Broadway, London’s West End and Moscow: A Walk In The Woods (Tony and Olivier nominations, Pulitzer finalist, American Theater Critics Association Award). Off-Broadway: Going to St. Ives at Primary Stages (Outer Critics Circle Award for Best off-Broadway Play, Lucille Lortel Award nomination, Best Play, Obie Award for Outstanding Ensemble), Thief River at Signature Theatre (Drama Desk nomination, Best Play), Cobb at the Lucille Lortel Theater (Drama Desk Award, Best Ensemble), Chesapeake with New York Stage & Film at Second Stage Theatre (Outer Critics Award for sound, nomination for Best Solo Performance), Down The Road, Eleemosynary at Manhattan Theatre Club. In the Signature Theatre’s 1992-93 season, Fortinbras, Lake Street Extension, Two Rooms and the world premiere of Patient A. Upcoming world premiere: Lonesome Hollow at Contemporary American Theatre Festival in July, 2007. Recent regional and world premieres include A Body of Water at the Tyrone Guthrie Theater, the Old Globe and Round House Theatre (2006 Steinberg/American Theater Critics Association Award) and The Scottish Play at La Jolla Playhouse. Past premieres at Actors Theatre of Louisville, Yale Repertory Theater, Steppenwolf, Arena Stage and the Alliance Theater among others. Plays produced in England, France, Germany, Japan, Russia, Scandinavia, South Africa, Egypt, Israel, Brazil and elsewhere worldwide. Other plays include Great Falls, Whores, Black Sheep, Riches, Independence (Great American Play Award), Nice People Dancing to Good Country Music and Oldtimers Game. Recent productions also include Flag Day at the Contemporary American Theater Festival and The Winning Streak at George Street Playhouse. Nine-time participant in the Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights Conference. Film and television: “Cooperstown” for TNT (Humanitas Award). Grants from the NEA as well as the Guggenheim, Bush, McKnight and Jerome Foundations. Current resident of New York. Head of the Graduate Playwriting Program at Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University.

Russell Davis' plays include The Last Good Moment of Lily Baker, Appointment with a High Wire Lady, and Sally's Gone, She Left Her Name. They have been produced at various theatres, including Long Wharf, St. Louis Repertory, Actors Theatre of Louisville, and Yale Repertory. They have also been presented at Mark Taper Forum's New Work Festival, New Harmony Project, Sundance Playwrights Lab. and the National Playwrights Conference. He received a 2004 Fellowship from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and was resident playwright at People's Light & Theatre Company for the Theatre Residency Program of the National Endowment for the Arts/Theatre Communications Group. He received two earlier fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and grants from the McKnight Foundation, Tennessee Arts Commission, New York Foundation for the Arts and New York State Council on the Arts. He performed as a juggler and unicyclist for The Road Company and Pittsburgh's City Theatre Company. People's Light & Theatre produced his The Thoughts & Travels of Nicki, a new vaudeville piece for all ages, in which he performed with the juggler Joshua Mitsuo Weiner. He directed Tony Duncan who won the juggling championships at the 1994 International Jugglers' Association Convention, and worked with the juggler Michael Moschen in Michael Moschen in Motion at BAM's 1988 Next Wave Festival and at the Lincoln Center's SERIOUS FUN! Festival 1990. He is currently working with Jon Held, a juggler and former member of Airjazz, on Tales of Lunacy which was recently produced by Touchstone Theatre.

Since 1981, Steven Dietz’s twenty-plus plays and adaptations have been widely produced at regional theatres across the United States, as well as Off-Broadway. International productions of his work have been seen in England, France, Germany, Japan, Russia, Sweden, Australia, Argentina, Peru, Singapore, Slovenia and South Africa. His recent work includes Fiction (Roundabout, Off-Broadway), Last of the Boys (Steppenwolf), and City of Ghosts. He divides his time between Seattle and Austin, where teaches playwriting at the University of Texas.”

