MEET THE 2011 EMERGING WRITERS GROUP

 

Augusto Federico Amador was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area and is the son of a Peruvian composer/ pianist and an Austrian chef. He studied acting under Diana Castle in Los Angeles before moving to New York to pursue playwriting a little less than two years ago. His plays have been presented at Audrey-Skirball Kenis Theater Projects, Playwrights Arena, The Lark Play Development Center, Ricardo Montalban Theater, John Anson Ford Theater, Terra Nova Collective’s Groundbreaking Series, Repertorio Espanol, Red Room, Queens Theater in The Park, INTAR Theater and via a playwright’s residency at Arkansas Repertory Theater as part of their Voices at The River New Play Festival. He was a finalist for Metlife’s National Latino Playwrighting Award. Semi-finalist for 2011 Bay Area Playwright’s Festival, 2011 finalist for the Phoenix Theater’s new work festival, a 2011 finalist for the HPRL program at INTAR Theater and a finalist for the 2011 Kitchen Dog Theater new work festival. In June, his play Waking Up will receive staged readings in Los Angeles at the Imagined Life Theater followed by a Lab Production of the piece there in the fall.

 

Nikole Beckwith’s plays have been read at Ensemble Studio Theater, LAByrinth Theater Company, The Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, Barrow Street Theater, 3LD and the Old Vic in London. She is an alum of EST's Youngblood and a former associate artist of Atlantic Center for the Arts. As an actor, Beckwith has developed new work with Gregory S. Moss and Eric Bogosian among others and is a member of The Story Pirates. She recently made her New York stage debut in Joshua Conkel's hit play MilkMilkLemonade for which she was nominated for an IT award. Her comic strip companion piece to The Civilians' You Better Sit Down: Tales From Our Parents' Divorce can be viewed on the WNYC culture page and her other comics can seen on The Huffington Post.

Javierantonio González is the author of eight plays and adaptations including FLORIDITA, my Love (IATI), Las minutas de Martí (Repertorio Español), Barceloneta, de noche (Union Theatre, London/IATI, NY), Un instante en una especie de flash (Yerbabruja, Puerto Rico), Uneventful Deaths for Agathon (FringeNYC) and Open up, Hadrian. He is the Artistic Director of Caborca, a recipient of the Van Lier Directing Fellowship, an Associate Artist at Classic Stage Company and the designer of the Theatre Majors Program at DreamYard Preparatory High School. He has recently been selected as one of nytheatre.com's People of the Year for 2010. Directing MFA, Columbia University.

Sevan Kaloustian Greene is a Lebanese‐Armenian/Pakistani actor and playwright. Gulf War, Part I Refugee. Member of Rising Circle Theatre Collective’s 2010 InkTANK Writer's Lab. NYTW 2011 Teaching Artist at the Khalil Gibran Academy. William Saroyan 2010 Playwriting Prize Finalist. Plays: Forgotten Bread, DOON, Say Something, Narrow Daylight, Babel. Screenplays: “N.Y.B.”, “(in parentheses).” Coming Soon: “Sketchy Arabs” – a web-base sketch series. As an actor: Lortel Award‐Winning Betrayed (Culture Project, LATW, Kennedy Center, PBS), NYTW’s Aftermath, Prospect’s Mapquest, FringeNYC’s hit Perez Hilton Saves the Universe…. TV/Film: “The Stoop,” “If the Lie Succeeds,” “M.O.N.Y.,” “Blue Bloods.” www.sevangreene.com

 
Laura Marks is a current playwriting fellow at the Juilliard School. Naked Angels presented a recent Angels in Progress workshop of BETHANY, her play about the foreclosure crisis, which has had readings at the Wilma Theater, Steppenwolf (First Look Rep), the Lark (Playwrights’ Week), Partial Comfort (annual retreat), Synchronicity Theater (winner, SheWrites Competition), Reverie Productions and APAC. Previous works include UNBOUND with director Davis McCallum (produced by Prospect Theater Company at the West End Theatre, workshopped by Powerhouse apprentices at NY Stage & Film) and HYPOTHESIS, a commissioned one-act about Voltaire (Prospect Theater Company). As an actor, Laura has appeared in premieres of new work by Herman D. Farrell, Christina Gorman, Noah Haidle, Carson Kreitzer, Christopher Shinn et al.


