Mfoniso Udofia’s plays, Sojourners, runboyrun, Her Portmanteau, and In Old Age have been seen at the American Conservatory Theater [A.C.T.], New York Theatre Workshop [NYTW], The Playwrights Realm, Magic Theater, National Black Theatre, Strand Theater Company, and Boston Court. She’s the recipient of the 2017 Helen Merrill Playwright Award, the 2017-18 McKnight National Residency and Commission at The Playwrights’ Center and is a member of the New Dramatists class of 2023. Mfoniso is currently commissioned by A.C.T., Hartford Stage, Denver Center, A.C.T., Roundhouse, and South Coast Repertory. Her plays have been developed by Manhattan Theatre Club, A.C.T., NYTW, The Playwrights Realm, McCarter Theatre, OSF, New Dramatists, PCS’s JAW Festival, Berkeley Rep’s Ground Floor, The OCC, Hedgebrook, Sundance Theatre Lab, Space on Ryder Farm, Page 73, New Black Fest, Rising Circle and more.

Larissa Lury is a theater director, an associate professor at New Mexico State University, a deviser, and a former acrobat. She seeks artwork and experiences that open her to new ways of looking at the world around her, and strives to create those experiences for others. She’s directed and workshopped plays for companies including: San Diego Rep, Nashville Rep, American Shakespeare Center, The Assembly, Cherry Lane (Mentor Project), The Playwrights’ Center, Urbanite, Portland Center Stage, Southern Rep, InterAct, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Clubbed Thumb, New Georges, Ma-Yi, The Playwrights Realm, New Jersey Rep, Keen Company’s Keen Teens, McCarter Theatre’s Youth Ink!, and Curious Theatre Company. Larissa’s grateful for the support she’s received for her work, including as a member of the inaugural group of National Directing Fellows, through The Drama League’s Next Stage Residency, a New Georges Audrey Residency, an LMCC Process Space Residency, as Resident Director at Ensemble Studio Theatre, and a chashama AREA Award recipient. She was a member of the Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab, is a part of the National Alliance of Acting Teachers, and is a New Georges Affiliate Artist.  She received a BS from Northwestern University and an MFA from UC San Diego. She works to cultivate practices, processes and structures for our field that are as innovative, equitable, inspiring, productively malleable, supportive and humane as an industry built on creativity warrants (so if you’ve got ideas and want to talk about how to do that better, please reach out!).  larissalury.com

L M Feldman is a queer, feminist, GNC playwright who writes theatrically audacious, physically kinetic, ensemble-driven plays that are both epic & intimate. Plays that shift the prism, that quest & grapple. Plays about the women and queers in the shadows & footnotes & margins of history. Plays wrestling with voice & agency, opportunity & access, history & its wake. Plays that explode space & time & dramaturgical form. Plays that seek to create a truly COMMUNAL & TRANSCENDENT experience – for those both onstage and off. L’s work includes: S P A C E (Central Square Theater); HAND FOOT HAND  (Playwrights Realm); LIMBER (Emerson Stage); THRIVE, OR WHAT YOU WILL (American Shakespeare Center); ANOTHER KIND OF SILENCE (City Theater Company, Curious Theatre, The Vortex); SCRIBE, OR THE SISTERS MILTON, OR ELEGY FOR THE UNWRITTEN (Playwrights’ Center); THE EGG-LAYERS (New Georges/Barnard College); GRACE, OR THE ART OF CLIMBING (Denver Center); A PEOPLE (Orbiter 3); and TROPICAL SECRETS, OR ALL THE FLUTES IN THE SEA (Children’s Theatre of Charlotte). A finalist for the FEWW Prize and the Lambda Literary Award for LGBTQ Drama, L’s work has also been nominated for the Herb Alpert Award, Wendy Wasserstein Prize, Barrie & Bernice Stavis Playwright Award, Doric Wilson Independent Playwright Award, and Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, among others. They couldn’t be more grateful for the validation each of these has offered. L is also ongoingly thankful to have been a fellow at MacDowell, the Playwrights Realm, New Georges, InterAct Theatre, and the Dramatists Guild; a winner of Shakespeare’s New Contemporaries; an alum of Yale School of Drama and the New England Center for Circus Arts; and part of the 2022-2023 Artistic Caucus. And they are over the goshdarn moon to be a Venturous Playwright Fellow through the Playwrights’ Center. As a circus artist, L performed duo trapeze at festivals around the world. They continue to work as an Artistic Coach/Dramaturg for circus artists around the country. L has lived in seven cities and is based in Philadelphia, where they write, collaborate, advocate, and teach.