Liz Engelman is a freelance dramaturg who lives in Minneapolis. Liz has served as the Literary Director of the McCarter Theatre, the Director of New Play Development at ACT Theatre in Seattle, Washington, Literary Manager/Dramaturg at Seattle’s Intiman Theatre, and as Assistant Literary Manager at Actors Theatre of Louisville. She has worked on the development of new plays at The Playwrights’ Center in Minneapolis, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, ASK Theatre Projects, New York Theatre Workshop, the O’Neill Playwrights Conference, and South Coast Rep. She has directed new plays at The Illusion Theatre (with Michael Dixon), Mixed Blood Theatre, The Playwrights' Center in Minneapolis, and Carleton College. Liz has been a guest at Washington University in St. Louis, the University of Puget Sound, Cornish College of the Arts, and has taught playwriting at Freehold Studio Theatre Lab and The Playwrights' Center. She studied dramaturgy and new play development at Brown and Columbia universities, where she received her BA and MFA in theatre and dramaturgy, respectively. Liz is the co-editor with Michael Bigelow Dixon of several collections of plays, and of two volumes of monologues with Tori Haring-Smith. She has written articles published in Theatre Topics and Theatre Forum. She serves on the Advisory Board of the National New Play Network and Emigrant Theatre, is a Consultant for The Playwrights' Center (where she helped initiate their New Plays on Campus Program), and Dramaturg at Mixed Blood Theatre. Liz most recently served as President of LMDA, Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas. She is now beginning her 3-year term as LMDA’s Board Chair and is establishing a new Creative Retreat Center in Northern Minnesota.

FRANK GAGLIANO (Playwright, Book Writer/lyricist, Educator, Artistic Director) Off-Broadway Credits: CONERICO WAS HERE TO STAY, NIGHT OF THE DUNCE (both produced by Edward Albee’s Theatre 1967 at The Cherry Lane Theatre) , FATHER UXBRIDGE WANTS TO MARRY, THE CITY SCENE, IN THE VOODOO PARLOUR OF MARIE LEVEAU. Musical Theatre pieces include CONGO SQUARE (Finalist in the 2005 Cardiff International Musical Theatre Search) , FROM THE BODONI COUNTY SONGBOOK ANTHOLOGY (both with composer Claibe Richardson); and THE RESURRECTION OF JACKIE CRAMER (with composer Raymond Benson; recent writer of ther James Bond novels). Frank was a founding member of The O’Neill Theatre Center and helped found The Showcase of New Plays at Carnegie Mellon University, serving there as Artistic Director for twelve years, and developing plays by Doug Wright, Christopher Shinn, Willy Holtzman, Nilo Cruz, and many others. He also served as the Artistic Director for the Festival of New Works at The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where he established the Arthur Miller Award for Dramatic Writing, with Mr. Miller in attendance. Frank's article, THE TIMEBENDS WORLD OF ARTHUR MILLER , has recently been published in the volume, "Arthur Miller's America: Theatre and Culture in a Time of Change”. Frank is a member of The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP); The Dramatists Guild, Epic Rep Theatre, The New Dramatists (Alum). He has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, a National Endowment of the Arts Fellowship in Playwriting, two Rockefeller Foundation Grants and a Pennsylvania Council On The Arts Playwrights Fellowship. Playwright Gagliano was awarded the grand prize in the International Ernest Hemingway Playwriting Competition for his play, THE TOTAL IMMERSION OF MADELEINE FAVORINI. Frank’s recent one-man reading/performances of his play, MY CHEKHOV LIGHT, were at the 2004 Eugene O’Neill Playwrights Conference (where he also served as a Playwright’s Mentor), and at New York’s Cherry Lane Theatre in Sept of ‘04; he will read/perform MY CHEKHOV LIGHT in Ukraine, on March 13, 2005. Frank continues to hold the Benedum Chair in Theatre at West Virginia University -- which he has occupied since 1976.