Anna Moench’s plays include In Quietness (Ensemble Studio Theatre), The Pillow Book (59E59), and Great Eastern (EST/Sloan Commission). Her work has been produced at The Flea Theater, the Old Vic, Dance Theater Workshop, Dixon Place, The Looking Glass Theatre, and FringeNYC. Anna has developed plays at New Dramatists, the Great Plains Conference (NE), the Last Frontier Conference (AK), the Sewanee Writers’ Conference (TN), and The Inkwell (DC). Awards include the Jerome Foundation’s 2009 Travel Grant, the T.S. Eliot Fellowship at the Old Vic (US/UK Exchange), the Tennessee Williams Scholarship (SWC), and the 2008 and 2010 FAR Residencies. Anna is a member of Youngblood at Ensemble Studio Theatre and is a New Georges Affiliated Artist. In addition to her work as a playwright, Anna is Co-Artistic Director of anna&meredith, a cross-disciplinary performance company whose work forms creative bridges between playwriting and choreography.

Dominique Morisseau is a playwright and actress, and a current member of the 2010-2012 Women's Project Playwrights Lab and the 2010/2011 Public Theater Emerging Writer's Group.   Her play Follow Me To Nellie's, was developed at the 2010 Eugene O'Neill National Playwrights Conference, and has received readings with The Standard, Penumbra Theatre Company, and the Classical Theatre of Harlem.  Her produced one-acts include: Third Grade (Horse Trade Theater Group/Fire This Time Festival), Black at Michigan (Cherry Lane Studio/DUTF), Socks (Center Stage NY), Roses Are Played Out (Center Stage NY, American Theatre of Harlem), and Love and Nappiness (Center Stage NY, American Theatre of Harlem).  Dominique's recent commissions include: love.lies.liberation (The New Group - LifeStories Youth Ensemble) and Bumrush (Hip Hop Theater Festival).  Her work has been developed with such companies/places as: the Kennedy Center, African Continuum Theatre, Frank Silvera Writer's Workshop, National Black Theatre Festival, Lark Play Development Center, Hip Hop Theater Festival, and the Classical Theatre of Harlem.  As an actress, she has worked with Women's Project, MCC Theater, Lark Play Development Center, NYS&F, and McCarter Theatre. Her literary work has been published in several publications, including NY Times bestseller Chicken Soup for the African American Soul.  Dominique is a Jane Chambers Playwriting Award Honoree, a two-time NAACP Image Award Recipient, a two-time nominee for the Wendy Wasserstein Prize in Playwriting, and a two-time PONY Award nominee.

Jerome A. Parker’s play Miracle On Monroe received the Lorraine Hansberry Award from the Kennedy Center. Other works include Origins Of Us (Tim Robbins Playwriting Award), Ballad Of Sad Young Men (Francis Ford Coppola One act Series, Best Short in the Downtown Urban Theater Festival), and House Of Dinah (Faces of the World Festival – Los Angeles Theater Center). Jerome received his BA in Theatre from Williams College, his MFA in Playwriting from UCLA and studied costumes at the Juilliard School. In 2008, he participated in the Eugene O’Neill Playwriting Conference as a fellow.

 

Stella Fawn Ragsdale was born and raised in East Tennessee. Her most recent play Spring, which is part of a three play trilogy inspired by her Appalachian heritage and classics background, was produced at Knoxville Theater Downtown by the Water Series Company in Fall 2009. Her work has been nominated for the Lark PONY award among others. She holds an MFA in playwriting from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. In the summer she works on a farm.


MEET THE 2009 EMERGING WRITERS GROUP 

BIOS

J. Julian Christopher received a Master of Fine Arts Degree from The Actors Studio Drama School at New School University. Julian trained as an actor and has performed in various productions such as TBA (Second Generation Theatre), The Karaoke Show (Off-Broadway), The Three Gods (directed by Elizabeth Swados), On Broken Wings (Traveling Omnibus of Ireland), Our Lady of 121st Street (directed by Ellen Barkin at The Actors Studio Drama School) and The Flea Theatre's 'Twas the Night Before... series featuring work by Christopher Durang, Mac Wellman, Len Jenkins, Roger Rosenblatt, and Elizabeth Swados. Julian began his playwriting career in 2008 with Beast: A Parable, which debuted in The New York International Fringe Festival. Julian was invited to workshop his play Nico was a Fashion Model at the LAByrinth Theater Company’s 2010 Summer Intensive. At The Public Theater, he developed Man Boobs, which had a workshop at East LA Rep and then a run in NYC at The Fresh Fruit Festival in 2010. Man Boobs will also tour Montréal and Quebec in 2011 care of Village Scene Productions. Julian’s plays Metro Psalm and SCHWARZ! (Hansel und Gretel) were presented at The Public Theater’s Emerging Writers Retreat and selected as finalists and produced in the Off-Off Broadway Samuel French Short Play Festival two years in a row (2009 &2010). Julian was also a nominee for the Montblanc Young Writers Project for The 24 Hour Plays, (2009). He is a founding member and Artistic Director of Three Monos Ensemble in NYC. www.jjulianchristopher.com

