Year: 2007-2008

Benj Pasek & Justin Paul

Benj Pasek & Justin Paul are the Tony-nominated songwriters of the Broadway musical A Christmas Story (dir. John Rando, chor. Warren Carlyle), which opened in November 2012 and enjoyed a critically-acclaimed, record-breaking run at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre. In addition to the Best Score nomination, A Christmas Story also received Tony nominations for Best Musical and Best Book. The holiday musical was named one of the Top 10 Shows of 2012 by Time Magazine, shared recognition as the #1 Musical of 2012 in USA Today and received Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle nominations for Outstanding New Broadway Musical. Benj and Justin’s score for the show also received a Drama Desk nomination for Outstanding Music. The cast album was recorded and produced by Sony Masterworks and is published through Warner/Chappell Music.

Benj & Justin are also the composers behind the Off-Broadway musical Dogfight, (dir. Joe Mantello, chor. Christopher Gattelli), a Best New Musical nominee for the Drama League, Lucille Lortel and Outer Critics Circle awards. Benj and Justin also received an Outer Critics Circle Best Score nomination for their work on the show. Dogfight premiered in July 2012 at Second Stage Theatre, and a cast album, produced by Sh-K-Boom/Ghostlight Records, was released in May 2013. The album debuted in the top 50 albums on iTunes. The show enjoyed a critically-acclaimed production at London’s Southwark Playhouse in summer of 2014, and was shortlisted for an Evening Standard Award for Best Musical.

As television songwriters, their original songs were featured on Season 2 of NBC’s Smash, and rose to the Top 25 on the iTunes Pop Charts.

Website: http://pasekandpaul.com/

Ryan Scot Oliver

Ryan Scott Oliver was called “the future of Broadway… a major new voice in musical theatre” (Entertainment Weekly) and the “best composer working today without a major production” (Backstage Magazine). He is the winner of a Larson Grant, Rodgers Award, Lortel Award Nomination, ASCAP Harold Adamson Award, and New Musicals Awards from Weston Playhouse and Pace University. He wrote the music and lyrics for Jasper in Deadland, 35mm: A Musical Exhibition, Darling, Mrs. Sharp, We Foxes and others.

CREDITS

Rope
We Foxes
The Frog Prince, Cont.
Jasper In Deadland
35mm: A Musical Exhibition
Darling
Mrs. Sharp
Out Of My Head

Website: http://ryanscottoliver.com/
Twitter: ryanscottoliver
Facebook: Facebook
Instagram: Instagram

Andy Monroe

Andy Monroe wrote the music, lyrics, and book for DRIVE (2014 Jerry Bock Award winner) as well as music for THE KID, produced at The New Group, 2010 (2010 Outer Critics Circle Award winner, 2009 BMI Foundation Jerry Bock Award winner).  He co-wrote a song for Rosie O’Donnell’s 2010 HBO documentary, A FAMILY IS A FAMILY IS A FAMILY.  He also wrote the score for THE TRAGIC AND HORRIBLE LIFE OF THE SINGING NUN (2006 New York Musical Theater Festival).  He was the recipient of the 2001 BMI Foundation Jerry Harrington Musical Theater and was a 2007-8 Dramatist Guild Fellow.

UPCOMING WORKS

Drive

CREDITS

The Tragic And Horrible Life Of The Singing Nun
The Life And Times Of Joe Jefferson Benjamin Blow
The Kid
Sally Peaches
Elevator Music
La Rhonda

Website: http://www.andymonroe.com/
Twitter: @musicmanMONROE

Kirsten Guenther

Kirsten began her writing career as a journalist working as a Paris Correspondent. Later, she headed to New York to pursue an MFA in playwrighting at NYU. Kirsten has appeared on the cover of The Dramatist magazine as “a writer to watch,” and is the recipient of a Richard Rodgers Award, Lincoln Center Honorarium, Dramatist Guild Fellowship, Marge Goldwater Scholarship and was a Disney/ASCAP workshop participant. She is currently developing several projects she is passionate about which include adapting the MGM film, Benny & Joon, for stage and writing the book for the new musical Measure of Success (Lark Play Development Center, The Orchard Project). She is also penning a commission for San Francisco’s FOGG theater company.

Kirsten’s work has been performed throughout the New York area including the Public Theatre, Lincoln Center, Goodspeed, Barrington Stages, the York Theatre, NY City Center (Encores!), Joe’s Pub. But the thing that she is most passionate about is her role on the Advisory Board of Rosie’s Theater Kids.

Lauren Wilson

Lauren Wilson is a playwright, actor, director and teacher. A graduate of Reed College and the Dell’Arte International School of Physical Theatre, she began writing and performing with the Dell’Arte Company in 1999. Recent projects include Three Trees, a clown play created and performed with ensemble partners Joe Krienke and Stephanie Thompson; and Punctual Folly, a film for three clowns.

Lauren received an M.F.A. in Theatre from Sarah Lawrence College in 2007, and a 2008 Dramatists Guild Fellowship. Currently the School Director at Dell’Arte, her plays are available through Dramatists Play Service, and in the Vintage anthology Laugh Lines.

