The People

Producers

Playwrights

DIRECTORS

BIOS

Jaki Bradley is a Brooklyn-based director of new plays and musicals. She has developed and presented work with NYSAF, The Public, NYTW, Ars Nova, Williamstown, Soho Rep, Clubbed Thumb, Denver Center, Goodspeed Musicals and Arena Stage, among others. www.jakibradley.com

Julia Brownell is currently a writer/co-executive producer on the Emmy-winning NBC series This is Us.  She has also written on NBC’s Parenthood, Smash, and About a Boy; The Path on Hulu; and the HBO comedy Hung. Julia’s play All-American premiered Off-Broadway produced by Lincoln Center/LCT3. Her play Smart Cookie was the winner of Kendeda Graduate Playwriting Award and had its world premiere at the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta.

Jade King Carroll is a NYC based director hailing From Woodstock, NY. Some of her credits include: Detroit ‘67, Intimate Apparel, The Piano Lesson (McCarter Theatre); Hello, From the Children of Planet Earth (Playwrights Realm); Having Our Say, The Piano Lesson (Hartford Stage); From the Author of (The Rep); Having Our Say (Long Wharf Theatre); The Revolutionists, Sunset Baby (City Theatre); Autumn’s Harvest (Lincoln Center Institute); Skeleton Crew (Dorset Theater Festival, Marin Theater); Mr. Chickee’s Funny Money (Atlantic Theater); alondra was here (Wild Project); The Etymology of Bird (CitiParks Summer Stages); A Trouble in Mind (Two River Theater & Playmaker’s Rep); Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, The Whipping Man (Portland Stage). Associate Director for A Streetcar Named Desire and The Gin Game (Broadway); The Children’s Monologues (Carnegie Hall).

 Jade received the Paul Green Award for Outstanding Emerging Theatre Professional. Past Fellowships & Awards: New York Theatre Workshop, Van Lier, Second Stage Theatre, Women’s Project, McCarter Theatre, SUNY 40 under 40, TCG New Generations Future Leader, and Gates Millennium Scholar. 

Katherine M. Carter is a director of theatre and opera, and the co-founding Artist Director of the MITTEN Lab.  Previous: Houston Grand Opera, Westport Country Playhouse, Boston Lyric Opera, Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theatre, New York Musical Festival, On Site Opera, The Little Orchestra Society, NYU, and Wolf Trap Opera. Fellowships: New Georges, The Drama League, and Playwrights Horizons. www.katherinemcarter.com

Sam Chanse is the author of Trigger, The Opportunities of Extinction, Fruiting Bodies, The Other Instinct, What You Are Now, Lydia’s Funeral Video, about that whole dying thing, and Asian American Jesus. She is a Lark Venturous Fellow, a resident playwright at New Dramatists and a member of the Ma-Yi Writers Lab. A former fellow at MacDowell, the Rita Goldberg Playwrights’ Workshop at The Lark, Sundance Institute, Cherry Lane Mentor Project, and Playwrights Realm, she has also received residencies from Djerassi, Tofte Lake Center, and SPACE at Ryder Farm. Her work has also been developed and supported by Ma-Yi Theatre, Leviathan Lab, Ensemble Studio Theatre/Sloan Project, Ma-Yi/the Flea, Second Generation, and the San Francisco Arts Commission. Her plays have been recognized by The Kilroys, and her first solo play, Lydia’s Funeral Video, is published by Kaya Press. She is the former artistic director of Kearny Street Workshop, and has taught writing and theater workshops at colleges, universities, and nonprofits. More info: www.samchanse.com.

Hope Chavez (Managing Producer) is a creative producer, arts administrator, and activist in New York City. She is a proud member of Women of Color in the Arts (WOCA) and former mentee in their Leadership Through Mentorship Program. Hope currently serves as the Programs Manager at A.R.T./New York. Primarily focused on the workshops, roundtables, racial justice education, and grant programs, Hope acts as a hub of information and resources to organizations ranging from $1,000-$10 million in size. Additionally, Hope is the Managing Producer of two educational programs in NYC—The 24 Hour Plays: Nationals and Keen Teens. With every project or program she produces, Hope seeks to center the voices and experiences of those who are historically marginalized and create a vibrant environment that acknowledges their dignity and allows them to flourish. Select producing credits: HONORS STUDENTS (Wild Project), KEEN TEENS 2016, 2017, 2018 (Keen Company), SALTY (Lyra Theater), THE 24 HOUR PLAYS OFF-BROADWAY (Roundabout), MY HEART IS IN THE EAST (La MaMa), THE RESISTIBLE RISE OF ARTURO UI (Lyra Theater), THE UNUSUAL TALE OF MARY & JOSEPH’S BABY (FringeNYC), THE 24 HOUR PLAYS: BROADWAY 2015, 2016, 2017 (The 24 Hour Plays), LUCKY CHICK (Fringe Encore Series).