A first-generation South Asian American writer, actor, and activist, Deen is a member of the Public Theater’s Emerging Writers Group. He began his undergraduate education at Columbia University in NYC, took some time off and pursued community theater, then transferred to UMass Amherst where he designed his own major and wrote the full-length Shut-Up! The play won him the Dennis Johnston Playwriting Prize and the James Baldwin Award. He worked as a journalist before returning to NYC for an MFA at the Actors Studio Drama School/New School of Drama. His plays have appeared at W.O.W. Cafe Theatre, Chernuchin Theatre, Theatre Row, Vital Theatre, and the Abrons Arts Center, and include the one-acts Butchus Homosexualis, Sikhandini, Barely Breathing (semi-finalist for the Samuel French Festival), Saffron, and Seven-Year Itch. His full-length play The Story of Tank & Horse (which he wrote, directed, and produced) ran at the 2007 Berkshire Fringe Festival in Great Barrington, Mass. In his spare time, he is community organizer on the board of SALGA (serving the queer desi community) and has spoken at schools and universities about issues of gender and sexuality. Deen is currently working on a solo show, Draw the Circle, which had a staged-reading at the Public Theater in April 2010, Dixon Place (NYC) in August 2010, the Berkshire Fringe Festival (MA) in August 2010, Dartmouth's Hopkin's Center (NH) in August 2010, and will soon appear at Passage Theatre (NJ) in March 2011 and Queens Theatre in the Park (NYC) in April 2011. He is currently working on a play about Operation Blue Star.

Branden Jacobs-Jenkins is a Brooklyn-based playwright and performer from Washington, D.C., whose plays include: Neighbors, Face #1-3, Thirst, Zoo, Heart!!!, and Content. He is also one-half of enemyResearch, a performance duo with whom he has created/performed in Garbage, Schechnershirts, and The Amateurs. His work has been/will be seen at Prelude '08, New York Theatre Workshop, PS122, McCarter Theatre, Dixon Place, Providence Black Repertory, Links Hall, and Soho Rep. He is a former NYTW Playwriting fellow, an alum of the Hemispheric Institute's EMERGENYC Program, and is currently a member of the Soho Rep Writers/Directors Lab. He also holds an M.A. in Performance Studies from NYU.

 

Bridget Kelso uses her writing to explore and define herself and her world. She is a writer, an actor, and a mother, and has lived in Harlem for the last 20 years. Hailing from Chicago, Bridget has performed on several prominent New York stages and around the world. She has also appeared on daytime television and in several commercials. Her interest in African and African American theatrical techniques was cultivated while she was devising and implementing educational theatre workshops in the NYC Public Schools as a member of the Creative Arts Team. Her NYU Masters Thesis project, Symptoms of Liberty, dramatized Nat Turner’s famous slave rebellion and incorporated the traditional African techniques of call and response, storytelling and spiritual co-existence. She is deeply interested in exploring the Antebellum time period in her work, as she feels this time period represents a little examined period of strength and creativity for African Americans. Bridget is currently working on a children’s book series based on her experiences with her son, a book of poetry, and a new play, A Little Bird Sings Freedom. Her writing has appeared in Harlem Parent Magazine and Essence. She is eternally grateful to her family and friends for their love and support and honored to be a member of the Public Theater’s 2009 Emerging Writers Group.

