2022 Conference

Ian August (he/him) is a queer Caucasian playwright. His plays include: ZERO (Winner, 2020 Ashland New Plays Festival; Semi-Finalist 2020 BAPF), EVERYTHING YOU CAN DO (TO MAKE THE WORLD A BETTER PLACE) (Selection, Catalyst: A Theatre Think Tank 2020; Semi-Finalist Blue Ink Playwriting Prize), THE EXCAVATION OF MARY ANNING (Selection, 2019 Powerhouse Theater with NYSAF / Vassar; 2018 Ashland New Plays Festival; 2018 DVRF New Playwright Program), BRISÉ (Selection, 2019 Great Plains Theatre Conference; Finalist, 2019 Seven Devils Playwrights Conference; Finalist, 2020 Lark Playwrights Week), DONNA ORBITS THE MOON (Scripps Ranch Theatre; Tiny Dynamite Productions; NJ Repertory Company; Utah Contemporary Theatre), INTERVIEWESE (Winner, Garry Marshall Theatre New Works; Finalist, B Street Theatre New Comedy Fest), THE GOLDILOCKS ZONE, (Passage Theatre Company; Semi-Finalist, 2015 O’Neill Conference), MISSING CELIA ROSE (NYC Summer Play Festival; Orlando Shakespeare Theater’s “Playfest 2009″; Bermuda Musical and Dramatic Society), and ALL THE EMILIES IN ALL THE UNIVERSES. Mr. August’s newest YA play, STAY SAFE!, will premiere at the 75th Edinburgh Festival Fringe in August, 2022. He is a founding member of the American Theatre Group’s Playwrights Lab, and a graduated member of PlayPenn’s playwriting lab, The Foundry. Several of Mr. August’s plays have been published by Sam French Inc., Smith and Kraus, and Pipeline / Applause Books. He was a 2019 Playwright in Residence at the William Inge Center for the Arts in Independence, Kansas, and a recipient of a 2021 Independent Artist Fellowship from the NJ Council for the Arts. Mr. August lives at a boarding school with one husband and three cats. ianaugustplaywright.com

Ken Kaissar (he/him) is an American-Israeli playwright. His plays have been performed or developed by the Philadelphia Theatre Company, Delaware Theatre Company, Phoenix Theatre Company, Fusion Theatre Company, Jewish Repertory Theatre, Urban Stages and Passage Theatre.  His play THE VICTIMS OR WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO DO ABOUT IT (published by McFarland & Company, Inc.) was developed by Golden Thread Productions and Silk Road Rising. His adaptation of Geoffrey Chaucer’s THE CANTERBURY TALES was commissioned by Columbia University. His other plays include A MODEST SUGGESTION (available on Amazon), WEEKEND AT BETTY’S and A LEG UP, which will receive a world premiere at the Bristol Riverside Theatre in September of 2022. Ken holds a BFA in directing from Carnegie Mellon University and an MFA in playwriting from Columbia University. Ken is a co-producing director at the Bristol Riverside Theatre (brtstage.org), and the host of the podcast The Audition Helper available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Nimisha Ladva (she/her) is a South Asian writer, storyteller, playwright and screenwriter. Her storytelling has been nationally broadcast on NPR: THEMOTH RADIO HOUR and PBS: STORIES FROM THE STAGE. She is currently a member of The Foundry, a three-year playwright development program sponsored by PlayPenn. An excerpt of her play GODDESS AT THE LUCKY LADY MOTEL was selected by The Bechdel Group in New York for the Sunday Shorts Program in March 2022. She is a 2022 finalist in the Red Bull Short Play Festival. In 2019, she was selected for the Kennedy Center Playwriting Intensive and was a finalist at SPACE at Ryder Farm in 2020. Her solo play, UNINVITED GIRL, first staged in Philadelphia at the First Person Arts Festival in 2016, premiered in New York at the Women in Theater Festival in 2018. Her work has been supported by grants from the Mellon Foundation and the Leeway Foundation. She teaches writing and public speaking at Haverford College.

Her play PANCAKE QUEEN won the Lorraine Hansberry Theatre’s 2018 Playwriting Competition and the Sue Winge Playwriting Award from Villanova University. It was at Villanova that she developed her solo show THE N-WORD.  Her play THE BABY was selected to be a part of NYC’s 2022 United Solo Festival.  For Juneteenth 2021 Brie Co-Produced the virtual theatrical revolution BLACKBESTFRIEND. She is currently collaborating with Steel River Playhouse to develop a community-based piece of theatre dedicated to and honoring the community of Pottstown. She is the co-host of  “Kevin and Brie Save the World”, an advice podcast centering on friendship, creativity, mental health, and more.  Brie is a graduate from Villanova University’s Masters in Theatre program. As a storyteller, Brie enjoys challenging the status quo, disrupting complacency, and using art to incite conversation and positive societal change.

Stephanie Kyung Sun Walters (she/her) is a Korean-American playwright. She is the Philadelphia Theatre Company Terrence McNally Award Recipient for her play, ACETONE WISHES AND PLEXIGLAS DREAMS. She’s a recent alum of InterAct Theatre Core Playwright, a current American Theatre Group PlayLab artist, and serves as the Lead Artist on the Philly Asian Performing Artists’ Playwrights Project. Her play, ESTHER CHOI AND THE FISH THAT DROWNED will have a world premiere production with Simpatico Theatre Company (postponed due to COVID-19) and has earned her a spot on the 2020 Kilroys List and Table Work Press Recommended list. Her play ACETONE WISHES AND PLEXIGLAS DREAMS was recently workshopped at the UC Santa Barbara Launch Pad BIPOC Reading Series and will be featured at the Great Plains Theatre Conference in June 2022. Her play HALF OF CHOPSTICKS was a finalist for both the 2021 Bay Area Playwrights Festival and Seven Devils New Plays Conference, and received a stage reading at the inaugural Boise Contemporary Theatre BIPOC Playwrights Festival. Stephanie’s K-pop romcom, BE LIKE THE FLOWER, was a finalist for the Austin Film Festival’s Table Read My Screenplay. She is a two-time finalist for Unicorn Theatre’s In-Progress New Play Reading Series as well as a finalist for the Playwrights Center Many Voices Fellow. She was a semi-finalist for Nashville Repertory Theater’s Ingram New Works and received a nomination for the NNPN Smith Prize for Political Theatre. Due to COVID-19, Stephanie received a 3Views Theatre The Bret Adams and Paul Reisch Foundation Grant. Additional plays have been developed with Asian Arts Initiative, Philly Asian American Film Festival, Dragon’s Eye Theatre, Revolution Shakespeare, PlayPenn, Revamp Collective, and Philadelphia Women’s Theatre Festival. Stephanie is a proud graduate of Bucknell University and received her MFA in Playwriting from Point Park University.

Santiago Tonauac Castro (he/him) is a Latinx-Indigenous maker of plays and sculpture. Santi’s work uplifts the bilingual voices of his community and decolonizes your expectations. Santi’s favorite achievements include being a 2019 Playwriting finalist with YoungArts Foundation, writing for the Kimmel Center’s SONGS WE LEFT BEHIND, and being a published poet with Toho Journal, Tilted House and Queerbook. Currently you can find him working with Mural Arts, and the Philadelphia Art Museum!