Halley Feiffer (Playwright) is a writer and actress. Plays include I’m Gonna Pray For You So Hard (Atlantic, OCC Nom.), A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Gynecologic Oncology Unit at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center of New York City (MCC), How To Make Friends and Then Kill Them (Rattlestick), Moscow Moscow Moscow Moscow Moscow Moscow (Williamstown and MCC — upcoming), and The Pain of My Belligerence, which she will star in at Playwrights Horizons this spring. Her plays have been produced around the country and in the UK. Acting credits include the recent production of her play A Funny Thing Happened… at the Geffen, the Broadway revivals of The Front Page and The House of Blue Leaves (Theater World Award) and numerous off-Broadway productions including Tigers Be Still (Roundabout, Drama League Nom.). TV writing / producing credits include The One Percent (Starz), Mozart in the Jungle (Amazon), Purity, SMILF and Kidding (Showtime) as well as original pilots for FX and TNT.

Marlo Hunter is a theater & film director, currently in post-production for her feature film directorial debut: American Reject (Full Armor Films), starring Keala Settle, Annaleigh Ashford and Kathleen Monteleone. Her directing and choreography credits extend from Broadway to the regions, including Long Wharf, Second Stage, Williamstown, Roundabout, Sundance Theatre Lab, Pittsburgh CLO, among others. Callaway Award winner (Unlock’d). Princeton University. www.MarloHunter.com 

Sharon Kenny writes songs and the words that go with them.  She lives in New York. Kenny's solo projects include My Name Is Sharon, Adjectives & Nouns (EP), and Pianocentric.  They are available everywhere music is sold.  Her song "Hotel Heart" reached #68 on the iTunes Singer/Songwriter charts.  Her music has cumulatively garnered nearly 10 million views on YouTube.

Sharon is the composer/lyricist to the musical Mrs. Hughes (book by Janine Nabers, dir. Mark Brokaw) which has been developed at New York Theatre Workshop, Manhattan Theatre Club, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Theatreworks Palo Alto, and the Yale Institute of Music Theatre. Mrs. Hughes was recently named a finalist for the prestigious Richard Rodgers Award. She is also currently at work on the musical In Vain (book by Cristina Pippa), which received a workshop at the U of M/Guthrie BFA program.  

She has participated in ANTFest (Ars Nova), The Johnny Mercer Songwriter's Project (American Music Theatre Project), Prospect Theatre Company's Musical Theatre Lab, and received a MAC nomination for her piece "Leaky Ceiling" (Best Comedic Song).  She has performed sold out shows to Joe's Pub, Le Poisson Rouge, and the Gramercy Theatre.

Her songs have been prominently featured both nationally and internationally on television, most notably on Lifetime's hit show, Dance Moms. Her new album Songs About You; (Songs About Me) will be released in January 2019, free of charge. www.sharon-kenny.com

Sarna Lapine (Director) directed the critically acclaimed Broadway revival of Sunday in the Park with George, starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Annaleigh Ashford. Upcoming productions include: Noises Off (Two River Theater), The Rape of Lucretia (Boston Lyric Opera), Kate Hamill’s Little Women (Primary Stages) and Annie Get Your Gun.

Melissa Li (Playwright) (she/her) is a composer, lyricist, performer, and writer. She is a recipient of the Jonathan Larson Grant, a Dramatists Guild Foundation Fellow, a Lincoln Center Theater Writer in Residence, and a former Queer|Art|Mentorship Fellow. Musicals include Interstate (New York Musical Festival), Surviving the Nian (The Theater Offensive, IRNE Award Winner for "Best New Play" 2007), and 99% Stone (The Theater Offensive). Her works have received support from 5th Avenue Theatre, The Village Theater, Musical Theater Factory, National Performance Network, New England Foundation for the Arts, Dixon Place, terraNOVA Collective, and more. She is proud to be from Boston, and proud to be based in NYC and Baltimore.