Mona Mansour began her theater career as an actress, studying acting at UCSD (Dream Play, dir. Michael Hackett; Good Person of Szechuan, dir. Michael Greif) and SMU, where she received a BFA in Theater/Acting (Oh What a Lovely War!, Taken in Marriage, among others). She later starred in productions with Chicago’s Griffin Theater and L.A.’s Moving Arts. She was part of L.A.'s famed Groundlings Theater, where she wrote and performed her own material in the Sunday Company for a year and a half. Her first play, Me and the SLA (Groundling Theater, Seattle Fringe Fest – Best of the Fest) focused on her adult and childhood obsession with Patricia Hearst and the Symbionese Liberation Army. Her play Girl Scouts of America (co-written with Andrea Berloff) had a reading at New York Theater Workshop, was part of the Public Theater's New Work Now!, and had a successful outing at NYC Fringe 2006. Her play Others had a staged reading at the Flea Theater in August 2007, directed by Sharon Lennon. Mona was recently chosen as "One of 50 to Watch" by the Dramatists Guild. Television credits include produced episodes of Showtime's Dead Like Me and the CBS show Queens Supreme. She curated, with Lisa Kron, a piece for gay, lesbian, and transgender youth called 'Nuff Said, which was performed at Dance Theater Workshop in NYC. In her spare time, Mona teaches improv and writing classes to adults over 60 in NYC.

Vickie Ramirez is a Tuscarora playwright and a founding member of Chukalokoli Native Theater Ensemble and Amerinda Theater. She co-created In The Spirit (Ensemble Studio Theater) with Chukalokoli and playwright Edward Allan Baker. Her first play Smoke (first in the Cornsoup Trilogy) received staged readings at the Public Theater in partnership with Amerinda; BOO-Arts; and via the Roundabout Theater's Different Voices Program (directed by Colman Domingo). Her Spotlight Series play Ashes, (the second in the trilogy) was recently presented as a staged reading at the Public Theater in partnership with Amerinda. Vickie has also written screenplays and teleplays, including MonkeyDog, Rachel vs. The Little Warriors and Lotto Munney. Honors include 2009/2010 New York City Urban Artists Fellowship, 2010 NYSCA Individual Artist Award and scholarship support from Dreamcatchers Inc. Vickie is a regular columnist for Talking Stick, Native Arts Quarterly. She would also like to publicly promise her father--yes--after she finishes with the “Indian stuff,” she will write about the Jamaican side of the family too!

Jordan Seavey is a member of The Public Theater’s 2009 Emerging Writer’s Group and is co-founder and co-artistic director of the NYC-based theatre company CollaborationTown. Co-created with CTown: THE MOMENTUM (2010 FringeNYC Overall Excellence Award Winner, The Advocate’s Top 10 LGBTQ Fringe 2010, upcoming NYC re-mount January 2011, Emerging America Festival – Boston, May 2011), LET’S GO, TOWNVILLE, THE ASTRONOMER’S TRIANGLE (three New York Innovative Theatre Award nominations), and THE TRADING FLOOR. He developed his play THE TRUTH WILL OUT, a 2010 finalist for the O’Neill Center National Playwrights Conference, at New York Theatre Workshop, the Old Vic Theatre (London), hotINK! International Festival of Play Readings, Orlando Shakespeare’s Playfest, Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, and About Face Theatre. Other plays include WHO’S AFRAID OF GEORGE C. WOLFE?, THE FUNNY PAIN (reading at The Public Theater, dir. May Adrales), CHILDREN AT PLAY (Lark Play Development Center’s Playwrights’ Week 2007, dir. Jackson Gay, dramaturged by Morgan Jenness; produced by CTown at The Living Theatre, dir. Scott Ebersold; two NYIT Award nominations; The Advocate’s Top 10 LGBTQ Plays 2009; published by Playscripts), 6969 (59E59 Theaters; three 2007 NYIT Awards and six nominations), ANN COULTER: I’M GOING TO BLOW YOUR FUCKING BRAINS OUT, THIS IS A NEWSPAPER (FringeNYC Excellence Award, 2003), AMERICAN CHILD, and THE LONG DISTANCE. Residencies/fellowships include a 2010 MacDowell Colony residency, 2010 Artist-in-Residence with New York Theatre Workshop at Dartmouth College, 2009 P73 Playwriting Fellowship semi-finalist, 2003 Edward F. Albee Foundation fellow, three residencies with the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, and three residencies at Robert Wilson's Watermill Center. B.F.A., Theatre Studies, Boston University.

Alena Smith grew up in the Hudson Valley and now lives in Brooklyn, NY. Her play THE SACRIFICES was produced in the 2009 Summer Play Festival (dir. Sam Gold). Previously the play received a staged reading at Playwrights Horizons (dir. Alex Timbers). Her piece THE PIVEN MONOLOGUES, a collection of internet comments, will be presented at Joe’s Pub in Sept/Oct 2009. Other plays include THE LACY PROJECT (A.R.T. Institute; Ohio Theatre; Yale Drama); SATURNALIA IN POUGHKEEPSIE (Yale); ALICE EAT YOUR WORDS (Northwestern University; Yale Cabaret; Haverford College); IT OR HER (Philadelphia Live Arts; Brown University); and APPLE OF DISCORD (Philly Fringe; UPenn). Alena is a 2008-09 Artists Fellow in Playwriting with the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA). She has been a finalist for the O’Neill Playwrights Conference and the Princess Grace Award, and was nominated by the Public for the Old Vic New Voices US/UK Exchange. BA, Haverford College, Honors in Philosophy; MFA, Yale School of Drama, ASCAP Cole Porter Prize in Playwriting.