Sara Garonzik (Producing Artistic Director) has directed and produced for Philadelphia Theatre Company since 1982, which has introduced more than 100 world or regional premieres of major new American plays and musicals to Philadelphia including new work by Terrence McNally, Jeffrey Hatcher, Christopher Durang, John Henry Redwood, Tracey Scott Wilson, Naomi Wallace and Bruce Graham, among others. In 1991 she was named to the Philadelphia Theatre Company Board of Directors. Other service has included: Board Member of ArtReach and the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance (GPCA); theater panels for the Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Ohio State Councils on the Arts; theater panels for The Philadelphia Theatre Initiative, the McKnight Foundation Advancement Awards for Playwriting and the O'Neill Playwrights Conference, and as a judge for the 2005 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. She is listed in "Who's Who of American Women" and was named one of Business Philadelphia's and Philadelphia Magazine's "People to Watch." She has received the Award of Honor from the Alumnae Association of the Philadelphia High School for Girls and in 2006 received the President's Award from the Philadelphia Young Playwrights. She currently serves as a Board Member of the Arts & Business Council of Greater Philadelphia, the Theatre Alliance of Greater Philadelphia, the Philadelphia Cultural Fund and on the advisory board of PlayPenn.

BRUCE GRAHAM (author) - Plays: Burkie, Early One Evening at the Rainbow Bar & Grille, Minor Demons, Moon Over The Brewery, The Champagne Charlie Stakes, Belmont Avenue Social Club, Desperate Affection, Coyote on a Fence, According to Goldman. Coyote on a Fence was the winner of the Rosenthal Prize and recently opened on London's West End starring Ben Cross. His one-man show The Philly Fan was recently revived for a third run. Two new plays, Dex and Julie Sittin’ In A Tree (Arden Theatre) and Full Figured, Loves to Dance (Theatre Exile) open in January ‘07. Feature film credits: Dunston Checks In, Anastasia, Steal This Movie. T.V. movies: Hunt for the Unicorn Killer, The Christmas Secret, Ring of Endless Light (2003 Humanitas Award Winner - Best Children's Teleplay), Right on Track, Tiger Cruise. Television: Roseanne, Leg Work. His textbook, The Collaborative Playwright, a Practical Guide to Getting Your Play Written (with co-writer Michele Volansky) is scheduled to bepublished by Heinemann in March of ‘07. Graham has received grants from the Pew Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation and was a recipient of the Princess Grace Foundation Statuette Award. He currently teaches playwriting and film courses at the University of Pennsylvania and Drexel University. Graham lives in Media, Pennsylvania, with Stephanie and their daughter, Kendall.

LILLIAN GROAG (Director): works in the theatre as an actress, writer and director. Her acting credits include Broadway, Off Broadway, Mark Taper Forum, and regional theatres throughout the country. She has directed at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, the Old Globe Theatre, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Mark Taper Forum’s Taper Too, New York City Opera, Chicago Opera Theatre, Center Stage, The People’s Light and Theatre Company, Berkeley Repertory, Milwaukee Repertory, Missouri Repertory, Seattle Repertory, Glimmerglass Opera, San Jose Repertory, the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco, The Juilliard School of Music, Florentine Opera, the Sundance Institute Playwrights Lab, the Virginia Opera, Opera San Jose and the Company of Angels. Her plays The Ladies of the Camellias, The White Rose (AT&T award for New American Plays), The Magic Fire (Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays), MENOCCHIO and MIDONS have been produced variously by the Old Globe Theatre, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, The Kennedy Center, The Guthrie Theater, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Yale Repertory, Denver Center, The Shaw Festival, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, the Northlight Theatre, the WPA Theatre, Seattle Repertory, the Asolo Theatre, The Wilma Theatre, The People’s Light and Theatre Company, and The Shaw Festival. Abroad: Mexico City, Junges Theatre in Bonn, Landesbuhne Sachsen-Anhalt in Eisleben, Shauspielhaus in Wuppertal, Hessisches Landestheater in Marburg, and Tokyo. She has done translations and adaptations of Lorca, Feydeau, Musset, Marivaux and Molnar, produced at the Guthrie, the Mark Taper Forum Taper II, and Missouri Rep. She is an Associate Artist of the Old Globe Theatre. The Ladies of the Camellias, Blood Wedding, The White Rose and The Magic Fire have been published by Dramatists Play Service. Upcoming: Trovatore and The Tales of the Hoffman at Virginia Opera, OrfÉed Euridice at Glimmerglass Opera, Agrippina at New York City Opera, The Triumph of Love (translator as well) at California Shakespeare Festival and San Jose Repertory.

