Eliana Pipes

Eliana Pipes is a playwright, actor, and filmmaker. She’s the 2019 recipient of the Academy Gold Fellowship for Women and the Leah Ryan Fund Prize for Emerging Women Writers. Her work has been developed or presented at the NNPN MFA Workshop, Ars Nova ANT Fest, San Diego Rep New Latinx Plays Festival, Two River Theater Crossing Borders Festival, The Fire This Time Festival, and the Samuel French Off-Off Broadway Festival. She’s the recipient of the KCACTF Ken Ludwig Scholarship, the WAVE Grant through Wavelength Productions, and a two-time Finalist for the O’Neill National Playwright’s Conference. She received a BA in English from Columbia University, and has just completed coursework on an MFA in Playwriting from Boston University. More at www.elianapipes.com.

Calley N. Anderson

Calley N. Anderson is an up-and-coming playwright from Memphis, Tennessee. Her ten-minute plays have received five festival productions to date (Emerald Theatre Company, TN 2016; Pride Theater at Chandler, VT 2017; Stable Cable Lab Co., NY 2017; InVersion Theatre, NY 2018; Fade to Black Fest, TX 2018). Anderson is a graduate of Davidson College (BA in English, Concentration in Film and Media Studies) and The New School for Drama (MFA in Playwriting). She is a member of the Dramatists Guild and is currently commissioned by the University of Memphis Dept. of Theatre and Dance. Anderson is also one of sixteen Memphis Hub fellows of the Salzburg Global Seminar’s Forum for Young Cultural Innovators and an MFA alumni representative on The New School for Drama’s Cultural Change Task Force. More at calleynanderson.com.

Mike Ross

Mike Ross is a New York-based lyricist/librettist, dramaturg, and children’s book author. Working with composer Dylan MarcAurele, he has written book and additional lyrics for The Land of Forgotten Toys (2019, Greenhouse Theater Center) and book for the digital musical The Mystery of Custodia (2020, CPA Theatricals). His first theatrical credit in New York City was writing additional lyrics for The Bad Years (2016, dir. Stephen Brackett) by former DGF Fellows Kait Kerrigan and Brian Lowdermilk. He has worked as a dramaturg for off-Broadway productions at the Davenport Theatre and the Theatre at St. Clements; his own work has been presented at 54 Below, CAVEAT, and NYMF. Mike is a member of the BMI Lehman-Engel Musical Theatre Advanced Workshop. Plays include Carrie & Otis, Sorry, and Space: Four Stories In Boston. He has published two books for young readers via Scholastic, and is working on a third. www.mikerosswrites.com

Juan Ramirez, Jr.

Juan Ramirez, Jr., is a Borinquén-Chapín-Bronx playwright, monologist, director, screenwriter, filmmaker, poet and producer. His play Calling Puerto Rico is a Miranda Family Voces Latinx Finalist with Repertorio Español, 2020 BAPF Finalist and a recipient of the 2019 BRIO Award. Notable produced works include Ridin‘ Shotgun (Best Play Downtown Urban Arts Festival), The American Dream (NAV Playwrights Festival, BBTF), Wall (LaTea, Cimientos), Stroke of Madness (Ingenio Milagro, Cimientos) and Don Juan (Dixon Place). Semi-finalists include Jimmy’s Tab (2011 Princess Grace). His horror short Alone With My Demons won Inwood Art Works’ NYC Quarantine Film Festival’s Best Bronx Film. He’s a founder of The PlayPen Collective and R&R Productions with his wife Cristy Reynoso. He’s a member of the Dramatist Guild, NYC LatinX Playwright Circle and The Bronx Repertory Company. He received his B.A. in Theater from Lehman College and his MFA in Dramatic Writing from NYU Tisch. www.JuanRamirezJr.com

Regina Velázquez

Regina Velázquez was born and raised in Knoxville, Tennessee, and earned her BA and MA in creative writing from the University of Tennessee. After teaching writing courses there as well as Northeastern University, she transitioned to educational and trade publishing, working both in-house and freelance as a writer and editor for such companies as Houghton Mifflin, Oxford University Press, McGraw-Hill, Macmillan, and Storey Publishing.

A brief stint onstage with her children at the Williamstown Theatre Festival’s COMMUNITY WORKS production of Once Upon a Time in the Berkshires led her to participate in the program’s inaugural playwriting intensive in 2019, where she began working on Space and Time. The experience encouraged her to push her personal writing in new directions, including essays, short stories, screenplays, and a YA novel—and, of course, more plays. She was named a finalist for SPACE on Ryder Farm’s Greenhouse Residency in 2020 (delayed due to the pandemic) and is a Dramatists Guild Foundation Fellow 2020–2021. She lives in western Massachusetts with her husband and two children.