Kevin Christopher Snipes is the author of such plays as A Bitter Taste, The Chimes, Small Gods, Beautiful World, Party Lights and Hip-Skidoo. His work has been performed at the Summer Play Festival (SPF), Ensemble Studio Theatre, Orlando Shakespeare, Bailiwick Repertory, New York Stage & Film, The Gallery Players, Moving Arts, and the Hippodrome State Theatre (Fl). His one-act Virgin Rock is published in The Best Plays of the Riant Strawberry One-Act Festival: Volume 3. Kevin is the recipient of a 2008 Artists Fellow in Playwriting/Screenwriting from the New York Foundation for the Arts and an Alfred P. Sloan Screenwriting Fellowship. He has also been a finalist for the Princess Grace Playwriting Fellowship, the O’Neill Conference, Sundance Screenwriter’s Lab and the Nicholl Screenwriting Fellowship. He holds an MFA in Dramatic Writing from Carnegie Mellon University, where he was part of a team of writers and scientists who built Valerie, the world’s first storytelling robot receptionist (formerly on display at CMU’s School of Computer Sciences). His adventures in theater can be followed at www.kevinchristophersnipes.blogspot.com.

Lauren Yee is a San Francisco-born playwright whose work includes Ching Chong Chinaman; Hookman; in a word; A Man, his Wife, and his Hat; and Samsara. She has been a Dramatists Guild fellow and a MacDowell Colony fellow, as well as a finalist for the Heideman Award, the Jerome Fellowship, the PEN USA Literary Award for Drama, the PONY Fellowship, and the Wasserstein Prize. Ching Chong Chinaman was a Princess Grace Award finalist and winner of the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival’s Paula Vogel Award, with productions in Berkeley, Minneapolis, New York City, and Seattle. The play will be published by Samuel French. The Bay Area Playwrights Festival, the O’Neill Studio at Yale, and PlayGround have previously commissioned her work. She is currently under commission from AlterTheater, the Kennedy Center, and Mu Performing Arts (with support from the MAP Fund). A graduate of Yale University, Lauren is pursuing her MFA in playwriting at UCSD, studying under Naomi Iizuka.

 

MEET THE 2008 INAUGURAL EMERGING WRITERS GROUP

Back Row: Christina Gorman, Akin Salawu, Alejandro Morales, Don Nguyen
Middle Row: Aladdin Ullah, Pia Wilson, Chris Cragin Day, Raúl Castillo
Front Row: Ethan Lipton, Radha Blank, Nick Hadikwa Mwaluko, Leila Buck

CLICK HERE to read about the Emerging Writers Group 2008 Spotlight Series. 

BIOS

As a writer, Radha Blank is often finds inspiration in the social justice issues facing underserved communities. Her plays include American Schemes, Nannyland, seed, HappyFlowerNail, Reverb and Kenya. Awards include New Professional Theater's Writers Award, NY Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, Nickelodeon's Writers Fellowship and a residency in the Public Theaters inaugural Emerging Writers Group. Her work has been developed and/or presented by The Classical Theater of Harlem, The City Parks Foundation, Dixon Place, The Public Theater, The Lark Play Development Center, Pillsbury House Theater (Minnesota), The New Black Fest, Voice and Visions' Envision Retreat as well as The Hip Hop Theater Festival. Radha's play seed just received The National Endowment for the Arts 2010 New Play Development Award and will be mounted in 2011 in a Classical Theatre of Harlerm and Hip Hop Theater Festival co-production. Seeing writing as a path to self discovery and empowerment, Radha has instructed NYC youth in poetry and playwriting for over fifteen years. Her latest play, Casket Sharp, explores gang rites and death rituals in a deprived town. It will be presented in a reading on January 19th in the Fire This Time Festival, NYC.

