Paula Cizmar (Playwright) is one of the authors of the internationally acclaimed documentary theatre piece, Seven, which explores the risky work of women activists struggling to create changes in human rights policies around the globe. An award-winning playwright, her work has been produced off-Broadway, in London, in Europe, and in regional theatres from Maine to California including Portland Stage, San Diego Rep, LaMaMa, and the Women’s Project. Plays include: Bone Dry, Death of a Miner, Still Life with Parrot & Monkey, and Street Stories. Honors include an NEA grant and a Rockefeller residency at Bellagio, Italy. Also an educator, she is an adjunct professor at USC. More info: www.paulacizmar.com Favorite sin: Greed.
Cheryl L. Davis (Playwright) is a recipient of the Kleban Award for her work as a librettist, and her musical Barnstormer, about the first Black woman flyer, received a Jonathan Larson Performing Arts Foundation Award. Her work has been performed around the country, including at the Kennedy Center, and she has received a Writers’ Guild Award for her work on “As the World Turns”. She is an alumna of the Playwrights’ Lab of the Women’s Project and Productions, and is an associate artist of the Milk Can Theatre Company. She is the Vice President of Theater Resources Unlimited, and is a member of the League of Professional Theater Women and the Dramatists Guild. Favorite sin: Pride.
Olga de la Fuente (Playwright) Writer, Satirist, Occasional Film Critic, Hopeless Romantic and Shower Singer. Currently pursuing an MFA in Dramatic Writing at NYU / Tisch School of the Arts (Class of 2011). Olga was born and raised in Mexico City, an almost surreal place where she finds most of the characters for her stories. She has a Bachelor in Communication with Minor in Film and Television. Earned Academic Excellence Award (top 5% in graduating class). Worked as a script consultant for Televisa’s new television shows and co-wrote original screenplays for the Mexican series El Pantera (Action-Drama series with upcoming fourth season). Olga writes film reviews for Letras Libres (online), a prominent literary magazine in Mexico. Her favorite sin: Gluttony.
Jacob Grigolia-Rosenbaum (Fight Choreographer). NYC: Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson (The Public, Williamstown, CTG); Sailor Man (co-creator, winner outstanding play FringeNYC); Honor (Prospect); Golden Boy of the Blue Ridge (Prospect); Othello (Oberon); Neighborhood 3 (SPF); True West (Curious Frog); The Buccaneer (FightFest09); Touring: Cyrano; RnJ; Three Musketeers. Film: Rear Naked Choke (Bill C. Davis). Jacob has trained with Joe Travers, Mike Chin and J. Allen Suddeth. He was a Junior Olympic and NCAA Div 1 Fencer. He studied at Yale.
Chisa Hutchinson (Playwright) earned a B.A. in Playwriting from Vassar College, studied at the National Theatre Institute at the Eugene O’Neill Center, and is currently pursuing her M.F.A. in the Dramatic Writing Department at NYU/Tisch School of the Arts. Her works have been presented by such companies as the Lark, Vital Theater, The BE Company, Working Man’s Clothes, and the Atlantic Theater Company. She has been twice nominated for the highly selective Wasserstein Prize, twice selected as a finalist for the Weissberger Award, and chosen as a finalist for the New Generation Playwriting Award, the Otis Guernsey New Voices Playwriting Award and the Heideman Award. Most recently, she was honored with a GLAAD Award for the Working Man’s Clothes production of her play, She Like Girls. Favorite sin: Lust.
Joyce Liao (Lighting Designer) is an award-winning lighting designer. Joyce has designed lighting for musical comedies, theater, opera, and dance. She has worked in all kinds of theaters; from Broadway’s Marquis Theatre – where her work helped Soul of Shaolin to a 2009 Tony nomination in the category of Special Theatrical Event – to Off and Off-Off Broadway houses. Recently Joyce assisted Jennifer Tipton on The Glass Menagerie at Roundabout Theatre Company’s Laura Pels Theatre. She is a graduate of Ohio University.
Natalia Naman (Playwright) was born in New York and raised largely in Columbus, Georgia. Her plays include The Old Ship Of Zion (The Lark, Princeton University), Drought (NYU Tisch), and Crossing Over (EST, Manhattan Theatre Source). Natalia’s writing has been presented at the Lark Play Development Center’s Playwrights’ Week and NYU’s Festival of New Works. This spring she is working with the Urban Arts Partnership’s Life Stories program as a Playwright in Residence. She has been nominated for the Wendy Wasserstein Prize and is a River Crossing Rivers EST Playwright for 2009-2010. Natalia graduated from Princeton University with a BA in English and (May ’10) NYU Tisch with an MFA in Dramatic Writing. Favorite sin: Sloth.
Anne Phelan (Playwright) A two-time Edward F. Albee Foundation Fellow, Anne Phelan has been a Guest Artist at The Juilliard School, in the Play Lab at the Last Frontier Theatre Conference, and Playwright-in-Residence at the William Inge Theatre Festival. She was the first Playwright-in-Residence at the Perishable Theatre, and an Artistic Associate at the Milk Can Theatre Company, which premieredMushroom in her Hands. Two ten-minute plays of hers are published by Smith & Kraus; and a monologue is in the inaugural issue of “Conclave: A Journal of Character.” She lives in Brooklyn, and is a member of the Dramatists Guild. www.annephelan.com Favorite sin: Wrath.