Mr. Hedley is best known for his work in developing new plays. He has served as Director of the Iowa Playwrights Workshop; mentored playwrights at the Mark Taper Forum; co founded the Philadelphia Theatre Company and West Coast Playwrights Workshop; directed a national Playwriting Conference in collaboration with The Playwrights Center, Minn; was producer of The Iowa Playwrights Festival; was Chairperson of the Playwrights Awards Committee, ACTF, region 5; was a panel Moderator for Literary Managers and Dramaturgs conference, Serving New Writing; and was a radio Interviewer of over 30 programs on playwriting. A Chapter on his work appears in Play Development, Pub. Southern Illinois Press. Among playwrights he has mentored are David Rabe, Leslie Lee, Naomi Wallace, Dorothy Louise, Heather McCutchen, Steve Feffer, Tom Gibbons, Clay Goss, David Hancock, Peter Mattaliano, Andrea Kirchmeier, Michael Friel, Kimmika Williams-Witherspoon, Arden Kass, Steve McWilliams and Shem Bitterman. Among other directing assignments, he directed at The Public Theatre, New York, and at La Mama. He was Artistic Director of the Iowa Shakespeare Festival and has served as chairperson at Temple, Villanova and the University of Iowa. He was a founding member and program Director of the Avenue of the arts, Phila.; President of the Conference of Big Ten Chairpersons; Advisor, International Center for Theatre Studies, Liege, Belgium; a facilitator/panelist/moderator for the Pew Charitable Trusts’ theater initiatives; honored at the Univ. of Iowa for distinguished service to the Theatre Department; Consultant to the City of Philadelphia, Historic Philadelphia Commission; Workshop leader in Acting and Directing for The Actors and Directors Conservatory, Ljubljana, Yugoslavia; Creator and director of Theatre in the Court; and sponsor of Center City Soap. He has served as the Provost's Arts Fellow for Temple, and recently received the Theatre Alliance's Barrymore Award for Lifetime Achievement.

Michael Hollinger is the author of Opus, Red Herring, Incorruptible, An Empty Plate in the Cafe du Grand Boeuf, Tiny Island, and Tooth and Claw, all of which premiered at Philadelphia's Arden Theatre Company. These plays have enjoyed numerous productions around the country (including Actors Theatre of Louisville, Northlight Theatre, Florida Stage, People’s Light and Theatre Company, City Theatre, and Berkshire Theatre Festival, among many others), in New York City (Primary Stages and Ensemble Studio Theatre), and abroad (London, Poland, and Slovenia). Opus, currently a finalist for the American Theatre Critics Association’s Harold and Mimi Steinberg Award, will receive its New York premiere at Primary Stages in August. Michael has written seven touring plays for young audiences, as well as several short plays and the 3D Laser Show Extreme Choices. The full-lengths Red Herring, Incorruptible, An Empty Plate in the Cafe du Grand Boeuf and Tiny Island are all published by Dramatists Play Service; Tiny Island has also been published by Smith and Kraus in New Playwrights: The Best Plays of 1999. Shorter plays have been published by Samuel French, Smith and Kraus, and Playscripts, Inc. For PBS, Michael has written three short films as well as the feature-length Philadelphia Diary. Awards include the Roger L. Stevens Award from the Kennedy Center's Fund for New American Plays, a Mid-Atlantic Emmy Award, the Frederick Loewe Award for Musical Theatre, the F. Otto Haas Award for an Emerging Theatre Artist, two Barrymore Awards for Outstanding New Play, a commission from the Ensemble Studio Theatre/Alfred P. Sloan Science and Technology Project, an Independence Foundation Fellowship in the Arts, a Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation Fellowship, and multiple fellowships from Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. Michael is a resident playwright of New Dramatists and Assistant Professor of Theatre at Villanova University.