Leila Buck has toured the U.S., Europe and China since 1998 with her award-winning solo show, ISite, on growing up in between worlds. Her second play, In the Crossing, was first performed in New Work Now! 2006, and has since been developed with the support of Theater J, New York Theatre Workshop, Silk Road Theatre Project, Chautauqua Institution, the Brooklyn Museum, Epic Theatre Center, The Public, Queens Theatre in the Park and the Lark Play Development Center where it was a finalist for Playwrights' Week 2009. In the Crossing will receive a mini-run in the Culture Project’s Women Center Stage festival in March: www.womencenterstage.org. Her newest play, Hkeelee, begun in the EWG, Leila received a Special Jury Prize from the Middle East America grant co-sponsored by Silk Road (Chicago), Lark Play Development Center (New York), and Golden Thread Productions (San Francisco), and is currently being developed with MAPP international productions: www.mappinternational.org. As an actress Leila is most proud of her roles in the NY run and international tour of Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen's critically-acclaimed Aftermath (New York Theatre Workshop -Drama League nominee- Distinguished at New York Theatre Workshop (Drama League nominee- Production and Distinguished Performance), and Scorched by Wajdi Mouawad, directed by Blanka Zizka, at the Wilma Theater in Philadelphia (Barrymore Award, Outstanding Ensemble in a Play). Leila has had the honor of being a Usual Suspect with NYTW, and of working with writers and directors including Jo Bonney, Thomas Kail, Annie Dorsen, Yussef el Guindi, Isis Misdary and Naomi Wallace. After training and working with Creative Arts Team for five years, Leila was NYTW's teaching artist at the Khalil Gibran International Academy, America's first dual language English-Arabic public school. She has conducted workshops on storytelling and drama for cross-cultural engagement at conferences, universities, schools and cultural centers across the U.S. and around the world, most recently as a U.S. State Department Cultural Envoy using drama and storytelling to address tensions between Muslim immigrants and the wider population in Denmark. Her work has appeared in American Theatre and Mizna magazine, The New York Times and Lebanon's Daily Star and on "Brian Lehrer Live" and WBAI NY public radio. Her essay on Arab-American political theater can be found in Etching Our Own Image: Voices from the Arab American Art Movement, from Cambridge Scholars Press. Leila has been a founding member of Nibras Arab-American Theater Collective, Artistic Director of Nisaa Arab-American Women's Collective, and a writer and performer for the New York Arab-American Comedy Festival. She holds a B.A. in Theater from Wesleyan University and a Master's in Drama for Education about the Arab World from NYU, is conversationally fluent in French, Spanish and Arabic and has performed, lived, taught and traveled in over 18 countries in Europe and the Arab World.

Raúl Castillo is an actor/writer of stage and film. He is a proud member of LAByrinth Theater Company. He is a former member of the Public Theater’s inaugural Emerging Writers Group and the Hispanic Playwrights in Residence Lab at Intar Theater. His play Knives and Other Sharp Objects premiered in April 2009 as part of the Public Theater’s Public LAB in a co-production with LAByrinth, directed by Felix Solis. His one-act The Biggest Asshole Ever Born premiered in March 2010 at Intar’s New Works Festival as part of One Night in the Valley; Four Plays by South Texas Writers, which he co-produced. With LAByrinth he has developed his full-length plays Between You, Me and the Lampshade, City of Palms and Bus Accident Play, the latter two being featured in the company’s Barn Series Festival at the Public. His one-act play Death on my Mind is published by Dramatic Publishing and has been produced by the Cherry Lane and the Bloomington Playwright’s Project. Theater Acting credits include: Cusi Cram’s A Lifetime Burning (Primary Stages, dir. Pam McKinnon), References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot (Abroad Stage Co., dir. Pippin Parker), School of the Americas (LAByrinth/Public Theater, dir. Mark Wing-Davey), Open House (Foundry Theatre, dir. Melanie Joseph), Flowers (Ensemble Studio Theater), Camino/Montaña (Intar), Minotaur (LAB's Barn Series). Film and TV credits include: Rudolfo Anaya's Bless Me, Ultima (dir. Carl Franklin, Grande Via Films), Aaron Katz's Cold Weather (IFC), Cruz Angeles's Don't Let Me Drown (Sundance 2009), Amexicano (Maya Entertainment), Nurse Jackie, Law and Order. Born and raised in McAllen, TX with a family from neighboring border city, Reynosa, Tamaulipas, Mexico, Raúl left to pursue academics, studying playwriting, theater studies, Spanish literature and acting at Boston University, where he was a member of the East Coast Chicano Student Forum. He currently resides in NYC.