Shira Milikowsky (Artistic Producer) is a theater director based in Brooklyn. She is an associate lecturer in Theatre, Dance & Media at Harvard University, and co-founder of the new theater company, The Neon Coven. Shira spent six seasons as the Artistic Associate at the American Repertory Theater, where her projects included The Lily’s Revenge by Taylor Mac. As an artist/activist, Shira seeks ways that theatrical events can activate communities around urgent social issues. In 2016 she conceived and produced A Safe & Special Place, an evening of original protest plays that brought together over 45 artists to raise funds for Planned Parenthood. As a Luce Scholar in Seoul, South Korea, Shira created a Korean adaptation of The Caucasian Chalk Circle that toured to the Tumen River Arts Festival on the Chinese border with North Korea. Upcoming: OSCAR at The Crown, a post-apocalyptic nightclub musical, produced by www.TheNeonCoven.com, premiering January 2019. Shira holds an MFA in directing from Columbia and a BA in Theater Studies from Yale.

Broadway: The Waverly Gallery. Recent off-Broadway: At Home at the Zoo, The Antipodes, Everybody, Signature Plays(The Sandbox, Drowning, & Funnyhouse of a Negro), The Wayside Motor Inn (Signature Theatre); Mary Page Marlowe (Second Stage); The Wolves (Playwrights Realm; Lincoln Center); Miles For Mary (also co-author, The Mad Ones/Playwrights Horizons); After The Blast, Kill Floor (LCT3); Peace for Mary Frances (The New Group). TV: HBO's "Room 104." Co-Artistic Director of The Mad Ones; Obie, Drama Desk, Princess Grace Award winner.

Kate Pines (Co-Creator) has worked in nearly all aspects of creating new plays for the American theatre, currently as a literary agent in the theatre department of ICM Partners. Previously, she served as the Literary Director of The Playwrights Realm, and the Associate Artistic Director of Women's Project Theater. In the years prior, Kate spent two seasons on the artistic staff of the Public Theater, and the previous decade as a freelance director, working on Broadway and at such off-Broadway and regional theaters as Ars Nova, Second Stage, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and many more. She lives in New York with her husband and two sons.

TYNE RAFAELI’S recent productions include: USUAL GIRLS by Ming Peiffer, I WAS MOST ALIVE WITH YOU by Craig Lucas, IN A WORD by Lauren Yee, Michael Yates Crowley’s THE RAPE OF THE SABINE WOMEN BY GRACE B MATTHIAS, IRONBOUND by Martyna Majok, ACTUALLY by Anna Ziegler, OUR VERY OWN CARLIN MCULLOUGH by Amanda Peet. Her work has been seen at: Roundabout Theatre Company, Playwright’s Horizons, The Atlantic Theatre, The Geffen Playhouse, Classic Stage Company, Playwright’s Realm, Williamstown Theatre Festival, California Shakespeare Theatre, New York Stage & Film, Julliard, Two River Theatre, PlayMaker’s Rep, Goodspeed, The O’Neill Playwright’s Conference amongst others. Tyne is a 2016-2018 Time Warner Directing Fellow at the Women’s Project Theatre and was awarded the 2013-14 SDCF Sir John Gielgud Fellowship for Classical Direction.

Sharyn Rothstein (Co-Creator and Playwright) is a playwright and television writer, whose plays and musicals have  been workshopped and produced around the country, as well as internationally. Her play By The Water was first produced by Manhattan Theater Club and Ars Nova and was the recipient of the American Theater Critic’s Association Francesca Primus Prize. Her play All The Days was the recipient of the Edgerton Foundation Award and was produced at the McCarter Theater Center, directed by Emily Mann. In addition to playwriting, Sharyn is a writer and consulting producer for the USA Network drama SUITS. She is currently working on commissions from Manhattan Theater Club, Williamstown Theatre Festival, as well as a stage adaptation of the beloved film Hester Street. Her newest play Landladies will premiere at Northlight Theater this March. She holds an MFA in dramatic writing from NYU and a Masters in Public Health from Hunter College, with a concentration in Urban Health. She is represented by ICM Partners.