Jessica Dickey (writer, Galileo’s Daughter) is an award-winning playwright and actor. Playwriting: Jessica’s most recent play, The Convent, a dark comedy about a group of women who try to live like nuns in the middle ages, premiered Off-Broadway this year in a sold-out co-production with Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, Rising Phoenix and WeatherVane, and is now being developed into a series for Sarah Jessica Parker’s company Pretty Matches. Jessie’s play The Rembrandt (about a museum guard who decides to deliberately touch a Rembrandt painting) had a sold out run at Steppenwolf starring John Mahoney. Other plays have been premiered Off-Broadway in New York and produced around the country — The Amish Project, about the 2006 Nickel Mines school shooting in an Amish community; then Charles Ives Take Me Home, about a violinist father and his basketball star daughter; and Row After Row, a dark comedy about Civil War reenactors. Her next world premiere is coming up this season on the west coast: Nan and the Lower Body is a dark comedy about the creation of the Pap Smear and her maternal grandmother (commissioned by Manhattan Theater Club and the Sloan Foundation). Acting Credits include: Cry It Out (Humana Festival), Pocatello (Playwrights Horizons) and performances at Manhattan Theater Club, Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, Barrow Street, Cherry Lane, Keen Company, the Guthrie, McCarter, the Huntington, Denver Center, and George Street. TV Credits include: Homeland, Shades of Blue, The Big C, Law & Order, and the Lifetime movie Amish Grace. Memberships & Awards: Jessica is a member of the exclusive New Dramatists and a recipient of the prestigious Stavis Award. Contact: jessicadickey.com

Reena Dutt (director, Galileo’s Daughter) is dedicated to new and reimagined texts that catapult polarizing conversations through unexpected stories with the bodies, voices and life experiences of the underheard. Theatre Credits: Her Broadway debut was on The Collaboration at MTC as Assistant Director to Kwame Kwei-Armah of the Young Vic in London, and she most recently assisted Leigh Silverman on Merry Me at NYTW. New York:  Columbia University, Playwrights Realm, A.R.T.  West Coast: UC Riverside, Artists At Play, Coeurage Ensemble, UC Riverside, Greenway Court Theatre, East West Players, Sacred Fools. Upcoming: An Experiment with an Airpump (CalArts), Pang Spa (World Premiere, Chalk Rep). Film: Reena is also a film director and producer having screened films at over 80 festivals worldwide including Sundance, LAFF, Outfest, Frameline, Cucalorus, NBCUniversal, BET, PBS/Latino and HBO. Her most recent short film, FOUND, brings voice to transracial adoption through fictional storytelling from the adoptee’s point of view, and is currently touring the festival circuit in conjunction with private events with adoption organizations across the country. Dutt directed TOO MANY BODIES, a socially driven music and dance piece advocating for gun reform, which was picked up by NoRAnow.org and Survivors Empowered and received numerous awards in music video and social justice categories. She directed 3 PUFFS OF GOLD, a magical realism piece about domestic violence, and was a finalist for New Filmmakers Los Angeles: On Location competition with her film “SNAPSHOT!” (2011) which explored Angelinos and their diverse roots. Community Activism: Reena was the first South Asian Community Liaison at the Ford Amphitheatre in Los Angeles and served on the board of Theatre of NOTE.  She produced panel discussion connecting 99-seat theater to large theatre houses in the LA area at the Hollywood Fringe Festival and acted as an Associate Producer for Directors Lab West/Connects during the pandemic. Fellowships: Drama League NY Directing Fellow, LCT Directors Lab, Directors Lab West, Project Involve at Film Independent, SFFilm, and Trans Atlantic Partners with the Goethe Institut (Berlin). Connect: reenadutt.com