Chris Cragin is a proud alumni of the 2008 Emerging Writers Group at The Public Theater, where her play, The River Nun, was presented in the 2009 Spotlight Series. Her new musical Son of a Gun, (music and lyrics by Don Chaffer and Lori Chaffer), was accepted as one of four new musicals in the 2011 Eugene O'Neill National Music Theater Conference and was also recently given a concert reading at Joe's Pub. New York productions include Emily, An Amethyst Remembrance by Firebone Theater (winner of NYIT Outstanding Female Actor in a Lead Role award for leading actress Elizabeth Davis), Deadheading Roses by Firebone Theatre, Love & Money (excerpt), and Milking Success, at the Nyorican Poets Café, and Dig at Horse Trade Theater. Other playwriting awards include: Yale Music Theater Institute Finalist, Actor’s Theatre Louisville 10-minute play contest semi-finalist, Riva Shriver Comedy Award Finalist, Primary Stages Semi-Finalist, Inter-Act Play Commission Finalist. Chris works as a screenwriter and story supervisor for Motion Capture NYC. (www.motioncapturenyc.com ) She and her husband, Steve Day, are founding members of Firebone Theater. www.firebonetheatre.com

Christina Gorman’s play American Myth was developed at The Public Theater, while she was a member of The Public’s inaugural Emerging Writers Group and where it was presented as part of The Public Theater’s Spotlight Series. The play was also presented in the hotINK International Festival, at Westport Country Playhouse, and was named a finalist for the Princess Grace Award. Her play Split Wide Open has been produced at SPF in New York City and was developed with a fellowship from Ensemble Studio Theatre through its New Voices Program. The play was also named runner-up for the Princess Grace Award. Just Knots was named a winner of the Samuel French Short Play Festival and is published in the Samuel French Publication Off-Off Broadway Festival Plays, 34th Series. The play has also been produced by CockEyed Optimists Theatre Company. DNA has been produced at Prospect Theatre Company, Hangar Theatre, Samuel French Short Play Festival, and in the New York International Fringe Festival, where it received the award for Overall Excellence in Playwriting. Keep The Change, a site-specific play co-written with Joy Tomasko, has been produced by the Women's Project for the World Financial Center's Word of Mouth Festival. Christina is the 2010-11 Harold Clurman Playwright-in-Residence at Stella Adler Studios, where her play Sacred Ground will be produced in June 2011. She is at work on her latest play, Orion Rising, which recently received a Roundtable reading at the Lark Play Development Center. She is a 2010-11 Fellow of the New York Foundation for the Arts, member of the SPF Script Advisory Committee, and alumna of the Women’s Project Playwrights Lab.

Ethan Lipton is a winner of a 2008 NYFA grant for playwriting.  Ethan's play Goodbye April, Hello May was produced at HERE in 2007, directed by Patrick McNulty.  His play Meat has been produced in New York, at the Edinburgh Fringe and in Los Angeles, where it earned a Drama-Logue Award for playwriting. Other plays include One Hundred Aspects of the Moon, for Clubbed Thumb's Summerworks 2005, and Hope on the Range, for Buffalo Nights. Ethan has been a writer in residence with New York Stage & Film and the resident playwright for Buffalo Nights. He has also worked as a performer with Elevator Repair Service (Gatz) and dance/theater company El Gato Teatro (Laredo).  As a songwriter and bandleader, Ethan has released three albums and played extensively in New York and beyond, including Joe's Pub, Celebrate Brooklyn, the Camden Opera House, MassMoca and the Silverlake Lounge.  For more information on Ethan's band, go to www.ethanlipton.com.

Alejandro Morales is the author of the silent concerto (two FringeNYC Awards and one Innovative Theater Award), sweaty palms, sebastian (winner 2002 Whitfield Cook Award), expat/inferno (winner 2005 Fringe NYC Overall Achievement), marea, castle of blood, and the october crisis (to laura) (cited four times in OffOffOff.com's Best in Fringe 2008, including Best Script).  His plays have been presented/developed at The Public Theater, INTAR, South Coast Repertory, The New York International Fringe Festival and Mabou Mines.  A collection of his plays has been published by NoPassport Press.  He is a founder and Co-Artistic Director of the award-winning Packawallop Productions.  He is a member of the Dramatists Guild and an alumnus of New Dramatists.