UPCOMING WORKS

Three Trees

CREDITS

Chemical Imbalance – published by Dramatists Play Service

The Golden State – published by Dramatists Play Service

Wedding Duet – available in the Vintage anthology “”Laugh Lines: Short Comic Plays””

Chateau La Roach – published by Pioneer Drama”

Jason Williamson

Jason Williamson is the Resident Playwright of Dramatic Adventure, who recently commissioned and produced his play A Girl without Wings.  The play—called “poignant” by the NY Times—was co-produced by IATI Theater and received a grant from the Jim Henson Foundation.  The piece was inspired by time spent in Quechuan villages in the Andes, during DAT’s ACTion: Ecuador.  Jason is currently working on a new commission from DAT to write a play that reflects the lives of the Roma people of Slovakia.  Jason is also the resident playwright of Exit, Pursued by a Bear, who recently produced Lesser Mercies and Greater Angels, the first two chapters of a trilogy of plays chronicling the Civil War.  Jason’s work has been produced or developed at the Kennedy Center, the Flea Theater, New York Theatre Workshop, the NY Public Theater, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Abingdon Theatre Company, Stanford Summer Theatre, Drama League, JACK, Stillwater Theatre Company, Speaking Ring Theatre Company, and the NY Fringe Festival. He has been a finalist for both the O’Neill Conference and the Heideman Award, as well as a two-time finalist for the Bay Area Playwrights Festival. He won the North Carolina Theatre Conference New Play Award, and both the Dramatists Guild and the Shubert Foundation have granted him fellowships. Jason received his MFA in Dramatic Writing from Carnegie Mellon. He recently married DAT’s own Christen Madrazo; they reside in NYC with Olive and Lina, their roommates of the feline persuasion.

Nancy Nevarez

Nancy Nevarez is a playwright who has been produced throughout New York City at such venues as Irondale Theater in Brooklyn, UP Theater in Washington Heights and the Puerto Rican Traveling Theatre in the theater district. Her awards include: a playwright fellowship in the Dramatist Guild program, playwright’s residency awards from the National Endowment for the Arts/Theater Communications Group and Mabou Mines, a New York Foundation for the Arts playwriting fellowship and twice has won runner-up awards in the Repertorio Español Nuestras Voces Playwriting Competition. Ms. Nevárez is a a member of the Dramatist Guild.

UPCOMING WORKS

I am currently working on a full length play incorporating music, dance and poetry in response to the loss of children due to gun violence in the inner cities of this country. In the Puerto Rican tradition there is a “Baquin?” known as ”a wake for the little black angels” which was held when children – mostly poor and black – died due to childhood diseases. The “Baquin?” combined poetic rhymes and storytelling to heighten awareness of community problems (communicable diseases) as well as music and prayer to bring solace to a grieving community. The tradition of the “Baquin?” has disappeared because fortunately so few children die of childhood illnesses, but I would like to re-explore/re-imagine this tradition in today’s world. As we lose so many children to gun violence I want to re-shape this tradition into a modern context but keep its power to bear witness and to heal.

CREDITS

The Chalkboard Trilogy: three one acts on education in pre civil rights South Carolina, the urban jungle of NYC and war torn Afghanistan
• Produced at UP Theater, 2011
• Staged Reading at Northern Manhattan Public Library, 2011
• Staged Reading at Café Teatro Colaó, Lafayette Ave Presbyterian Church, Brooklyn, NY, 2011

Doña Concepcións Pearls of Wisdom: a Puerto Rican matriarch ravished by dementia takes you through her life’s journey
• Staged Reading at Café Teatro, Lafayette Ave Presbyterian Church, Brooklyn, NY, 2009
• Staged Reading at Puerto Rican Traveling Theater, New York, 2009
• Developed/ read at The Fantastic Playwright’s Lab, New York, 2009

Windows: growing up in the South Bronx of the 70’s
• Presented at College of Mt. Saint Vincent’s Spanish Theater, New York, 2009
• Staged Reading at Puerto Rican Traveling Theater, New York, 2009
• Developed/read at the Dramatist Guild Fellows presentations at Lincoln Center, 2008

Rally Cry/Llamada: Puerto Rican Bomba, Salsa and Hip Hop converge to form a llamada/rally cry against the violence and abuse of women and children
• Produced at Irondale Center, Brooklyn, New York, 2013
• Produced at Words & Music Festival, Puerto Rican Traveling Theater, New York, 2007
• Produced at Puerto Rican Traveling Theater, New York, 2005
• Winner, Puffin Foundation Award, 2003

Puerto Rico I will always Love You, aka, Wild ‘N’ Sunday: Explores machismo and the sexual assaults following the 2000 Puerto Rican Day parade
• Produced at the Songs from Coconut Hill Latino Voices Festival, Kraine Theater, 2003
• Produced at Mabou Mines/SUITE, New York, 2002
• Produced at Intar Theater, New York, 2002
• Winner, 3rd Place Nuestras Voces, Repertorio Español, Playwriting Competition, 2002

Blind Alley: A Trilogy about the stark reality of adolescent girls living in the streets
• Produced at the main stage of Puerto Rican Traveling Theater, New York, 2000
• Winner, National Endowment for the Arts/Theater Communications Group Playwriting Award, 2001
A Place to Go: Homeless girls create their own home
• Produced at Raw Space, New York, 1999

Macaroni & Cheese: Teenage Relationship & Parenthood
• Produced at Raw Space, New York, 1997