Dylan MarcAurele

Dylan MarcAurele is a composer, writer, and orchestrator. Composing credits include THE LAND OF FORGOTTEN TOYS (Greenhouse Theater, Chicago; Florida Festival of New Musicals 2019), 57TH NATIONAL MATHLETE SUM-IT (NYMF 2017; licensed through Theatrical Rights Worldwide), THAT 1770s SHOW (Harvard University). Other credits include the virtual musical THE MYSTERY OF CUSTODIA (music and lyrics, licensed through CPA Theatricals), A DOG STORY (music director, Davenport Theater), and HAMILTON (music assistant, Broadway and Chicago). Dylan was a member of the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop and has served as orchestrator for the Hasty Pudding Theatricals. Dylan runs the Instagram account @RHONYmusical, where he writes/orchestrates/directs musical theater songs based on The Real Housewives, and has been featured on Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen. He is thrilled to be working with bookwriter-lyricist Mike Ross to develop LEWIS LOVES CLARK. www.dylanmarcaurele.com

John-Michael Lyles

John-Michael Lyles is a guitar-wielding singer/songwriter from Mesquite, Texas, and a 2020 Dramatists Guild Foundation Fellow. He recently wrote additional music for Young Jean Lee’s “We’re Gonna Die” at Second Stage. His music has also been featured at Musical Theater Factory, NYMF, 54 Below, Joe’s Pub & Don’t Tell Mama. As an actor, he’s been seen Off Broadway in A Strange Loop (Playwright’s Horizons) & Sweeney Todd (Barrow Street), on TV in “The Other Two”, “Chicago PD” & “NCIS: New Orleans”. @jmlyles1 | www.john-michaellyles.com

Christiana Cole

Mx. Christiana Cole is a writer, composer, performer, and teacher. Favorite projects: Bombshell Baby (book/lyrics/music with Rachel Felstein and Matthew Anchel), about a drag queen who fights Nazis, produced at Ensemble Studio Theatre; Make the Earth Great (book/lyrics, with Rona Siddiqui) at Prospect Theater Lab; and a ton of children’s theater produced at Interlakes Family Theatre, Random Farms Kids Theater, and across Asia. Christiana is writing four original musicals: Tribe Without a God, a Neolithic comedy; Republicana, a country rock drama about a small town during a plague; Apocrypha, the untold true story of the founding of the Christian church; and with Laura Kleinbaum, Puritan/Lesbian/Witch, a time-traveling coming out musical. Winner of NPR’s The MOTH Story Slam. Dramaturg for the opera Invisible Cities (nominee: Pulitzer Prize). BM in classical voice: Manhattan School of Music. Member: BMI Advanced Songwriting & Librettists Workshops, Maestra, and Ring of Keys. Christiana is Philip Glass’ private studio singer and Joanna Gleason’s backup singer. Their vocals are featured on the soundtrack of hit film The Farewell, and their album “A Cozy Christmas with Christiana Cole” is available on all major steaming platforms. Christiana teaches voice lessons and writing. Www.christianacole.com

Aya Aziz

Aya Aziz is a writer, performer, and composer from New York. Her musical, Eh Dah? Questions for my Father, had a sold out run in New York Theatre Workshop’s 2019 “Next Door” series. An earlier iteration of the show, then a one-woman musical, ran at the New York Musical Festival (NYMF) in 2016 where it won awards for Most Outstanding Book and Outstanding Individual Performance. Aya is a 2020 NYFA grant recipient and is currently working on her debut album. She is also a current fellow of the 2020 Emerging Writer’s Group (EWG) at The Public. Her notable concert credits include Signature Theatre, Cherry Lane, Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, Joe’s Pub, and Disney’s Women of Broadway. She is honored to be among the DGF fellows this year!

David Gomez

David Gomez is a composer, lyricist, and librettist who hails from the plains of Kansas but is based in NYC. His songs have been shared at Joe’s Pub, 54 Below, and Musical Theatre Factory’s 4×15 series. Upcoming projects include the lyrics for MISS HAVISHAM’S WEDDING (with Jude Obermüller and Laura Barati) and LAUNDRY DAY: a queer musical mural (Latino Arts Festival.) David is invested in continuing the storytelling tradition of letristas y corridos in order to preserve personal narratives which celebrate Latinx stories. MFA: NYU’s Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program.