Plays include: Something You Did (People’s Light and Theatre), Sabina (Primary Stages), Hearts (Barrymore Award, Arthur Miller Award, Smith and Kraus Best New Plays; People's Light and Theatre, Long Wharf Theatre, Northlight Theatre, Alliance Theatre, New Jewish Theatre of St. Louis), Bovver Boys (Primary Stages, Cleveland Play House, Berkshire Theatre Festival), The Closer (Davie Award; Working Theatre, GeVa Theatre), Inside Out (New Federal Theatre/Theatre for a New Audience, Portland Stage, Nebraska Rep) San Antonio Sunset (New York, Los Angeles, London, Dublin, Bombay; Best Short Plays). For film and television: Edge of America ( Peabody Award, Humanitas Prize, Writers Guild Award, Sundance Film Festival Opening Night 2004), Blood Brothers (HBO, Cine Golden Eagle Award), Favors (starring Sissy Spacek and William H. Macy, scheduled for production in July 2007). Willy received the HBO Award at the O’Neill National Playwrights Conference. He taught as a visiting artist at Bronx Regional High School in the South Bronx, and was Resident Playwright at Juilliard from 1990-92. He has worked with the 52d Street Project in New York’s Hell’s Kitchen and on the Navajo Reservation. He is a proud board member of New Dramatists.

Oscar™ and Golden Globe nominee for his work in Good Night and Good Luck, David Strathairn trained and traveled with Ringling Bros. Barnum and Bailey Circus and subsequently co-founded a traveling theatre troupe performing tales and fables in schools throughout New England. It was a collaboration with John Sayles and his first film, The Return of the Secaucus 7, that started things off in the movies, a collaboration that included six more: Matewan, The Brother From Another Planet, City of Hope, Passion Fish, Eight Men Out, and Limbo. Since then, over 50 films, some of them more readily known such as, Good Night and Good Luck, The River Wild, Dolores Claiborne, Sneakers, League of Their Own, Memphis Belle, and The Firm, but more often 'independants'. His theatre credits include numerous productions of Shakespeare, Pinter, Shepard, Chekhov, and Stoppard, Strindberg, and Wilde, though most of his work has again been with the 'new' play and 'developing' writer. He is an advisory member of: the Epic Theatre Center, a company of artist/educators and The Vineyard Theatre's Community of Artists.

