Zakiyyah Alexander
Zakiyyah’s work has been produced/developed at Greenwich Street Theatre (Blurring Shine); NY International Fringe Festival, La Mama Etc (Momentary Delay), Pace Theatre (After the Show), and The Producer’s Club (One Smart Trick). Readings include: Actors Express, New Dramatists, The Vineyard Theatre, New Professional Theatre, a commission with GAle GAtes et al, among others. Awards and Fellowships: Jackson Phelan Award, Fellowship at New Dramatists, Drama League New Directors/New Works, New Professional Theatre Playwriting Award, residency at New Perspectives Theatre, Young Playwrights Inc. Her work will be included in the upcoming edition of New Monologues for Women by Women. She is a current member of Youngblood at the Ensemble Studio Theatre. Education: M.F.A Yale School of Drama.
Julia’s plays include, 99 HISTORIES (Theater Mu, April 2004), THE ARCHITECTURE OF LOSS (New York Theatre Workshop, January 2004), and BFE. Awards and residencies: New York Foundation for The Arts Grant, MacDowell Colony, Seattle Repertory Theater/Hedgebrook’s Women Playwrights Festival, finalist for The Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. Current commissions: Mark Taper Forum, Ma-Yi Theatre, South Coast Repertory Theatre.
Jorge is a Writing Fellow at New York Theatre Workshop and an Artistic Associate at New World Theater. His awards include fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York Foundation for the Arts; as well as the Helen Merrill Award; playwright of the year in El Nuevo Herald’s 1999 year-end list; a Writers Community Residency from the YMCA National Writer's Voice; and the James Assatly Memorial Prize. His plays have been workshopped at the Joseph Papp Public Theater, South Coast Repertory, and Arena Stage. His play, SLEEPWALKERS, was produced by the Area Stage in 1999, where it was awarded a Carbonell Award for Best New Work, given by the South Florida Critics Circle. SLEEPWALKERS was further developed and remounted by the Alliance Theatre in 2002. TIGHT EMBRACE will receive its premiere at INTAR in 2005. He is currently under commission from the Mark Taper Forum.
Rinne is a playwright and performer. Her plays include, THE RUBY SUNRISE (Trinity Rep, Actors Theatre of Louisville), JIMMY CARTER WAS A DEMOCRAT (Clubbed Thumb, PS 122), ORANGE LEMON EGG CANARY (Actors Theatre of Louisville), INKY (Clubbed Thumb, Salt Theater), THE FIVE HYSTERICAL GIRLS THEOREM (Target Margin), SEVEN SUPERMANS (Andy's Summer Playhouse), OF A WHITE CHRISTMAS (Clubbed Thumb), and HOUSE OF WONDER (winner of the ACT Festival, Region II Best Play). Affiliations: Elevator Repair Service, founding member; NYU Tisch School of the Arts, instructor; Dramatists Guild, member; New York Theater Workshop, Usual Suspect; Target Margin and Clubbed Thumb, artistic associate. Awards and commissions: NYSCA Individual Artist Grant, Rita and Burton Goldberg Graduate Award in Playwriting, finalist and semi-finalist for Susan Smith Blackburn and Princess Grace Awards, Sundance Theater Lab, Playwrights Horizons Harold and Mimi Steinberg Commissioning Program. Currently commissioned by Trinity Rep. Graduate of Yale '91 and NYU '99.
Jordan’s plays have been produced and developed at Actors Theatre of Louisville, Sledgehammer Theatre, Perishable Theatre, Playwrights Horizons, The Empty Space Theater, Clubbed Thumb, Red Eye Theatre, The Playwrights’ Center, Polybe+Seats, Flea Theater, and the Summer Play Festival at Theatre Row. Jordan’s play, KID-SIMPLE, recently premiered in the 2004 Humana Festival and will be produced in Chicago this winter at American Theater Company. Jordan is the recipient of two Jerome Fellowships from The Playwrights’ Center, the 2003 Heideman Award, the Weston Prize, and a Lucille Lortel Fellowship. He has received commissions from the Guthrie Theater and Children’s Theatre Company, Commonweal Theatre Company, and the National New Play Network. With Sally Oswald, Jordan edits the annual Play: A Journal of Plays, dedicated to reinventing the life of plays on the page. He is a graduate of Stanford University and the Brown University M.F.A. Playwriting program.
Oni's first play, MIXED BABIES, won the 1991 Helen Hayes award for Outstanding New Play. It was subsequently produced by Manhattan Class Company, and published by DPS. Her play, THE DARK KALAMAZOO, earned another Hayes nomination for the Woolly Mammoth world premiere. It debuted in New York with Drama Department, and has been published in The Fire This Time by TCG. Her play about breast cancer survivorship, TOUGH TITTY, has been commissioned by South Coast Repertory theatre. As a member of Juilliard's Playwriting Program, Lampley received The Lincoln Center LeComte du Nouy Award. Other grants and commissions include, the Smithsonian Institute, the William and Eva Fox Foundation grant, the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, a commission from Alabama Shakespeare Festival, and a NYSCA grant via Brooklyn Information and Culture (BRIC). She is a Resident Playwright with Mud/Bone Theatre.
Sarah Ruhl
Sarah Ruhl's plays include: The Clean House (Susan Smith Blackburn award, 2004), Melancholy Play, Eurydice, Late: a cowboy song, Orlando, and Passion Play. Recent projects include Eurydice at Madison Repertory Theater, Passion Play at the Actor's Centre in London, directed by Mark Wing-Davey, and Orlando at the Actor's Gang, directed by Joyce Piven. Her plays have been performed at the Actors Theatre of Louisville as part of the 2002 Humana Festival, at Trinity Repertory Company, the Children's Theatre Company, Brown University, and at the Piven Theatre Workshop in Chicago. Her work has been developed at theaters around the country, including the Joseph Papp Public Theater and Playwrights Horizons in New York; Arena Stage, the McCarter Theatre, and Seattle Repertory regionally. Sarah received her M.F.A. from Brown University, and is originally from Chicago. In 2003, she was the recipient of a Helen Merrill award and a Whiting Writers' award.