Kendra Ross (Dance Choreographer), from Detroit, MI, has a BFA from Ailey/ Fordham University. She has danced as a member of Oyu Oro, Urban Bush Women’s UB2, Genesis Dance Company, Vissi Dance Theater, and Ase Dance Theater Collective. Founder of We Are Found Dance Ensemble, Kendra has choreographed at various schools and functions.
Karen Sours (Amadea), born and raised in Mexico City, moved to the US after graduating high school to pursue acting. She received her BFA in Theatre from Texas State University and moved to NYC to continue studying while pursuing professional work. Karen studied at Circle in the Square, where she met her current mentor Alan, and she just recently completed the Labyrinth Theater Master Class. She has consistently worked professionally in Theatre, TV, and Film, as well as Modeling, between NYC and Mexico, where she divides her time. Some of Karen’s NY theatre credits include: Chisa Hutchinson’s She Like Girls (Ohio Theatre), Danny and the Deep Blue Sea, The Seagull, and the reading of Perfidia directed by Robert Funaro. Some of her film and TV credits include Insidious directed by Jerry Shram, We Are New York directed by Katja Esson, and Front Man. Karen is a prideful Sagittarius, and in case you haven’t guessed it already, her favorite sin is Pride!
Melanie Sutherland’s (Director) New York and regional credits range from the classics to new works. New York highlights include: river: post-futurist (Paula Cizmar, Cherry Lane); Harry the Hunk On His Way Out (Warren Bodow, Cherry Lane Theatre); Behind the Darkness [Hinter der Dunkelheit] (Zdenka Becker, ACF); Little Birds (Joy McCullough-Carranza, Estrogenius Festival); Fargo (David Morse, Circle in the Square Downtown); Easter in an Alley (Michael Rispoli, featuring Tony-winner Frank Wood, Circle Rep); A Pirate’s Lullaby (Jessica Litwak, Rattlestick Productions); the American premiere of Doves on a Lark [Palomas intrepidas] (Miguel Sierra; Marion Peter Holt, trans., AAI Productions); H’rStory, monologues from the FGM Interviews (Women’s Project and the LAB); Wertenbaker’s The Love of the Nightingale, Williams’ The Gnadiges Fraulein and a gender-bending The Misanthrope (AAI Productions). John Golden Award; Who’s Who in the World, Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who of American Women, International Who’s Who; Atlantic Center for the Arts residency; Directors Lab Chicago, Directors Lab West. New York Women’s Agenda, board member; League of Professional Theatre Women, former board member; New York Coalition of Professional Women in the Arts & Media, past president. Networking Event producer; Wrist Art designer. Member: SDC, LPTW, NYWA, NYCWAM. Favorite sin: I aspire to Sloth-ness.
Melisa Tien (Playwright) was born in San Francisco and raised in Los Angeles. She earned her BA in English from UCLA and her MFA in Playwriting from Columbia University. In New York City, her work has been seen/developed at New Dramatists, Theatre for the New City, Under St. Marks Theatre, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Manhattan Theatre Club, Theater at Riverside Church, Second Stage Theatre, 59E59 Theatres, Manhattan Repertory Theatre, and The Tank/Collective Unconscious. Outside of New York City, her work has been seen/developed in Aspen, CO, Baton Rouge, LA, Garden City, NY, the 2007 Great Plains Theater Conference, and the 2009 Women Playwrights International Conference in Mumbai, India. She is a 2007 Winner of the Theater Masters MFA Playwright Contest. She has taught playwriting to young children, undergraduate, and graduate students. Favorite sin: Envy.
Lanie Zipoy (Producer) is a producer and public relations consultant for the arts. Most recently, she produced the first New York revival of Tony Kushner and Jeanine Tesori’s musical Caroline, or Change for The Gallery Players and Mac Rogers’ Universal Robots, named the 2009 Best Off-Off Broadway Play by the Independent Theater Bloggers Association and nominated for four 2009 New York Innovative Theatre Awards. She served as the Executive Producer of the 2007 and 2008 Estrogenius Festivals. Her public relations clients include Ground UP Productions, The Production Company, Theaterlab, Veritas Productions and Wide Eyed Productions. Some of her campaigns include: Thoroughly Stupid Things (Outstanding Playwrighting Award, 2008 FringeNYC), Spain (Tarragon Theatre, Toronto), Jesus in Montana (Outstanding Solo Show, 2005 FringeNYC), and Canadian import One Good Marriage by Sean Reycraft (“Slings and Arrows,” “The Vampire Diaries”). In addition to being an adjudicator for the New York International Fringe Festival, she is a proud member of the League of Professional Theatre Women and the New York Innovative Theatre Awards Honorary Awards Committee. Favorite sin: Envy.