and has earned a Certificate in Irish Studies from University College Cork, Ireland. Amelia is a member of the Society for Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI).

Three times nominated for the prime-time Emmy Awards, Grammy-winning songwriter Michael Silversher has spent more than 40 years working in music, theatre, films and television, beginning with a staff-writing position with the Fifth Dimension in 1969, followed by ten years as founding composer/musical director of Theatreworks (Palo Alto, CA). Since 1986, Michael has written, composed and created sound design for Tony Award-winning theatre companies, The Mark Taper Forum (Los Angeles, CA) and South Coast Repertory (Costa Mesa, CA), and has toured the world in support of theatre, working regularly with the Kennedy Center (Washington, DC) and serving as resident composer for the Sundance Playwrights' Lab for five years.  He composed the score for 75 episodes of the hit television series Dinosaur Train, all of the songs for Pajanimals, and has worked on numerous other television and film projects.

Tom Smith's published plays include The Wild and Wacky Rhyming Stories of Miss Henrietta Humpledowning, ESL, What Comes Around, and Johnny and Sally Ann... (YouthPLAYS), Marguerita's Secret Diary (Baker's Plays); Gray (Original Works Online); and The Pathmaker, Comedy of Errors (editor), Much Ado About Nothing (editor), Two Gentlemen of Verona (editor), and Love's Labour's Lost (editor) for Encore Performance Publishing as well as Dangerous, The Odyssey and Drinking Habits, published by Playscripts. His other plays have received productions both nationally and internationally. Tom is the recipient of the Robert J. Pickering Award for Excellence in Playwriting, the ATHE Playworks Award, the Orlin R. Corey Outstanding Regional Playwright Award, the Richard Odlin Award, a Seattle Footlights Award, and has been a selected participant in numerous playwriting festivals across the country. He is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild. Feel free to check out his website at www.tomsmithplaywright.com.

Donna Spector’s play Golden Ladder (Women Playwrights: Best Plays of 2002 , Smith & Kraus) was produced Off Broadway, as was her first play, Another Paradise. Her plays have also appeared Off Off Broadway, regionally and in Canada, Ireland and Greece. A member of the Dramatists Guild, Poets & Writers and the International Centre for Women Playwrights, she received N.E.H. grants to study in Greece and production grants from the Dodge Foundation and the New York Council for the Arts. Winner of the Sunwall Comedy Prize and the Eileen Heckart Senior Drama Award, she was a finalist in the Beverly Hills/Julie Harris, Mill Mountain Theatre, and Theatre Unbound contests. Her play Short-Term Affairs (35 IN 10: Thirty-Five Ten-Minute Plays, Dramatic Publishing) won the Palm Springs National Short Play Fest and was produced at Playwrights Circle (Palm Springs, CA), Gallery Players (Brooklyn, NY) and Actors on the Verge (New York, NY). Her poems, stories, scenes and monologues have appeared in many literary magazines and anthologies.

A former police officer still longing for her old beat in Syracuse’s diverse west end neighborhood, Donna Stuccio completed an MFA in Creative Writing/Playwriting at Goddard College and her undergraduate work in acting at Syracuse University’s Drama Department. She is Artistic Director of Armory Square Playhouse, a non-profit playwrights’ collective. Her full-length plays, Blue Moon and The Job, were produced by Salt City Playhouse. She was selected for Ithaca’s Kitchen Theatre’s 48 Hour Playwriting Marathon, during which she wrote Heart Burn. Her short play Nice Pants was selected by Wolf’s Mouth Playwrights’ Collective for its inaugural 10 Minute Play Festival, and her full-length, elegy in blue, was chosen to open the 2010-2011 season at Syracuse’s Rarely Done productions. She was selected to attend the 2010 Kennedy Center Playwriting Summer Intensive. Donna teaches playwriting, acting, and criminal justice, sometimes entertaining students and anyone else who will listen, as most former cops do, with stories of her time on the street.

 Trevor Suthers has had over 50 pieces of theatre both staged and broadcast and screened in almost 80 productions. These range from monologues and sketches, to musicals and a pantomime. He has had both one-act and full-length plays produced in the US, Manchester, London, Edinburgh, Brighton, Salisbury and all around the North West of the UK in every imaginable venue from mainstage to theatre foyer to numerous bars. He has been story editor for popular TV soap Coronation Street and has written episodes of Eastenders. He has also produced over 30 stage shows and 14 performances of topical-satire show, Headline Cabaret, since its inception in 1993. This year he produced the critically-acclaimed JB Shorts, six short plays by top TV writers, to sell-out audiences in Manchester. 

Lois June Wickstrom has been writing children's stories and fantasy professionally for over 30 years. She also develops children's science activities and currently performs as Imagenie 'If something looks like magic, design an experiment. See if you can make it happen again." on YouTube and MindTV.  She is the author of Starting With Safety, sold by American Chemical Society, and the It's Chemical series. Her science articles appear in Highlights magazine.  For income, she fixes computers. She is married, has two grown daughters, one silly dog, three grand daughters, one grandson, and loves to garden. When she refers to the "back forty" she means the back forty square feet of her small inner city back yard. Her children's books include Orange Forest Rabbit, Nessie and the Living Stone, The Lying Day, Wendell the Bully, and other titles.

Don Zolidis is a former high school and middle school theatre teacher and is currently a professor of creative writing at Ursinus College.  Originally hailing from Wisconsin, Mr. Zolidis received his B.A. in English from Carleton College and an MFA in Playwriting from the Actor's Studio Program at the New School.  He has received numerous honors, including the 2004 Princess Grace Award for Playwriting for White Buffalo, now published by Samuel French.  His plays have appeared or been workshopped professionally at the Ensemble Studio Theatre, Stage West, Purple Rose Theatre, The Victory Theatre, Bloomington Playwright's Project, Chattyboo Productions, Mirror Stage Company, Impetuous Theatre Group, and New Dramatists.  His plays have had amateur productions in all 50 states and 16 countries and have won numerous state championships.  His screenplays have received numerous prizes, including the 2009 PAGE gold medal for drama, 1st prize in the family division for both the 2008 Screenwriting Expo and 2008 StoryPros Contest and several others.  He has one screenplay under option with Will Ferrell's Gary Sanchez Productions and a second in development with an independent producer.  He lives with his wife and his two adorable boys.