Laura Savia is the Associate Artistic Director of Williamstown Theatre Festival.  Directing: James Anthony Tyler’s Artney Jackson (Williamstown), Lucy Thurber’s Once Upon a Time in the Berkshires and Orpheus in the Berkshires (Williamstown), and Bareknuckle (Vertigo Theatre), Ryan Haddad’s Hi, Are You Single? (Public Theater’s Under the Radar, Guthrie), Jonathan Caren’s The Recommendation (IAMA; two Ovation Awards), and James Lescesne’s The Absolute Brightness of Leonard Pelkey (City Theatre). www.laurasavia.com

Natasha Stoynoff (playwright) is a two-time New York Times bestselling author with over a dozen books to her credit. She graduated with a BA in English and Psychology from York University in Toronto and studied journalism at Ryerson University. Natasha began her career as a news reporter/photographer for the Toronto Star and columnist/feature writer for the Toronto Sun. 

A two-time winner of Time Inc.’s Henry R. Luce Award for excellence in journalism, she was a longtime staff writer in People magazine’s New York bureau and a news correspondent for TIME.  She currently writes an ongoing series about sexual harassment and assault in People called, “Women Speak Out.” Natasha lives in Manhattan and is finishing her second screenplay.

Bess Wohl’s plays include SMALL MOUTH SOUNDS (NY Times Critic's Pick, John Gassner Outer Critics Circle Award, year's top ten lists in The New York Times, The New York Post, The Guardian and others), MAKE BELIEVE, AMERICAN HERO, BARCELONA, TOUCHED, IN, CATS TALK BACK and the musical PRETTY FILTHY with composer/lyricist Michael Friedman and The Civilians (Lucille Lortel and Drama Desk nominations for Outstanding Musical).  Her new play, CONTINUITY, will have its world premiere at Manhattan Theatre Club in the spring of 2019.

 Her plays have been produced or developed at theaters in New York and around the country, including Second Stage, Ars Nova, The Williamstown Theatre Festival, Goodman Theater, The Geffen Playhouse, People’s Light and Theatre Company, The Contemporary American Theater Festival, Vineyard Arts Project, The Pioneer Theatre, The Pittsburgh Public Theater, The Northlight Theater, TheaterWorks New Works Fesitval, Ojai Playwright's Conference, the Cape Cod Theatre Project, PlayPenn and the New York International Fringe Festival (Award for Best Overall Production). She currently holds new play commissions from Lincoln Center, Manhattan Theater Club, Second Stage, and The Williamstown Theatre Festival.

 In 2015, Bess won the Sam Norkin special Drama Desk Award for “establishing herself as an important voice in New York theater, and having a breakthrough year.” Other awards and honors include the Athena Award for her screenplay, VIRGINIA, a MacDowell Fellowship, and inclusion on Hollywood’s Black List of Best Screenplays. She is an associate artist with The Civilians, an alumna of Ars Nova’s Play Group, and the recipient of new play commissions from Manhattan Theatre Club, Second Stage, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Lincoln Center and Hartford Stage. She also writes screenplays and has developed multiple original television projects for HBO, ABC, USA, FOX, Disney, Paramount and others. In her previous life as an actress, she appeared onstage in New York and regionally, and in numerous films and TV shows where she has given birth, solved crimes, committed crimes, been wrongly accused, and come back from the dead.

She is a graduate of Harvard and the Yale School of Drama.

Anna Ziegler (playwright) has written the plays Actually (Manhattan Theatre Club; Williamstown Theatre Festival; Geffen Playhouse; L.A. Ovation Award winner for Playwriting for an Original Play), the widely produced Photograph 51(directed on the West End by Michael Grandage and starring Nicole Kidman; WhatsOnStage Award for Best New Play; year’s top ten list in The Washington Post and The Telegraph), Boy (Keen Company/Ensemble Studio Theatre; Outer Critics Circle John Gassner Award nominee), The Wanderers (The Old Globe; Blanche and Irving Laurie Theatre Visions Fund winner), The Last Match (Roundabout Theatre Company; The Old Globe; Craig Noel Award nominee for Outstanding New Play),  and A Delicate Ship (New York Times Critic’s Pick; The Playwrights Realm; Cincinnati Playhouse). She holds commissions from Roundabout Theatre Company, Second Stage Theatre, Seattle Repertory Theatre, and The Geffen Playhouse. Oberon Books has published a collection of her work entitled Anna Ziegler: Plays One. This season: Photograph 51 at Melbourne Theatre Company, South Coast Rep, Court Theatre; Actually at Theater J, Hartford Theaterworks, Aurora Theatre, GableStage, Minnesota Jewish Theatre and San Diego Rep.