Tazewell Thompson is the Artistic Director of Westport Country Playhouse. He directed his critically acclaimed Glimmerglass Opera production of LES DIALOGUES DES CARMELITES last season for New York City Opera. His production of PORGY AND BESS, also for New York City Opera, was televised for “Live from Lincoln Center” and received EMMY nominations for Best Classical Production and Best Director. Next season for New York City Opera he will direct PATIENCE and THE MOST HAPPY FELLA and in 2007, Benjamin Britten’s DEATH IN VENICE following his new production of this work this summer at Glimmerglass Opera. Mr. Thompson directed world premiere operas of STEFAN, LUYALA, VANQUI and AS OF A DREAM. In the fall he will direct a new production of DIALOGUES for Vancouver Opera. Other opera highlights include productions at La Scala, Paris Opera, Opera Bastille, Teatro Real in Madrid, Tokyo, Osaka, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Michigan, Orange County, New Jersey, and Portland. His New York production of Aaron Copland’s opera THE SECOND HURRICANE was the “hit and heart” of the Copland 1985 Festival celebration. As a playwright, Mr. Thompson has been commissioned to write plays for Lincoln Center Theater, Arena Stage, South Coast Repertory, and People’s Light and Theatre Co. His award winning first play, CONSTANT STAR, has had more than a dozen major productions across the U.S. His adaptation of Charles Dickens’ A CHRISTMAS CAROL, which includes over a dozen songs from the period, was produced at People’s Light and Theatre Company for three record breaking Holiday seasons. He has adapted Aristophanes’ THE BIRDS for young people for productions at St. Ann’s School and Columbia Grammar and Prep. His adaptation of Bill Gunn’s FORBIDDEN CITY is currently in workshop at Lincoln Center Theater. For theatre, Mr. Thompson has produced and/or directed more than sixty plays including the works of Shakespeare, Moliere, Euripides, Brecht, Shaw, Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, Thornton Wilder, Clifford Odets, Ibsen, Chekhov, Athol Fugard, Terrence McNally, William Gibson, Feydeau, Alan Ayckbourn, as well as numerous world and American premieres. He is the former artistic associate of Arena Stage and the Acting Company. During his tenure as artistic director of Syracuse Stage, he was instrumental in expanding financing from local and national funding organizations for the theatre; total audience attendance increased by 15 per cent; student audience attendance rose from 3000 to 15,000; he initiated an annual essay and poster contest for the schools whose winning entries were used for marketing, community outreach, development and public relations; designed and edited StageView, a newsletter cited by Wilsonia Cherry of the National Endowment for the Humanities as “the finest theatre newsletter published in America” (its format has been copied by dozens of theatres across the country); he visited and addressed over 150 different business, civic, educational, and cultural organizations. Tazewell Thompson is a board member of Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas, the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers, the Society for New Music and the Thornton Wilder Society.

Michele Volansky is Assistant Professor of Drama at Washington College (MD), from which she earned a B.A. in English. She has worked on over one-hundred new and established plays in her professional career, developing new works by such writers as Sam Shepard, Daniel Stern, Warren Leight, Jeffrey Hatcher, Bruce Graham, Tina Landau, Charles L. Mee and Bruce Norris, along with many others. Her work on Shepard’s rewrite of Buried Child (directed by Gary Sinise) and Dale Wasserman’s One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest (directed by Terry Kinney and starring Gary Sinise) earned her two Broadway credits and participation in the Tony Award for Best Revival of Cuckoo’s Nest. She has guest dramaturged at the Arden Theater Company, South Coast Rep, the Atlantic Theatre Company, Victory Gardens and Next Theatre, in addition to her staff time at Actors Theatre of Louisville (1992-95), Steppenwolf Theatre Company (1995-2000) and Philadelphia Theatre Company (2000-2004). Her own play Whispering City was produced as part of the Steppenwolf Arts Exchange Program in the Fall of 1999. Ms. Volansky has served as an artistic consultant for the TCG playwright residency program, a reader for the Eugene O’Neill Center’s National Playwrights Conference, as well as a grants review panelist for Philadelphia-area arts organizations. She is the 1999 inaugural co-recipient of the Elliot Hayes Award for Dramaturgy and was the President of LMDA, the Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas (2002-2004). Ms. Volansky is a member of the Advisory Board for ‘Theatre Forum’ magazine, an artistic advisor for both the Chicago-based Serendipity Theatre Company and Chicago Dramatists. Volansky’s book on playwriting and collaboration with Bruce Graham entitled The Collaborative Playwright was published in March, 2007 by Heinemann Press. She holds an M.A. from Villanova University and is a doctoral candidate at the University of Hull (England), writing about the critics Kenneth Tynan and Frank Rich.