Nick Hadikwa Mwaluko was born in Tanzania but raised in neighboring Kenya and other east African countries. Nanna worked for Reuters News Agency in their regional headquarters in East Africa for several years. As a feature writer and journalist, Nanna witnessed much that has become material for plays, fiction and non-fiction. In New York, Nanna joined Reuters Equities Desk before attending Columbia University, graduating Magna Cum Laude.  After a brief stint at the Iowa Writers Workshop, Nanna was selected by the Public Theatre's Emerging Writers' Group. Plays include Waafrika (now a trilogy); Are Women Human? (published in the anthology Plays and Playwrights 2008/2009); Asymmetrical Me; Once A Man, Always A Man; Mwena (performed at the Culture Project in 2008 for Women's Center Stage); and several others. Nanna wishes to thank the Public Theatre for launching this initiative and an amazing year under their wing.

Don Nguyen served as the Artistic Director of the Shelterbelt Theatre in Omaha from 1999-2003. Full-length plays include Three To Beam Up (The Shelterbelt Theatre, Nebraska Arts Grant recipient) and Red Flamboyant (finalist O’Neill National Playwrights Conference). His one-act play The Harlequin Maneuvre was a finalist in the Riant Theatre’s Strawberry One-Act Festival (2004) and was published in The Best of The Strawberry One-Act Festival, Volume 1. It has subsequently been produced in New York, Nebraska, and Canada. Other one act plays include Fat Ugly Vampire (Nuyorican Poets Cafe, NY), The Imaginary Association of Flight Attendants (Nuyorican Poets Cafe, NY), Love 160 (Robert Moss Theater, NY). Don is a member of the The Living Newspaper (dir Laura Savia), The Civilians R & D Group and the Ma-Yi Writers Lab. You can follow Don at www.thenuge.com .

As a Stanford undergrad, Akin Salawu founded and ran ergo student theater troupe which earned him the Sherifa Omade Edoga Prize for mounting culturally diverse theatre. In June 2006, he received his Master of Fine Arts degree from Columbia University's Film Division where he was accepted with the Dean's Fellowship. He is also a two time Tribeca All Access Winner for his stage play, You Dead Yet?, and his screenplay, Glory Masters (which also won the 2006 Columbia Screenplay contest). Additionally, his plays You Dead Yet? and Your God's Not Coming have both been part of New Heritage Theater's Roger Furman Reading Series.  When not writing, Akin is a professional film and video editor and was an avid grassroots Obama Organizer. Prior to the campaign, Akin firmly believed that art and politics never mix. Then an invitation to write a play for an anti-war benefit yielded one of the most satisfying artistic experiences of his career. The Public Theater's Emerging Writers Group has given Akin Salawu a space to explore the latest startling by-product of this awakening.

Aladdin Ullah has been pioneering the past decade as one of the very first South Asians to perform stand-up comedy on national television on HBO, Comedy Central, MTV, BET, and PBS. Co-founder and host of the multi-ethnic stand-up show "Colorblind," which Mel Watkins of The New York Times hailed as "hilarious, thought provoking and ground breaking."  Theater: Indio, directed by Loretta Greco (New Work Now!-NYSF/Public Theater), Mike Batistick's Port Authority Throwdown (Culture Project), Rain from out of the Blue (NY Int'l Fringe Fest).  Workshops: NY Stage & Film, Second Stage, Ma-Yi, Lark Theater, Working Theater, and Cape Cod Theater Project.  Television: Law and Order, Uncle Morty's Dub Shack (IATV - Telly award for best comedy series), Desis: South Asians in NY (PBS).  Appeared in several commercials as an actor and voiceover artist.  Film: The animated feature Sita Sings The Blues (Best Animated Feature - Berlin and Tribeca film festivals), American Desi.  Recipient of the Paul Robeson development grant.

Pia N. Wilson received a 2009 Fellowship from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. She is a member of the 2009 Project Footlight team of composers and librettists and is a 2009 resident in the Women's Work Lab at New Perspectives Theatre.   Her full-length drama, Tree of Life, received a 2007 workshop production at The Red Room Theater. The River Pure for Healing was part of the 2008 Resilience of the Spirit play festival and received a staged reading from Horse Trade Theater Group. Short plays and one-acts: Dressed In Your Dreams (Stagecrafter's New Works Play Festival); Do You Proud (Eclectic Theater Company's "Got a Minute?" play festival); Whatever and Delicately (Groove Mama Ink; The Looking Glass Theatre's Spring 2008 Writer/Director Forum); The Rooster Never Crows (OneHeart Productions); All the Pretty Girls (The Looking Glass Theatre's Spring 2009 Writer/Director Forum).